How Do I Put an Invention Into the Public Domain?

Nefarious Wheel writes "I have a couple of inventions — mechanical devices, based on physical principles — that I believe could transform certain aspects of industry. The trouble is, I can't afford to file patents, and even if I could, I'm not sure that would be the best way for these devices to be made available as widely as I'd like. Is there some way to publish the details of these innovations in the public domain in such a way as to protect them from being snaffled away by some patent troll? I'd be happy with a contribution (or simple attribution) model for recompense, which could be zero to whatever, but that's not as important to me as getting the ideas out there for anyone who wants to use them. This isn't copyright, and I know of no patent equivalent to Creative Commons. In short, what's the best way to protect an invention against someone filing a patent on it, short of patenting the device yourself? Can this be done?"

Comments

First thought from a Republican...

[Anonymous Coward]

You some kind of commie?

JUST publish it, make it "prior art"

[nweaver]

Once something is published, it becomes "prior art" and someone else can't patent prior art and obvious extensions to prior art.

And also once you publish it, you can't file for a patent on it outside the US, and you can only file for a US patent within a year.

Re:JUST publish it, make it "prior art"

[Teancum]

Once something is published, it becomes "prior art" and someone else can't patent prior art and obvious extensions to prior art.

And also once you publish it, you can't file for a patent on it outside the US, and you can only file for a US patent within a year.

While in theory this is technically true, the reality of it is that filing a patent... even if you never intend to collect royalties or even sue somebody for patent infringement if you discover it in the future... is still the most viable option.

One situation I had with a former employer was an expired patent application that hung in our engineering conference room for years.... where the company was sued by a patent troll who had filed a nearly identical patent application for the very same concept and was claiming prior art. In that case, the troll was hosed (legally speaking) because prior art was clearly established and certified by the USPTO... showing that the patent was clearly invalid and forcing the judge to dismiss the case. The patent attorney hadn't even listed this prior patent as a disclaimer of prior art when a simple search of the patent database would have turned it up.

The company I worked for would have been taken to the cleaners if it wasn't for that patent which had been filed by an earlier employee. Yeah, it was fun to see first hand how valuable defensive patents could be... and it was even funnier to see that plaque temporarily be taken down as it was presented in court as prior art. Yeah, that step wasn't strictly necessary, but it made an impression on the judge as well that proved to be quite positive.

In this case, you need to use the patent system against itself just as the GPL uses the copyright system against itself. The patent system respects itself, but it doesn't think stuff created out of this environment is worth much.... witness some of the idiotic patents that have been filed such as one about ROT-13, one-click shopping, and the LZW algorithm. While all of these had clear prior-art in published journals (like ACM publications), that hasn't been sufficient to prove prior art in a legal sense, unfortunately, and patents were not only granted but enforced.

And no, I don't love the patent system (I wish it were completely abolished), but it is an unfortunate evil in today's engineering environment. I have yet to meet a single individual that I know personally or have been able to shake their hand who has made a single penny off of a patent, yet I know dozens of individuals who have had them granted and have even developed patent-worthy concepts of my own.

Re:JUST publish it, make it "prior art"

[capnkr]

And also once you publish it, you can't file for a patent on it outside the US, and you can only file for a US patent within a year.

Regarding "publishing": just to point out that the word publish in this context means:

"1 a: to make generally known b: to make public announcement of" (link)

not necessarily to produce something in the printed form.

So, once your idea gets into the public domain at all (regardless of any non-compete/non-disclosure agreements, even), that starts the patent-process clock ticking. Show it to a friend, and you have begun...

As nweaver notes, you'll have one year to begin filing for the patent process thru the USPTO, or you'll lose your patent rights.

Full public disclosure, and most importantly, a way to prove when that took place will establish prior art for anyone who would like to contest a patent application filed after that date.

No, IANAPL, but I have paid money to them for the understanding I have passed along here. ;)

Re:JUST publish it, make it "prior art"

[mysidia]

Exactly, so publish the invention in detail in as many places as possible, the internet, etc, so that it is easy to prove that it is a published prior work.

If your invention is used successfully by someone, get in touch with industry publications, and see if they can pick up an article. The more places your invention is described in, the more clear it would be that a patent application for it is fraudulent.

Plus, you need publications, whether online or offline, in order for people in the industry to learn about the invention...

And also, possibly file for a statutory registration.

Don't just publish the details of the invention itself, publish lots of ways the invention can be used, as many use cases as possible, including obvious uses, but especially important ones that might not be immediately apparent.

You don't just need to worry about people patenting the invention itself: you may need to be concerned about people patenting certain uses of the invention with something else or in certain situations, that they claim might be novel.

An example would be patenting the concept of "a card catalog system, but on a computer" (at a time when card catalogs have been around for centuries, and computers have been around for decades)

Of course if you describe as many of those use cases as possible ahead of time, and use language fully expressing the versatility of the invention, and making it clear that there are a lot of obvious uses, you might be able to reduce that possibility slightly...

Re:JUST publish it, make it "prior art"

[DamnStupidElf]

Additionally, the OP is going to *look* like a patent troll if he doesn't actually have a patent application in hand along with a free, non revocable license for it. Remember RAMBUS? They pushed their invention for everyone to use as an "open" standard, claiming it would be a great idea, and only afterward started hitting everyone up for money with their submarine patent.

Not patenting the original invention will also make it much easier for the first company who researches a cost effective implementation to obtain an over-broad patent on their method and process, which will practically cover the whole invention since there are no prior patents.

Re:JUST publish it, make it "prior art"

[VernoWhitney]

So, once your idea gets into the public domain at all (regardless of any non-compete/non-disclosure agreements, even), that starts the patent-process clock ticking. Show it to a friend, and you have begun...

Not quite. You need to get it where it would be reasonably accessible by a member of the public were they to be interested, so non-disclosure agreements (or even an implicit understanding of limited distribution, but that's a little murkier) prevent it from being prior art.

Publish the invention

[Steve1952]

You can put an invention into the public domain by simply publishing it and then failing to file a patent on it. The main thing here is to find a low cost forum that will preserve your publication for a long time.

Re:Publish the invention

[TooManyNames]

This would be the best way to go. Once you've published your work (assuming that your work doesn't infringe on other existing patents) it will be in the public domain and should constitute prior art. If someone were able to obtain a patent on your published work (the patent office can't check everything) it would be easy to overturn simply by pointing to whichever journal contains your paper. Moreover, the US gives you up to 1 year after the date that you publish if you (the inventor) later decide to file for a patent*.

*This does not hold in other countries

Re:Publish the invention

[Teancum]

This would be the best way to go. Once you've published your work (assuming that your work doesn't infringe on other existing patents) it will be in the public domain and should constitute prior art. If someone were able to obtain a patent on your published work (the patent office can't check everything) it would be easy to overturn simply by pointing to whichever journal contains your paper.

This is easier said than done. While this is a legitimate method of trying to protect yourself by publishing a concept on a blog or something else that is clearly available in the public domain, it still won't protect you from hard-core patent trolls.

I wouldn't claim this as the "best way to go", but it clearly is a much cheaper option than the better way, which is to simply file a defensive patent. Once your idea is in the patent system, you are under some sort of protection... and once you have been granted a patent it becomes much harder for somebody to patent a similar concept without significantly narrowing the scope of any future patent.

simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Send me all the plans, complete details, drawings, and figures. I'll file everything for you and everyone will be happy.

Honest. Really.

The check's in the mail.....

Physical principles...

[homer_s]

mechanical devices, based on physical principles

Here is the invention.

Have to publish it in the right place

[tepples]

But patent examiners aren't likely to find such published prior art unless you publish it in something that patent examiners actually read. Google defensive publication brought me a Wikipedia article explaining the concept and a short guide.

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's the discussion wrapped up nice and neat in just two comments. Well done Slashdot!

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[Vadim Makarov]

I once encountered a U.S. patent application filled in 2005 whose idea was described in a research article published in 2001. I tried to report it to the patent examiner.

First, I looked around for a "report prior art" button on the application page. None.

Second, I looked for USPTO's email. I don't remember if I found one, it was years ago, but I do remember that an attempt at reporting prior art via email was not successful. Probably I got a reply saying they don't take tips via email, I don't recall clearly.

Third, I took the trouble of calling USPTO (international call, not cheap), waiting in the queue a quarter hour, and inquiring where do I send a copy of that research article. It turned out, I have to snail mail it and clearly identify the sender on the mail. At this point a question arose if the submission would be anonymous. I knew one of the patent fillers and did not want to worsen relations with him. If I sent a letter with a faked sender from my current city and country and he saw it, he could still identify me. To ensure anonymity, I'd have to mail it to another country and ask someone to re-mail it to the USPTO for me. At this point, I gave up.

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[foniksonik]

How about just publishing to Wikipedia? Seems like a place that a patent examiner might look when investigating prior art. Especially if someone also publishes an article on how Wikipedia is being used to publish "public domain" prior art and then adds a reference to examples which could turn into a big list of inventions...

If your patent uses a basic concept add a cross link to that article as well so that it's more likely to show up in a search on said concept and of course cross link to prior art to your own invention as well.

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[Z00L00K]

If Robert Anson Heinlein still was alive you could have asked him since he did put the concept of the water bed into public domain.

Anyway that was described back in 1934 and the publication of it in three of his books was enough to consider it prior art.

So even a limited spread of the data has to be considered prior art.

I suspect that if you read enough Science Fiction books you will be able to invalidate a huge amount of patents. Things may not be named the same, but they may be described sufficiently to work as prior art.

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[Z00L00K]

That seems to be an interesting concept.

Just make sure that you have a reference site to point to for the Wikipedia entry.

Add some usenet postings too just for the sake of it. But I suspect that very few today does read usenet, so it may be better to put a reference in your sig here at Slashdot and then comment articles like a maniac for a while.

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[Asic Eng]

I think he should present at a reputable conference in his field. Not sure if Wikipedia is a good place for publishing original research - I was under the impression that's not the content they want. Also - if he publishes on such a conference the knowledge will be distributed to those able to make use of it, and it will increase his reputation - allowing him to become known, to add the publication to his resume etc.

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[Dachannien]

The USPTO frowns on using Wikipedia as prior art.

Not necessarily. The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences has cited Wikipedia several times. What's more, the fact that Wikipedia keeps a history allows examiners to go back to pick up the version of the page that actually counts as prior art.

The Wayback Machine on the Internet Archive is another good tool that examiners can use. It's especially good for when an applicant or company blabs about their stuff on their website and then tries to file a patent on it more than a year later.

However, when it comes to using Wikipedia as a place to ensconce your public domain invention, it's probably not the best tool for that. Wikipedia gets used a lot when an examiner doesn't understand something, but most patent applications are close enough to the bleeding edge that Wikipedia's not that great for anything but knocking out the basics or just learning unfamiliar terminology.

As for Google, more and more examiners use Google these days, but it pales in comparison to the search tools that examiners have for searching through patents, published applications, statutory invention registrations, and the abstracts of published journal articles and conference proceedings.

Ultimately, if you really really want an invention put into the public domain and don't mind the cost, a statutory invention registration is how to do it. It's cheaper than a patent application because there's no search fee involved, but there is still a fee for publication and classification. I don't know what the fee total is, but it's apparently at least $920, and you may need the assistance or advice of an attorney to help you get it in the proper form (it should look more or less like a patent application).

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[Vadim Makarov]

Sure. This meant at that time getting my ass from the chair, going to a local Russian post office and trying to figure how to send Certified Mail to U.S. (Guess: I'd wait half an hour in a line and get a blank stare.) I did email the filler. It was not my invention, after all. I just run into the patent app accidentally in the course of research. Why should I go out of my way to rectify it? The point is, UPSTO does not make it easy to casually report prior publications in order to, supposedly, help the patent examiner. I think, they don't enlist public help efficiently.

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[davester666]

If you want your work widely disseminated, you need to run a P2P app like LimeWire with a public share folder, and within that folder, you have a folder named 'Secret Plans', where you put your information into.

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[Voyager529]

If you want your work widely disseminated, you need to run a P2P app like LimeWire with a public share folder, and within that folder, you have a folder named 'Secret Plans', where you put your information into.

no...you share the folder with the name "Britney Spears Megan Fox Paris Hilton {your hottie here} naked nude porn pr0n". *THAT'S* how you make sure it's widely disseminated.

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[telchine]

Well, that's the discussion wrapped up nice and neat in just two comments. Well done Slashdot!

Last Post! ;-)

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[Gorobei]

To be fair, someone should have mentioned Statutory Invention Registration and file-and-abandon.

There, we are done.

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[klenwell]

What about Google's Knol? Wikipedia specifically prohibits original research. Knol welcomes it. You could also start an article on the broader subject of prior art and invite people to contribute to that.

You need a Google account, but that would insure attribution. And you can even see how many people have viewed it.

It also gives the idea a fixed url or permalink which could be the starting point for wider circulation.

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[kninja]

I was going to to that, but you beat me to it.

File and abandon is expensive, but cheaper because you don't have to pay the prosecution fees, issue fees, and maintenance fees. Plus, there may be a chance that the application goes through.

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[Vadim Makarov]

It is obvious from your description your main goal here was to screw over the person filing the patent

Actually, not. The researchers who published this idea openly in 2001 chose to publish openly instead of patenting, so that everyone could use it. If the other guys get a patent, it would place some hurdle on the use of the idea. Those who wanted to use it may not be aware of the 2001 publication. This is one motivation, to protect the invention which has been placed into the public domain. Another motivation was to help the USPTO keep its database clean of patents which are actually non-enforceable. Both should be the tasks of the USPTO, which is a government organization established by the society for serving the needs of this society in general. So, helping it is good, right?

Okay, that was U.S. society, and I am not living in the U.S. Call me irrational, then. Besides, I also had some curiosity in how the system works.

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[Daniel Dvorkin]

It is obvious from your description your main goal here was to screw over the person filing the patent as there is no way you would go to that effort otherwise

This may come as a shock to you, AC, but sometimes people do the right thing because it's the right thing. Sometimes they even put a fair amount of effort into it.

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[bsdaemonaut]

The right thing would have been to contact the owners of said prior art and let them deal with it. If they don't choose to fight the patent, then this guy's true intentions are pretty obvious. Considering what he had to go through, contacting the researchers or their institution would have been much easier.

Re:Have to publish it in the right place

[regular_gonzalez]

This has long since been discredited, and it's simple to disprove with basic logic. What's to prevent you from mailing an unsealed envelope to yourself? The date will be on it, and then five years later you can stuff it with the details of GE's new holographic television (or whatever), seal it, and voila! You "invented" it five years previous.

Letter bomb campaign

[darpo]

You could write an open letter to the major companies in the relevant industry (and make it clear that several companies are receiving the letter) explaining your inventions. One company may still try to patent them, but the other companies will have signed, dated, and carbon-copied letters from you stating prior art. Hmm, too far fetched?

Re:Letter bomb campaign

[kinnell]

Prior art requires that the invention be in the public domain, not simply "thought of first". This means it has to be actually published to the general public. You and I could make the same invention independently, and try and patent it, and the one to get the patent would be the first to apply, regardless of who actually made the invention first. IANAL, but I believe that in your scenario, any one of the companies would be perfectly entitled to patent the invention.

Re:Letter bomb campaign

[Dachannien]

The US is a first-to-invent country (the only one in the world, actually). In the US, if two pending applications claim the same stuff, an interference proceeding is held to determine who reduced the invention to practice first and/or who had a complete conception of the entire claimed invention first combined with due diligence thereafter in reducing the invention to practice.

If you invent something without filing for a patent on it, and then I invent it independently but I do patent it, then if I sue you for infringement, your defense could be that you were using the invention in the US more than a year before my filing date, or (as a more difficult approach) you could prove that I didn't actually invent it first.

You're gonna have to patent it

[pnumoman]

While publishing it, and making it prior art would be nice, the only way for you to totally place it into the public domain would be for you to patent it yourself.

Sure, in a technical sense making it prior art would bar others from patenting it, effectively placing it into the public domain. However, in reality, people could still apply to patent the invention, and the burden would be on them to notify the patent examiner about your prior art.

Guess how much that will happen.

So, assuming they don't talk about your publication, and the examiner doesn't know, they get a patent. Once that happens, then it's up to an enterprising soul to file an appeal with the patent board... and sure, the patent would probably be revoked, but it would take time and money. During this time, people would be afraid to use the patent, etc etc.

Since a patent is a right to exclude others from using your invention, the easiest way would be to talk to your local law school, see if there's any sort of IP clinic, and ask them to help you file the patent. They will probably have someone student that has passed the patent bar early, and can help you file as a patent agent. Then you would just pay the fee, get the patent filed for you, and some law student would get some nice experience. After you get the patent, simply let people use it for free.

Just post links here....

[ZosX]

All you need to do is publish your designs somewhere. Who knows maybe people may offer suggestions that will improve them. Open sourcing hardware is certainly something that has been done before. As long as you don't care if companies potentially exploit your ideas and not compensate you then by all means go ahead and make the world a better place. I admit I am mildly disappointed that you did not even share any details at all. Maybe your invention is really cool and now we may never know.

Why not GPL or something similar

[beowulf]

Establishes the prior art, allows to the idea to benefit the public, and you can still receive compensation.

Call Cory Doctorow...

[memorycardfull]

You might discover that the answer is as simple as a handsome public domain patent cleverly constructed out of old paperback books.

statutory invention registration

[Anonymous Coward]

File a statutory invention registration with the patent office.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Statutory_Invention_Registration

Alternately, you can file a provisional patent application, and then just abandon it by not filing anything else for a year.

Either of these will become part of the patent office's database and thus will be searched by patent examiners.

Re:statutory invention registration

[cecil_turtle]

I checked out PublicPatent.org and clicked on the "Random Page" link a few times and it seemed to either go to what looked to be a page of spam for some "aaaoe" organization or a page of Chinese characters. All of the AAAOE.COM spam pages follow the same template with different keywords. There were a few other pages that looked like spam as well, I don't think I came across one legitimate article.

Since we are talking about patent trolls...

[gnasher719]

Once they read about your invention, they would be legally obliged to disclose it to the patent office as prior art. So legally, they can't read it and then patent it. However since we are talking about patent trolls here, they can read it, write a patent application, don't tell the patent office about the prior art, forge papers demonstrating that they had the idea before you published it, and sue someone including yourself for the invention, and act very astonished if you show the prior art. Even with the prior art in someone's hands, it could cost them lots of money to defend against the case, even when they win. And whoever is sued might not know the prior art.

You could ask at the patent office, or someone here might know, how much it costs to _attempt_ to get a patent. In your situation, you don't need a patent. A failed patent application is good enough for you, because then it is prior art that is know to the patent office.

Anyone ever tried 'buy free' patents?

[Jasper__unique_dammi]

The idea is simple; invent something, patent it, and allow no-one to use it until someone pays the fee, but once it is payed, everyone can use it.

BEFORE you publicize it

[pem]

You could spend $75.00 filing a "provisional patent application" with all the relevant information.

Even though you don't plan on turning this into a real patent application, it will establish a baseline date AT THE PATENT OFFICE for your invention. Someone else would have to prove that they invented before that date.

You will certainly want to publicize it widely, for it to count as prior art, but having an official date from the patent office itself couldn't hurt.

Post a link here

[taskiss]

Put the drawings or whatever on a web page and link to it here. Not only will it get exposure, it'll generate discussion on the merits of the design.

As an aside, this reminds me of the crap article posted here not too long ago, with the only difference being that guy didn't want to share his great and wonderful idea.

Research disclosure

[An dochasac]

I've used Research Disclosure publications which I'm pretty sure U.S. patent applicants are required to look through in their search for prior art.

First To Publish

[AvitarX]

In the US we are a first to Publish country.

Make sure it is published, and easily findable.

Keep all of your notes with dates, this can go to demonstrate you had the idea before the publication date (evidence, not proof obviously).

By keeping it a secret you are guaranteeing others may patent it, such as what happened when the British government kept RSA a secret.

Since patents are still theoretically to spread, not hid knowledge, the system does not recognize secret knowledge unless theft of ideas can be demonstrated. If there is no idea theft (piracy may be a more accurate word, as nothing is taken away), then the first to enlighten the world with the idea gets its rewards, not the first to think of it.

patent trolls, defend by provisional patent appl.?

[LarryPf]

Greetings all, First off, this is my first post to /. so please bear with me. Also, IANAL; your mileage may vary! When I researched some ideas I had at a patent depository library, I was depressingly amazed by how many clever ideas I had, that others had already had (sometimes long before), and this was primarily US prior art. There are lots of clever, industrious folks in other countries, too. For the past ~30 years, the US patent office has been underfunded, and in consequence, the USPTO often doesn't do a good job of searching for prior art (they are under pressure to process a patent in something like 8 hours, AFAIK.) In consequence, the USPTO often grants patents for ideas that aren't novel at all. So, publication would not guarantee that a troll could not read your publication, and then try to patent it (as a previous commenter suggested.) I admire your desire to put your ideas out there, and I humbly suggest the following: Get ahold of the book _Patent it Yourself_ by David Pressman, published by Nolo press: http://www.nolo.com/product.cfm/objectID/139AEDE9-69A0-4810-A7A87D2AD5422664/310/ Since one of your goals is to prevent others from patenting, then the "publication" that would really count is to convey your ideas to the patent office (in whatever country/ies) you want to prevent patenting. As a previous poster points out, even if your patent application is unsuccessful, it will be in those patent offices' databases, with an established date. I haven't followed the recent patent law changes, but I suspect that (in the US, at least) a provisional patent application might serve your purposes, and would be easier/cheaper. HTH, Larry

PublicPatent.org - free and "open source"

[itamblyn]

I actually created a site for this specific purpose about a year ago.

PublicPatent.org

It's a free service that inventors can use to "publish" their work so that it is in the public domain. When something is prior art, it cannot be patented.

The database is backed up on a regular basis, and the contents are burned to a CD that I post to myself so that dates can be verified if they ever need to be. It is a wiki style setup, where only the user who created a page can edit it. Images can be included in a page.

The site is searchable, and if it takes off (there hasn't been much interest so far), the plan would be to write a letter to the US Patent Office (and Canadian, where I'm from) explaining that this database should be included in searches when new patents are checked.

I have no intention of ever charging for this service, though eventually I may have to put some ads on the side to pay for hosting if it gets too expensive. A donation system may also be enough.

If there are others that are interested in this, helping with the site, or contributing patents, please get in touch. This is an idea that I came up with trying to avoid studying for my PhD prelim - it would be nice if something came of it.

File a provisional Patent

[solder_fox]

At $110 to file for a small entity, a provisional patent only costs a little bit. If you can't afford it and these are potentially useful medical devices, just go to a patient who would have benefited from it and ask for a little help, or go to a good doctor or med student and offer to let him or her write up the journal article *After* you file the provisional patent application. For that matter, I'm sure you can get five hundred or a thousand bucks from an undergrad in the sciences for the chance to write up something really medically useful, because they could put it on their apps to med or grad school.

IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and assume (as you should with every slashdot comment that could be interpreted as in a legal field) that I don't know what I'm talking about, but you can certainly write a little document saying simply what your agreement is with the person and sign it. There are a lot of people out there with at least a little disposable income--if you tell anyone who has a little money and who's experienced the pain of dealing with the medical system that you want to make a new medical device available for public use for free, you'll get the $110 for a provisional patent application.

If you also want a patentability finding and publication you can file a real utility patent application, but that costs a little more and the format is more rigid--you'd probably need a patent agent or attorney to help you draw it up.

I believe--but am not 100% sure--that the provisional application would handle the matter if it covers the subject matter of the patent.

Also, not to be silly about it, but did you try asking the USPTO what they would suggest? They know this stuff and it should just take them a minute to answer. Alternatively, one of the patients' rights or support groups might be willing to help.

Re:Filing the patent is cheapest and most reliable

[number11]

Of course, you can also ask a notary to certify whatever method of publication you intend to use, but there are some major drawbacks. Firstly, sometimes courts only accept publications in venues which are deemed by some non-objective standard to have a wide audience. Expect to pay to be published. Secondly, the notary will want his cut. Depending on the specific details, this can actually cost you more than filing a patent.

Oh, come on. I'm a notary. If the notary wants more than a couple of bucks per copy, you need to find another notary. In my state, maximum rates are pretty much set by law, and any notary who tried to get "his cut" would be at risk of substantial legal penalties.

That said, IANAL but merely getting something notarized probably isn't going to count as "publication". The very word implies "public" distribution.

Cheaper to file and abandon

[AliasMarlowe]

Filing a Statutory Invention registration costs $920, with no discount for small entity. It's much cheaper to file an application and abandon it. Filing costs $330 or $165 for small entity (you are almost certainly a small entity). The filing fee can be higher if your application has a rather large number of claims or a complicated claim dependency structure. Here is the current fee schedule at the US PTO: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee2009january01_2009jan12.htm

Either way, you must conform to the required format for the filing. Special attention must be given to drawings, so that labels and textual descriptions in drawings match the associated descriptions in the text specification (and all drawings must have descriptions). Drawings may NOT be in colour, or employ shading to distinguish areas - only cross-hatching or other fill patterns are allowed. The application must be accompanied by copies of any references or prior art cited. This is to ensure that your disclosure will be interpreted in the correct way later, even if you abandon it. Before it is printed, there may be requests for formal changes.

I recommend you become familiar with the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/index.htm

Free legal advice from those who know.

[Samschnooks]

Go here and read up on it. It's free!

Good idea but wrong

[Theaetetus]

At $110 to file for a small entity, a provisional patent only costs a little bit.

I appreciate the direction you're going with this, but it won't work. Provisional patent applications are not published, and won't count as prior art.

Patent applications are published at 18 months from earliest filing date, if they're still pending. Provisionals expire in one year from filing date if they're not converted to nonprovisional, so they're not pending at the 18 month point.

Disclaimer: I am a patent agent, but I'm not your patent agent. Any observations I make are most likely correct, but are not legally binding.

WikiPatents

[kostmo]

http://www.wikipatents.com/ may be a good place to post the prior art. It is a site for "community patent review".

Re:I told you geeks are DUMB !!!!!

[wisty]

If it is a useful invention, and it's not easy to produce, you want to file a patent. Otherwise nobody will build it.

Let's say you invent a better wheel. If you publish it freely, then none of the car manufacturers will use it, because it will probably be too expensive to modify their machinery, and there is too much market risk (i.e. New Coke), and when they have done the hard yards to bring the new product to market their competitors will just copy it.

Patents are there to reward innovation, but they also reward the hard work in developing new markets.

Software is different (because it's trivial to implement), but real products need development.

Check to see if it is already Patented

[CB-in-Tokyo]

This is the first step, as it could have already been done.

http://www.google.com/patents

http://www.uspto.gov/main/profiles/acadres.htm

If it hasn't already been patented and you are confident of the acceptance of the invention in the the targeted area then by god man find an investor to fund the patent for a percentage of the potential licensing fees.

Patents were originally created specifically for people like you, to encourage and reward people who provide useful inventions by allowing them a limited monopoly on the sales of the invention in return for making the knowledge public.

Heck, if you are that sure, and you can sell me on the idea, I will fund your patent.