Slashdot Mirror
Should I Publish Or Patent?
BorgeStrand writes 'Patenting is an expensive process, even coming up with some sort of proof that your idea is unique (and thereby try to attract financing) may be prohibitive for the lone inventor. So what do you folks out there do when you come up with a good idea but don't have the means to patent it or market it to someone who will pay for the patenting process? And how much sense does it really make for the lone inventor to patent something? Would it make more sense to publish the whole idea, and make it (and my inventive brainpower) up for grabs? If my ideas are indeed valuable, what is the best way to gain anything from them without investing too much financially? What is your experience?'
This is slashdot, all patents are evil, and the most profitable thing for you to do would be to to let everyone know the details, and let them all build whatever it is you invented. That way, it gets worked on by different people in an open source way and you get a better ultimate product. And somehow you profit from that. I'm still trying to figure out that last part, but if a million slashdotters say something it can't be wrong.
Simply tell me what your patentable idea is and I'll take care of everything for you.
That's a very hard question to answer, as it depends solely on just how good your idea is :)
Perhaps you could consider # of people who will use an implementation of your idea and multiply that by some very small number, to get an idea of how much you'll make.
Of course, if your idea is better, both numbers will increase. And yes, I know I am stating the obvious...
No kitty, this is my pot pie!
If you patent, it'll be expensive.
If you don't patent, but end up making it, someone else will patent it and sue you, that will be more expensive.
However, if it'll never really be marketable, publish, someone might think oooo nifty, and hire you because it sounds great.
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
Big Money comes from Big Risks. That includes financial risks.
If your idea is any good, then by all means patent it. Weight your future gains against what it'll cost you to file the application. Be the Big Boy, and if your idea has the Big Balls, then take the Big Risk and patent it so that you can somebody maybe make the Big Money.
So what do you folks out there do when you come up with a good idea but don't have the means to patent it or market it to someone who will pay for the patenting process?
Do what a lot of us do. Longingly let out a sigh while you're enjoying a pint of beer or your favorite alcohol on the rocks. Painfully hold onto it until you either
a. Realize that it isn't worth patenting
or
b. Find some way to make it profitable
I don't know the specifics of your idea, but that's what I would (and am currently doing). If someone beats me to it and publishes one of my ideas, it wasn't all that novel. Until then, It gives me something to think about while not doing my 9-5.
Oh quit the moral bullshit, people need to eat too and rent isn't free.
If you live in the US, you can do both. First send in a provisional patent to the USPTO using their electronic filing system (costs $110), then publish your idea. You have a year to decide to patent the idea or not, and if you decide not to, all you are out is $110.
When you put them into the formula, you reach profit equally as fast.
Step 1: Patent
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit
OR
Step 1: Publish
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit
See? They're the same.
First search the online patent databases. You'd be amazed at what other people have already thought of.
If somebody has already had a similar idea, the question is moot.
Please! This is just silly.
Tell us more about your idea so we can help. We'll keep it secret here.
I believe the only unavoidable cost of getting a patent is the filing fee (and the issuing fee, if it's accepted), but that only amounts to a few hundred dollars. There are maintenance fees every few years, and while these are a bit more expensive, it's not an insurmountable expense. All the prior work research and everything can be done by an individual, assuming they're determined and resourceful, although depending on the nature of the patent that could get real tricky.
What you should really ask is, "What's the purpose of getting this patent?" Having a patent doesn't automatically protect you from people stealing the idea, or ensure that you'll be duly compensated if someone decides to use it. The most onerous part of the patenting and licensing process comes after you get the patent - patent battles can go on for years or decades, and there's no guarantee that you'll win any compensation after almost unavoidably spending a ton of money to fight the good fight, often against people with far more resources than yourself.
If you think you can really do something with your invention and are willing to take on the entirely separate and probably even more difficult task of marketing the invention to a company and getting them to distribute it or license it, then a patent is probably something to seriously consider. If you want to patent it because it's your idea and you're proud of it, but you don't necessarily see yourself pursuing it in a commercial sense, then in my opinion you're probably better off just publishing it and taking satisfaction in the fact that you're contributing to the knowledge base.
Patenting, like copyright, is an antiquated system that allows the greedy/privileged to profit off of ignorance.
In other words, if you can afford it, do it while it's still legal. Nobody's going to judge, and rich people are usually dicks anyway.
Patenting can give you the advantage of being able to show that the idea is... well... patentable - so if you start a business later on around it, you'd have proof that there's something to protect. But if you won't have the money to finance lawyers and litigation to protect the patent, it won't do you any practical good. A patent is only valuable if you can enforce it - and that burden is entirely on you.
The sum of the standard responses will be:
1) Develop the thing on your own. If you can't prototype it you don't have anything of interest to the folks you want to sell to.
2) Get a provisional patent - they're cheap and should protect you while trying to pimp your prototype.
3) There is NO market for pure ideas - if that's all you've got, nobody cares enough to pay you for that. Bringing something to market is far-far harder than coming up with an idea.
Being a person whose has ideas and these same questions for a long time, I can say I agree with all the above.
If it's possible for slashdot to agree on anything, it's this. Oh, and you'll get the "patents are evil" stuff too, but that doesn't actually answer your question.
Oh quit the moral bullshit, people need to eat too and rent isn't free.
I totally agree. If it's a good idea, -someone- is going to make money off it. If he gives his idea away, then everyone but him is going to profit off it. I say he deserves to get his cut.
So what your saying is, it's great for this inventor to work really hard and come up with a new idea that a large, multinational corporation can swoop in and get a bunch of money on for free.
Oh wait, it doesn't sound so "decent" and "moral" when the multinational corporation boogeyman suddenly appears to capture all the money now does it?
I have given this thought in the past and figured that since the USPTO does a lot of legwork to check out patents before granting them, why not let them do the research and then redo the patent filing based upon the rejection? Of course, the speed at which these are processed and public availability of filings would most likely make this simplistic scenario unrealistic. It was a thought, none-the-less.
given that in the US "A patent for an invention is a grant of property rights by the U.S. Government" (from the US Patent Office), Publishing would just provide for prior art to remove a future patent by someone else. The only way to protect your invention for future monetary gain by yourself is to patent it. Now, that being said is what you have developed actually patentable or is it one of the silly things we see constant surfacing by patent trolls?
One way of making some money and also helping out your fellow humans would be to publish your invention and make yourself available for "for fee consulting" or development of your invention. This is a win win situation as whomever has the money to bring it to market will want your intellectual knowledge to go along with the design for any future adaptations.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
Totally agree. If I come up with a great idea why the hell should I give it away for free? This bullshit opinion that all patents are evil needs to end. If somebody spends time and money develoing an idea and inventing something new they deserve some bloody reward for it, and something more substantial than the warm fuzzy feeling that they gave it to the world for free.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
Is your invention obvious? If not, patent it.
Don't expect that you'll make money if you patent an idea-- the patent is only the first step in the process of commercializing the invention, and unless you are active and get your invention out in the world, it won't happen-- it's not true that there are people sitting there and reading every patent as it comes out, saying "oh, there's one I can invest in! I'll pay that guy buckets of money!" You have to do the work (and only ten percent of that work is technical. The majority is networking, social, legal, business, economic, and sales related.)
So: are you ready to do the entrepreneur thing? Long days of working on selling your invention to people with investment money, concatenated with long nights of working to make your invention work better, cheaper, and more reliably?
On the other hand, patenting needn't be terribly expensive if you do most of the grunt work yourself. The patent office has low fees for "small entities," which includes individual inventors.
If you publish, you won't profit directly (although if it's a nobel-prize winning invention, you will), but you will (in principle) prevent somebody else from patenting it. In practice, actually, the patent office is not very good at finding prior art in the literature (to be fair, they have roughly one day per invention to do both the literature search and also the write-up), so what you'll actually accomplish by publishing is to give other parties a piece of evidence that they can use to challenge the validity of the patent. (And, of course, the other parties who have the same idea will probably not have exactly the same idea, and the details of their patent will probably be slightly different, so not the entire patent will be invalidated.)
Disclaimer: IANAL (but, on the other hand, you can google Patent Claim Drafting... :)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Another option is an angel investor. You don't need a patent to talk to investors, they just want to know if it's a viable business.
Most areas have local groups that hook up inventors with angel investors.
In the UK, fortunately you have a nice little website that tells you all about how to take ideas you have and turn them into money.
Fortunately, they also have a section on protecting your intellectual property that tells you how to do that as well (in terms of patenting, NDAs, Trademarks and Design right). I'm sure the processes aren't quite as straightforward as they look like they are here, but you get the point.
On a personal note - the question of whether to patent is a difficult one. In the internet era it would seem easier to exploit the innovation yourself before anyone else can come up with a similar, but slightly different idea that they then make a shed load of money out of.
Disclaimer: I work for BusinessLink
If it would be hard for you to find the $50.000 to patent it, you won't have the $5.000.000 to enforce your patent in court.
extern warranty;
main()
{
(void)warranty;
}
It's not all patents are evil; just the ones along the lines of "I patent the idea of <doing something in a manner appropriate to a human with arms and legs>"...
Requiem for the American Dream
I'm not sure...maybe you should tell me your idea then I'll let you know... >_>
Let me start by saying that there will be plenty of advice on how to obtain a patent, given that a good portion of your audience is likely American and some of them know about this. And I do encourage you to patent this idea if you want to...
Now. This topic comes up as recurring conversation piece on most white collar sites (and I remember seeing this the first time here on slashdot, actually):
Ideas are a dime a dozen. The sooner you accept that as being fact, the better you will be equipped to do something.
At no time was this "dime a dozen" more visible than the dot-com era. This is also why "brilliant" programmers always complain that they should be getting paid more than the suits in the company but are completely wrong. You seem to want to make money off of your idea, right? Then make money, be a business man. Otherwise, why even bother patent? A patent isn't a condo for rent.
The time when people can come up with a single brilliant idea and become rich is long past. But I also challenge that it ever existed. Many people we look back to now and think "that was such a simple yet revolutionary idea" were people who were consistently creating ideas and implementing them. But we only remember those ideas which stuck through the test of time.
The other thing to remember is that many people who "invented awesome ideas" didn't get rich from them either.
If you patent, it'll be expensive. If you don't patent, but end up making it, someone else will patent it and sue you, that will be more expensive.
No to the second part-- if you publish before they file the patent, their patent filing won't help them, the patent is invalidated by prior art (=your publication).
In fact, if you keep good enough notes (signed and witnessed) to show your date of invention, and to show that you were diligent in working to bring the invention to workability (i.e., that you didn't just have the idea and abandon it), then they can't succeed in suing you, either, because you can prove you invented it first.
(However, if you had the idea, and didn't diligently work on reducing it to practive, you're out of luck. No cookies from the patent office to ideas that are abandoned and not reduced to practice.)
Disclaimer: IANAL
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Approach a party that can gain from your work and offer it as a trade secret. If this is the venue for which you come to for advice you're likely thinking of something that is questionably patentable to begin with and ultimately is only useful if somebody will pay for it, so go straight to the pay opportunity.
And not just in the free software sense. There are a lot of great ideas out there that don't have the capacity to become traditionally successful ventures. Either the capital isn't there (as in your case), the idea doesn't have enough potential to really stand on its own, patenting would be difficult because of prior art or there isn't a very strong business case to be made. In any of these situations, the idea might still be valuable to someone, somewhere and it would be a shame for it to fall by the wayside. Publishing is typically a good thing to do, IMO. If the idea is valuable to someone, hopefully they'll eventually find it and make use of it. If they do or they don't you're still no worse off than when you started, and if your idea is eventually taken up you can always point to your publication as credit to your major contribution to the field.
Besides, even if you could patent the tech if you don't have the capital to start a venture and attract investment you're going to have a very hard time enforcing the patent (Not to mention a lot of people would consider it ethically reprehensible if you were just sitting on a patent for the sake of sitting on a patent). Enforcing IP is a very costly proposition, especially if your idea ends up being implemented by someone with pockets that are millions or billions deeper than yours.
There was recently a talk given by Oliver Smithies (Nobel prize for inventing gene knock-out mice) that was sponsored by the university's tech transfer department to discuss "missed opportunities". He had a large number of inventions that have become central technologies in genetics and molecular biology (gel electrophoresis is one of the more notable ones) but never patented any, choosing instead to publish. The tech transfer folks were trying to bill it as a "lesson learned" about patenting potentially valuable technologies, but Smithies didn't seem at all regretful. A friend of mine asked him then, "You refer to these as missed opportunities, but is that how you really think of them?" to which he replied, loosely paraphrased, "No". There are a number of situations where I believe, even though it may be legal and financially lucrative to do so, the world would be better off if the inventor chooses not to patent a technology, as Smithies did. This is certainly an extreme example, but there are many others that come to mind- cochlear implants, for example. Just some food for thought.
No to the second part-- if you publish before they file the patent, their patent filing won't help them, the patent is invalidated by prior art (=your publication).
Like that's going to stop the USPTO clerks. Fighting a patent is even more expensive than getting one, anyway.
Sorry if I'm mistaken but once an idea is revealed publicly the idea holder has one year to secure a patent before it can be ravaged by competition's dogs? Couldn't the publishing be made as a market test to gain interest and support for said idea and then secure the patent after testing the waters?
prior art?
IANAL
Does your boss read slashdot?
Cause, boy do I have an Insightful and Interesting post to show him/her.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
If it's a software idea, I would say you should create an implementation with your name prominently associated with it. If the implementation is any good, or the idea is pretty neat, you will find people who want you to help make the idea work for them.
If you patent it, please don't tell me about it. I don't want to know. Chances are someone will stumble across it anyway, and implement it. The more ignorance they can claim about your idea, the less money you can extract from them. The last thing I want to know about is an idea someone wants to patent, which, of course, is the opposite of how things ought to be if the purpose of patents is really to 'promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts'.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I have raised a similar question on slashdot (http://slashdot.org/submission/1088065/Generic-names-for-software-projects) but have not had any response. From my experience simply having something first does not give you much protection, unless you ready for some litigation. Also bear in mind that this could still back fire. If they manage to obtain a trademark on their efforts you have to contest it at your expense.
You asking if you should get a patent on a site that is notoriously anti-patent? I'd say you're looking for a certain answer.
At the risk of being modded down, I'm not going to give you that answer. Get the patent. It is good legal protection. It will help if someone else tries to steal your idea and sues you for infringing on the patent they just got. It will help if you later decide to actually get paid for your idea and need to keep others from stealing it.
The patent basically says you thought of this first. It doesn't not say you can't publish your idea, in fact with a patent you must publish your idea.
So bottom line get the patent and then work on making your idea a success.
Oh, naïveté.
Nothing will stop them from filing their patent unless you are aware of their filing, and object.
Then, if you were to do something w/ your idea, they may very well sue you, regardless of their patent's invalidity, making the gamble that you'd rather settle than deal with the legal proceedings required to invalidate their patent.
These guys aren't doing it cause they're smart. They're doing it because they think there's easy money to be made, and it's a pain in the ass to defend yourself in court.
This behavor is called patent trolling. I figure any careful reader of Slashdot would recognize this modus operandi, given it's frequency in News for Nerds.
So what can i say?
You must be new here.
There are lives at stake here!
This bullshit opinion that all patents are evil needs to end. If somebody spends time and money develoing an idea and inventing something new they deserve some bloody reward for it
I don't know if as many people would have a problem with this sentiment per se. However, the patent system is regularly abused by people who haven't spent time and money inventing something and aren't actually going to spend any time and money producing the product either, but simply look to sit on the patent and make their money from suing anyone who does put the effort in and brings the product to market.
The other problem is the granting of patents (especially software patents) for things that the patent office may think is novel and worthy of protection, but we all know is so obvious that it wouldn't occur to any of us to try to patent. However, once the patent is granted, again the patentee puts all their real effort into suing anyone who dares to come up with the same idea.
It is this leeching and obstructive use of patents that I would imagine that most people have problems with.
This [ ] left intentionally [ ]
Why is this 'article', and I use that term loosely, "Your Rights Online" instead of "Ask Slashdot"?
Say you patent it, and spend every nickle you can wrap you finders around to set up the facility to make your widget. The money is pouring in, and your investors are getting paid back. But the guy accross the street copies your idea, so you get your lawyer to sue his company. After many thousands of lawyer hours, your lawyer prevails and your neighbors company owes you $billions$ he just shuts down the plant, files chapter7, and sets up an offshore company doing the exact same thing! Your lawyer only sued the banckrupt company, not the new company, so the whole process starts over, and will be more expensive, and take longer, since the new company isn't local and all. Even though you won, you still havn't collected a dime on the suit, and your lawyer wants his
hourly fee.
Look, a patent, by itself, is fairly useless. You need a plan after you get your patent(s). Frankly, a patent seeker should also bank some money for product development. If you thought a patent was expensive, I guaranty you that 9 of 10 patents would require at least double the expense to make commercial-quality patented products _and_ make them in commercial quantities. So, if you think seeking a patent is going to break your budget, then let the next Sergey Brinn and Larry Page step in and do the heavy lifting, and get the heavy profits. No pain, no gain.
Ideas are a dime a dozen.
Implement something.
There is no sense in rewarding people for thinking up ideas. We simply don't need to, as good ideas will be thought out even if we don't.
The problem is finding people who would implement those ideas.
What's important is what happens in court, not with patent clerks.
When I was much younger, I learned a method of "Self Patenting" which I am not sure if it would help you out any or not, but I will explain just in case anyone else has this idea. Basically what you can do is make TWO copies of all your notes and schematics for the invention or work. Mail BOTH (use signature guarantee or something to that effect) to an attorney. Contact the attorney ahead of time and inform them of what you are doing. The attorney will then file the UNOPENED packages for you. If an issue arises where you feel your idea was stolen, contact the attorney and in your presence open ONE of the envelopes to confirm with the attorney the infringement. The second package is to remain sealed until such a time as you are in court. The postage information and the sealed package allow you to prove a date from when your idea was created.
This may sound odd, but I have had friends that have written papers, songs and poetry that have been published without consent, and through this method of "self patenting" they were able to receive credit and financial benefits from their works.
If someone else patents it and you have proof that you came up with the idea first, their patent is rendered invalid(it's up to the courts though). The guy who made the first video game (it was like pong) didn't patent it, so now no one can patent video games. Also, with a patent, it is only valid in the country that you file it in. Even then you are the one responsible for enforcing it. Its a good idea to make a company to own the patent too, that way you get get the maximum life of the patent. Patents aren't enforceable after the owner is deceased.
I used to work for $BIG_COMPANY where we had a process where a team of lawyers and engineers would evaluate everything someone thought remotely patentable, and they would consider whether the patent was worth the time and money (usually several thousand dollars even though they used in-house counsel and did thousands of these a year). The analysis was based not only on the validity of the patent and the value of the innovation covered, but also the difficulty of creating a comparable innovation that is non-infringing, and the difficulty of detecting infringement (One of the problems with software patents is that it is often difficult to detect whether infringement has occurred in a closed-source competing implementation, which makes the patent unenforceable in practice).
Most of their patents were never worth anything, even with all the vetting. The valuable ones were core innovations in emerging industries where the product gets sold in consumer quantities, not some way to make a better forklift.
IANAPL but...
If you patent, it'll be expensive.
If you don't patent, but end up making it, someone else will patent it and sue you, that will be more expensive.
No to the second part-- if you publish before they file the patent, their patent filing won't help them, the patent is invalidated by prior art (=your publication).
That is the theory and, in some countries, patent examiners will look through reputable journals etc when looking for prior art but, in my experience, US examiners only look in existing US patents (and patent applications). Once a patent is granted it sounds like it is very difficult - in the US at least - to get it overturned.
The question is also where do you publish? If you can't get it into a journal, AFAIU one possible option might be just to file it as a patent and then abandon it before the really expensive charges occur. It should then, (again AFAIU), end up in the public domain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_invention_registration
I spent a good 3 weeks implementing an interesting idea that the person who came up with decided he wanted to patent. My conditions for working on it were that either the thing be treated as a trade secret or that it be allowed to be used in any Open Source application of any kind. He wanted some stupid mealy-mouthed non-commercial clause license.
In my opinion, no matter what the guy thinks of his idea, he will never make any money off of it by trying to keep such tight fisted control over it. His best bet was to create an interesting implementation with his name on it and make money from consulting. Now the stupid idea is going to languish in obscurity because he's too afraid to actually get it out there in a way people will ever use.
The best way to make sure an idea is never used is to patent it. Chaum's digital cash algorithms have a lot of interesting uses that have little to do with digital cash, but nobody will touch them because of the patents. Patenting, IMHO, is the kiss of death for an idea, especially one related to mathematics or software.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
So he should just let others profit off of his invention?
Or maybe some corporation will be kind enough to give him a decent salary meanwhile making millions off of his patent?
Not everyone likes to run a charity like you.
All the 'funny' responses aside... there are options open to you without lots of investment. But beware most of them... Invention companies... most want to do marketing surveys or other scam actions. I've had good luck with think village however you do have to share any profits.
If you want the glory that can come only from selfless giving, publish, publish, publish, or alternatively, patent and don't charge licensing fees.
If you want cash or the glory that can come with an expensive self-marketing campaign, patent, patent, patent. If you need the patent for a swap, patent, patent, patent.
But don't patent unless you've got something good, or you may find your ideas relegated to obscurity unless you license it broadly for nearly nothing.
One non-financial reason to patent is control:
Once you publish something and the time to patent expires (immediately in some countries, 1 year in others), anyone can improve your invention, patent the improvement, and if the improvement is good enough to render the un-improved version obsolete, control the market. If you patent and license broadly and cheaply, you can later change the licensing for new customers to "the same as what you are paying the guy who improved it," which may pressure the guy who improved it to charge reasonable licensing fees.
Another often-overlooked aspect of control is you have some measure of control over WHO licenses your patent. This can be used for good or evil. For example, if you have a patent on a method for mining diamonds, you can refuse to license it to anyone doing business in areas that mine conflict diamonds. There are limits to this though, including patent exhaustion and the problem of enforcement against companies based in countries with legal systems that are hostile to you. Of course, this can be used for evil as well, like a global conglomerate not licensing it any company that does business with your chief competitors, even if those competitors are in businesses un-related to the patent.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The following assumes this is a hardware patent you have in mind.
The days of patenting for the lone inventor are over, seriously. And what if you do patent it? You'll end up spend the bulk of your time, brain power, and meager resources defending it. Unless you have the resources to hire a cadre of lawyers, you won't even be able to defend infringements. And we've not even discussed international patents... which still won't stop Chinese knockoffs (at least not for the foreseeable future).
For insights into why the patent process is seldom useful for individuals:
http://bit.ly/12x7EJ
http://bit.ly/3glVfj
There is a lot of money being made in the (e.g.) open-hardware arena: you make a gadget (brilliant idea or not), sell a couple hundred or thousand, make some money and move on to the next thing (see Arduino, Chumby, SeeedStudio, Adafruit, Sparkfun). These guys publish the specs of pretty much everything they make, with enough detail that anybody else could copy it. Yet they are rather successful for small (closely held) businesses.
So my advice is:
Step 1: make
Step 2: publish (gets you publicity for your gadget BTW)
Step 3: open up a store front and sell
Step 4: ??? (there is no step 4)
Step 5: Profit!!!
It's easy to get anything manufactured in small quantities these days. And by the time somebody bothers to clone your idea (which kind proves that you must have made money, in a backhanded compliment kind of way), the hope is you've made some cash, and can spend your time innovating on the next great thing.
This is the secret to happiness my friend.
If he gives his idea away, then everyone but him is going to profit off it. I say he deserves to get his cut.
I'm having trouble following the logic here. How would he not be able to profit off of an idea that others are able to profit from? Can he not do the same thing with that idea that the others would do, and compete with them?
Ideas aren't physical objects. When you give it away, you still have it.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
"...why the hell should I give it away for free?"
Why should society grant you a temporary monopoly, when you can't even implement it?
What you're asking is impossible. If you really want to gain from your idea, then you're gonna have to take a risk. That's just life. And the willingness to take risk is what separates the plebs from the big winners.
And, for the record, I'm a proud pleb... I just happen to realize it. :)
Because he does not have the capital to survive the beating he will get from established competitors.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Patent your idea. Then don't go around being an ass about it. Don't try to extend your right for 937 years. Do not sue anyone who comes up with anything close to your idea. And for God's sake do not start that crap where you can amend your patent to cover shit it never did in the first place so you can sue someone.
Then you will be a fine upstanding member of the community who dose well and makes money.
I win
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
patents publish you!!
A question: Why do some cultures use decimal points in place of commas?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Another option that you can think of is to patent it in another country. Say, India/China etc.
The patent will cost you very less - even if you go for a big shot lawyer, it will cost you in the range of 2000$ or less.
Now, once it is patented, you go about implementing the same and try to sell it in the patented country.
If it makes enough money, you can apply for a PCS form to patent it internationally or maybe in US alone.
Please note that patenting usually does not guarantee you any income. The stats suggest upwards of 90% of patents does not generate any revenue at all.
But still, it could be because most patents are done by companies trying to increase their image in the market.
Also, it would be better for you try to implement the same before you patent it, since you might otherwise miss some important points which crop up during implementation.
Another point is that - if you are a techie - is that even implementing is somewhat easier compared to marketing and selling.
Best of luck anyways.
rajmohan_h@yahoo.com
Your choice is whether to be selfish or decent. Are you going to stand on the shoulders of giants, but sue anyone who would stand on yours?
How you proceed says a bit about who you are.
Bullshit morality by proxy combined with rhetorical, ideologotardic nonsense that can neither be proved, nor argued for logically.
Prove to me in a logically consistent manner that decency and selflessness are inevitably inconsistent and incompatible with one's natural right to get remunerated/recognized for one's original and hard-earned intellectual work, and to protect that natural right should the individual desires so.
Prove to me also that absolute selflessness as a trait is obligatory for one to be decent (as opposed to a voluntary act might increase, but never defines decency), and that the exhibition of such a trait mandates ones to surrender one's natural right get remunerated for one's originally created intellectual work.
Prove that, and we can talk. Your ability to prove this, and your willingness to respect other peoples' rights will say not a bit, but a lot about you, your intellect and your decency.
I have no words for how stupid I believe you to be right now. None.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
If you patent, it'll be expensive.
In the US, you can apply for a provisional patent for $110. This is a simplified, essentially abstract patent application you can use to hold your place in the patent line while you go off and find someone to commercialize/help you commercialize your idea.
You've still got a year after publication to make a provisional filing, but you also get a year after the provisional filing before the full application.
you should probably stop here, it's starting to look like your only exposure to the patent system is what you've seen on Slashdot. there's more to them than abuse by patent trolls.
your stance makes it appear that you've only heard about the patent-related issues that are newsworty. meanwhile, there are millions of patents, most of which haven't made the news.
in other words, "It's rarely the case that someone filing a patent is just trying to make the month's rent." [citation needed].
all my intelligence and experience from my time on this earth, i will put my opinion as elaborately and as eloquently i can in the form below :
fuck that.
Read radical news here
Because he does not have the capital to survive the beating he will get from established competitors.
If it's truly a new idea, then there are no established competitors. He will be the first, and the competition will follow.
Of course, this entire discussion hinges on the ridiculous belief that ideas are worth something. They're not. Every moron has a million ideas. Implementation is everything. If he can't/won't implement the idea, then he doesn't have anything of any value anyway.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Presumably, you would be patenting as a small entity, for which the US PTO cuts most fees by 50%.
You also don't necessarily need an expensive attorney to file a US patent application - you can do it yourself, provided you conform to certain formal requirements. For an application which goes smoothly through the process, the small entity fees are less than $2000 http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee2009september15.htm. If there are many office actions, this total could easily double or triple, however, so preparing the application carefully is essential. I'd recommend you peruse the documents at http://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/index.html, and get a copy of 37CFR part 1 (patent rules) and the MPEP http://www.uspto.gov/patents/law/index.jsp.
FWIW, I've had a couple of patents which issued without any intervening office actions, but they were the exceptions. Most involved a few office actions, and a couple involved many office actions. Every office action involves a fee, even if the action was due to the PTO losing papers which they had officially acknowledged receiving (that case is still ongoing).
Also, publishing in some journal or on the web does not necessarily prevent someone else from filing a patent application on much the same thing. The US PTO does not and cannot search ALL possible publications when looking for prior art, and if a patent is wrongly issued, it would be up to you to challenge it in court (at much higher expense than actually getting a patent)). The PTO does search all US patents and US patent applications, however. So filing a patent application, and then abandoning it at the first office action, is a good and relatively cheap way of publishing your idea in a way that prevents everyone else from getting a patent on it. They'd have to make significant changes beyond anything clearly contemplated in your application to get their application through the PTO.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
By established competitor I mean any established corporation that has an invested interest in the market that the new device targets or decides that it wants an invested interest in that market. Just because a device is new doesn't mean it has no competition. Large companies have large amounts of capital to throw into saturating the market with advertising, manufacturing at a price that you can't come anywhere near, and pounding you with their salaried team of lawyers.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Prior art doesn't necessarily stop them from patenting, and if they get the patent it won't necessarily stop them from suing. Sure, unless there's a travesty of justice (not out of the question) you'll win the lawsuit, but that won't necessarily keep it from being expensive.
It took about 3 years to finally receive the patent. It took several lawyers crafting the documents we gave them into the right form for submission, lawyers who were outside the company legal specialists in this sort of patent but who had to be taught about the technology and whose every filing had to be reviewed to be sure that it was accurate. They took care of the lawyer language, we made sure they were honest and accurate. We were first rejected on about 6 grounds, it took a well crafted technical argument on each point to rebut the patent examiner's initial concerns and to show him why our invention differed from each invention he was proposing as similar. I would have thought our lawyers would have done that differentiation in our initial filing but it wasn't done. The winning arguments were crafted not by someone with a lawyers degree nor even by the ones who actually invented the technology but by someone with skills that bridged the two.
So 3 years and probably $100k later we had the patent.
I suppose in theory an individual can do it, but, in practice, my experience was much more complex and $ consuming?
This bullshit opinion that all patents are evil needs to end. If somebody spends time and money develoing an idea and inventing something new they deserve some bloody reward for it
I don't know if as many people would have a problem with this sentiment per se. However, the patent system is regularly abused by people who haven't spent time and money inventing something and aren't actually going to spend any time and money producing the product either, but simply look to sit on the patent and make their money from suing anyone who does put the effort in and brings the product to market. The other problem is the granting of patents (especially software patents) for things that the patent office may think is novel and worthy of protection, but we all know is so obvious that it wouldn't occur to any of us to try to patent. However, once the patent is granted, again the patentee puts all their real effort into suing anyone who dares to come up with the same idea. It is this leeching and obstructive use of patents that I would imagine that most people have problems with.
Most people have a problem with patents because they are stupid and like the sound of their own ideological drivel.
Intelligent people have problems with the abuse and leeching of the patent system, and they clearly express that view whenever it is proper and applicable.
Stupid nerd people, and many of /. posters in particular (college kids or aging Hippies who still live in the 60's) have a problem with patents no matter what. If you want a patent, you are indecent. If you disagree, u r evil, luv M$, drop dead and die!!(10+1).
There are clearly two positions here: one logical and moral, and one illogical and certainly immoral. Insinuating that the OP is indecent because he/she wants to patent something (without evidence that he/she is trying to leech the system), that is certain immoral and pretty f* stupid.
Most of the most belligerent /. posters fall into the later category.
You should probably have kept things simple and just used "Doofus" as your /. username. It would have been punchier and more apt.
Seems like you took a few philosophy courses to attempt to reason your idiocy away, but thankfully the rest of us still see it. Please quit your trolling (and refuse the desire to rightiously claim how ironic it is that a troll is pointing out your trolldom).
Don't they find it confusing to differentiate, then, between decimals that represent commas and decimals that represent decimals?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
it's like 500 bucks for a lone inventor.
Paying someone to do a patent search is expensive. An expense that's not longer justified, BTW.
Just patent it; which is a for of publishing.
Yes, it might get rejected. OTOH, you can research it yourself pretty decently in a week end and up your odds.
When patented, you get the added advantage of saying you ahve a patent; which in important to a lot of people with money.
Looks good to investors, looks good to employers, looks good to clients.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Most slashdot-ers would look at this in a "Patent is evil" kind of way and dismiss the question all together. I'm not sure it's that simple.
I don't see a patent as a way to protect your IP, but more as a way to protect you and your family from patent trolls. The current state of the US patent office shows us that not patenting could land you and your big idea in court fighting to prove that it's actually your idea. I would suggest if you have an idea worth patenting, you are serious about developing it, and you can find the money to actually patent it, you probably should. If someone comes out with a similar product based on a similar concept a few weeks/years later, then you have to gauge that hurdle when you get there, but most of the time, unless it's a blatant "he stole that idea from my work bench and duplicated it ad has now made billions from it" type of case (that would be stealing), then I don't really see a whole lot of point fighting it. It is quite possible for 2 people on opposite sides of the country/world to have the same idea at roughly the same time, without prior communication or knowledge of the other persons idea.
So the way I see it, if you patent your idea, you aren't patenting it to protect Joe Blow @ China industries from reproducing a half-baked copy, you are registering your idea so Joe Blow can't reproduce your idea and then turn around and patent troll you all the way to court.
And on the topic of patent morality, if you create something and spend time developing it, you deserve some sort of renumeration for your time and effort. IMO. Patenting it is just a step along the way that needs to happen to protect hard working people and their ideas from patent trolls and "I created it first" law suits. Unfortunately it's a broken system that needs to be fixed, but it's still the only one inventors have right now to protect their ideas from being stolen.
Opinions? Is there any other reason you would patent an idea other than what I've already suggested?
1) make
2) publish
3) watch a company in china crank out millions of them
4) cry
Patent AND publish.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
if we can not justify a the price of patent.
Publish it in some (news)paper that no one reads.
Then you can block a later patent by showing prior art.
Or is there a place you can register the a paper with the idea in a public office in the legal system.
(I do not live in USA.)
File a provisional patent application, only $100 if you're a small entity; requires disclosures, but not claims, and you have one year to begin the patent prosecution process. See 35 USC Section 111(b).
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
You're assuming you have a patentable idea. If you actually have a patentable idea, then by all means patent it and get rich.
However I have to warn you: Most ideas are completely worthless. The odds say that you have an unrealistic estimation of the value of your "invention." My guess is that a thousand other people had the exact same idea yesterday at lunch and then dismissed it as something not worth pursuing. Then another thousand had the idea at dinner, etc.
Suggestion: Instead of wasting your time asking Slashdot, go make whatever it is you think you invented. You'll probably discover at least a dozen "issues" that need to be solved before it can be brought to market. Spend some time working on those issues. You'll probably find more issues as you go. Lather, rinse, repeat. Then ask us again a year or two from now when you finally have a working implementation of whatever it is you think you just invented.
p.s. I'd bet dollars to donuts that at least two other people reading this "Ask Slashdot" already have a working implementation of your idea.
When you file a patent you have to disclose your invention. This means that others can legally invent similar things as long as it doesn't quite overlap your claims. Also, the patent expires after about 20 years after which your invention is disclosed to the public and is no longer protected.
A trade secret is another way to protect intellectual property. If you take proper measures to keep your idea secret, like making people sign non-disclosure agreements if you share your idea with them, your invention is legally protected for as long as you keep it secret. No fees, no disclosure, no expiration date.
This is why patents are good and promote innovation. They create an avenue for inventors to share their ideas AND protect them. If patents were taken away everything would be trade secret. As a result there would be far less sharing of ideas out there.
Actually, if you keep a good notebook of your work that's dated and signed by yourself, and for extra precauction a "reader's signature" of a second, unrelated party, it doesn't matter if your publish your work, you can still prove that you have precedent and can challenge any patents lawsuits filed at a later time and take over the patent for yourself.
No need to file or publish as long as you keep good notes. Of course, if you thought it was a million dollar idea, why are you not patenting it? Also, you have up to 1 year after publishing work to file a patent on it. One year after publishing it's up for grabs. So if you think you only need a year to find out if it's a million dollar idea and not spend the pennies on patenting it, you can publish it. If you can't end up marketing it, at least you have increased the knowledge base of humanity, for which your name will forever be lauded and praised.
well, if you are to market, they will ahve a hard time with a paten case against you.
The real risk is some company making millions of them and charging below your costs for the product.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Less than 10% of the profit-stream is attributable in my experience to patent technologies. True value is that other 90% brought to the market by the corporation in design, development, marketing and support.
Waaay toooo much emphasis is placed upon technology in the value chain of venture building capital. Toooooo little protection is afforded by USPTO to protect by patent alone the great ideas and inventions.
Sell the idea/tech to the VC community who are best equipped to monetarize a marketplace solution to the problem you've solved. A 10% or less share after all is said and done is huge for the inventor.
You can apply for a patent online in Europe. www.epoline.org. You just register and get a smartcard identification + reader sent to your home. This is free by the way. Imagine that. You then write a patent. There is all sorts of documentation on how to do this properly and you have loads of examples of patents online. For a Dutch patent you pay 80 euro. That is it, no that is not a typo. You know what it cost at a patent bureau. 5000,- for 15 sheets of paper max. that is some nice profit. So again just cut out the middlemen and especially if it is a lawyer.
Then you're better off patenting it.
More music, fewer hits
I am not the IP lawyer, I have jut dealt with many of them. Whether you patent or keep it a trade secret depends on the idea and the competitive landscape. Who is most likely to violate your patent? If this is a consumer good and the markets are all over the world, will the normal offenders of IP be all over this idea? Some countries have no respect for your patents. Then, you are merely enabling competition. Do your potential customers value patents? If you are going to be selling to governments or psuedo government in developed countries, you probably want to patent it. If you are selling to consumers then it is questionable whether you should educate your copiers. If it is a broad patent and it is enabling then you probably want to patent it. Through a patent application, you are teaching everyone essentially how to copy you. If they don't respect your patent then you have just enabled a nasty competitor. If the patent has narrow claims then you may think about whether you should or should not patent. If you already have a broad patent coverage then you discover other inventions related to the previous patents then you may want to keep it a secret to not everyone know what the solutions are to various problems they will encounter trying to copy your idea. Try sending people down the wrong alleys trying to chase you.. If you have an improvement to prior art, previous disclosures or patents, and the idea is being commercialize or is commercial, patent it. You can more easily liscence the new idea. Lastly, if you going to raise money from investors to commercialize the product, then you will be better off with a patent. If you going to sell your company to a larger comany, what are they going to be buying? You can sell cash flow and customers, but if you intend to sell during commercialization phase, you need an IP portfolio.
I've heard a rumor before about documenting your idea thoroughly, and then sending it to yourself via certified mail and leaving it unopened. That way, there's a legal timestamp proving that the idea was yours. I'm not sure how well it may hold up in court, though.
While I'd question the value in responding to trolls like this one, I do feel the need to congratulate you on the use of the phrase "ideologotardic nonsense". I don't think Webster's could have said it better!
I like http://www.edisonnation.com/ For about $20 you can submit an idea to product searches that various companies sponsor. If your idea is accepted you will receive a percentage of royalties.
Likewise, for about $200 http://www.lambertinvent.com/index.php?content=home will evaluate your idea and develop it if accepted. I don’t think the fee covers their expense as they are genuinely looking for ideas to commercialize.
Other companies will develop a prototype of anything you bring them for tens of thousands of dollars with no consideration of the ideas merit. http://www.davison.com/
I believe the only unavoidable cost of getting a patent is the filing fee (and the issuing fee, if it's accepted), but that only amounts to a few hundred dollars. There are maintenance fees every few years, and while these are a bit more expensive, it's not an insurmountable expense. All the prior work research and everything can be done by an individual, assuming they're determined and resourceful, although depending on the nature of the patent that could get real tricky.
This is true, and I like to see people doing things on their own as much as possible. But the unfortunate truth in this case is that writing a good patent is actually quite hard, and I'd hate to see the OP put a great deal of work into an invention, another great deal of work into writing the patent, and a bit more money into filing fees only to have nothing to show for it but an easily circumventable patent and $0.00 in royalty payments because of it. If you really think your invention might be valuable, hire a patent lawyer. It will be worth it. Yes, they're expensive, but they're highly paid (in part) because they're highly skilled and their job is actually very difficult.
caritj.org
No to the second part-- if you publish before they file the patent, their patent filing won't help them, the patent is invalidated by prior art (=your publication).
/quote>
Once a patent is granted in the US, I believe that you have to find prior art that predates the filing submission date by 1 year.
My company has exactly this problem where a US agency created a requirement. We developed a solution, but so did our competitor, who managed to get a patent (we didn't think that the idea was patentable since we'd been doing something similar for many years). Unfortunately, because we don't have any marketing material that is early enough, and our internal documents are all <1year before the patent filing, we're stuck with being unable to exploit our work.
Don't know how easy it would be to reverse engineer your idea but if it would be prohibitively difficult you could always take the WD-40 route.
WD-40's formula is a trade secret. The product is not patented in order to avoid completely disclosing its ingredients.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
As someone that actually went through this experience. Write your paper and your patent. Submit your paper, and submit a provisional patent. The patent is now pending. If your paper is popular, then you can make a decision to patent.
This bullshit opinion that spewing out ideas deserves a guaranteed revenue stream needs to end.
From the sewing machine industry to the aircraft industry in the past to patent trolls and software patents today, a system that is supposed to "promote useful science and art" ends up deterring development. The process of inventing goes well beyond scribbling some vague idea or concept on paper and filing the paperwork that allows you to sue anyone who goes beyond their scribblings.
Ooh, I like your idea. How expensive do you think it would be to get that kind of system here in the US?
Do this - publish your idea in the most obscure way possible. ... I kid you not - this is advice I've had from multiple patent attorneys. It protects your idea, and is nearly free, without much chance of tipping off your competitors.
How does this protect your idea? IANAL, but it's my understanding that a public disclosure immediately invalidates your non-US patent rights, and starts a one-year clock ticking on the filing period for a US patent. The obscurity of your disclosure may prevent others from learning of your idea, but not disclosing it at all will have the same effect; neither method will prevent others from utilizing the idea, should they learn of it.
...but their implementations do. Except for rare cases, profit is directly proportional to the amount of effort put in implementation and marketing of your idea. Therefore:
1) publish the idea. Odds are, no one will pay attention to it anyway.
2) start working on its implementation, get the details figured out, remove the obstacles
3) start making a fuss about it, attract attention
4) if someone else tries to patent it, they can't: idea is not original because your initial publication is prior art
If you make money in this endeavor, bonus. If not, you'll have learned many things, perhaps made new friends, found partners, attracted some attention, made yourself a name, found a goal in life, etc.
Yeah, and if you end up in court the lawyer fees there are going to be crazy expensive too.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Ideas on their own are a dime a dozen, and a lot of people get all crazy when thinking that their ideas are worth something, and need patenting, protecting, secrecy, etc.
Ideas are easy and incredibly overrated. Bringing the idea to something that can be sold, and then actually selling it, is the hard part.
So unless you have a real interest in pursuing this as a business, don't waste your money. If you have some interest, but aren't sure, then spend the $100 or so on a provisional patent. That buys you a year of time to see if there's a viable market.
Someone needs to mod this up.
Oh quit the moral bullshit, people need to eat too and rent isn't free.
I think the point is if you are willing to publish it, you are also not just willing but wanting to allow others to build / profit / share it.
if the concept is awesome, and you publish, then part of your goal is to see others build it and perhaps sell it....
I understand the guy wants to get a job from it or make money from it. The key then would be to patent then publish....
In early days you were required to have a patent lawyer in order to perform a thorough search of the archives. They gave you the template and you wrote in the substance. You no longer need this http://www.google.com/patents/ has all the patents listed in a very searchable format. you can do the search your self find all references and using legal zoom file the patent yourself. You don't even have to mail it there are patent offices all over the place. In my experience (or should I say research) you have a better review process as an individual with a will written an researched patent than a lawyer. I'm also desperately trying to find the answer to this question, one that has prevented me for years from acting on what I believe is a useful idea. One helpful fact for me is the proposed problem that my patents attempts to address has been patented several times. So I simply (hopefully) is site the reference use there example to propose my idea.
In some industries its publish or perish.
For one case there was a device invented by a woman I know to aid in moving patients about in a hospital bed. It improves patient safety and staff safety. She was told that because she patented it, the companies would wait out her patent even though she was not seeking significant money for the idea. Profit for her would have been having a safer job.
Publishing would have been better, establishing prior art is sometimes more important since it encourages competition. Patenting however protects an idea that you are able to implement and use, reducing competition for a period of time.
Phil
Laugh, it's good for you!
To add to the points made above. Its NOT expensive to start this process, and you can build it so the cost is under control, and the bigger chunks of $$ come only later (when you are more confident of the business potential and you want to spend the money). Specifically: 1. it does not matter whether you are a US citizen or not, you can still file a provisional patent in the USPTO and get full rights 2. As people said, a provisional for a small entity costs $110 these days and can be done from the USPTO website 3. even better - there is an international process that allows you to patent worldwide country by country. Its expensive, so do not start with it. But going to the USPTO and filing a provisional counts for "setting the start date" for that entire process (!) So if you decide to do it later - you will be happy you started small. 4. even a non-provisional patent is not too expensive to start. You can do it yourself (!) To be honest the lawyers are more necessary here since the exact wording is more important - but see next point. 5. you can word both the provisional and non-provisional yourself, and get a lawyer only when the patent office sends you the inevitable challenges and questions (about 1-2 years after you started the process). I know someone who does it that way and he gets the real "biggest bang for the buck". Good luck. And don't worry about the "patents are evil" crowd. You have plenty of good company coping with the same questions.
For lone/small-scale inventors, it's all academic once the lawyers are introduced. Patent system is only for corporations with fat legal dept, and the small players lose once the first suit is filed.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Get a job with IBM. They'll patent anything.
From an examiner: no matter what people may have said before me, or the differing philosophical ideas out there on the subject... if you publish your idea, its gone. Everyone then essentially owns it. That is the key thing to remember. If you go down the road and later think you want a patent after all (over a year), your own publishing of your idea will be used as prior art against you and you are done. If you don't care about ever receiving any financial benefit from your idea, then by all means publish it. Otherwise, save your money, do your research, and apply as soon as you are able. Do the application well the first time, use an attorney who follows your directions but who knows the process, and go from there. Good luck.
"This technology stuff is just plum crazy!"
That's why, when you mail your paper/patent application, you print off a second copy, stick in another envelope and mail it to your self. Then you take the sealed envelope with the postmark and put in a safe deposit box. That postmark is proof of a date.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
my good friend works for a patent lawyer revising his clients' submissions to the patent office.
He says that a patent usually gets rejected 10 or so times before it is accepted.
The office will likely tell you that there is already a similar existing patent or that you have not proven its uniqueness thoroughly. Each visit to your lawyer costs big mulah I assume
There is a service that will protect your idea called StampYourDocuments.com. It's one thing to invent something first, it's another thing to prove you invented it first. Bear in mind that stamping your idea on StampYourDocuments.com is not a panacea. Even if you invent first, you may lose your rights if you aren't diligent in pursuing your invention or publishing it.
Really, I'm not trying to be clever with my signature.
A good patent might not make you any money, but a published article might get you a good job. Plus; you do the world a favor by helping it and not limiting it. If you do not have a huge law firm, which you do not have, and a huge amount of money then I'd say publish! This increases your chance of getting a good amount of money and you'd be helphing in making the world a bit better to live in! :)
Here be signatures
I'm going to get flamed by the usual losers for this, but anyway...
I hold three software patents. One was sold as part of a deal that made me several million dollars back in the 1980s. One made me $600,000 in licensing fees. I'm pursuing an infringement claim against DoD on the third. I also have another patent pending. I put "Inventor" on my tax return.
Each of these patents was an early patent in an area where previous attempts to solve the problem had failed. In each case, the patented technology came with a working application or a successful demo. So these weren't just "ideas", they were ideas that worked. That's when patents are worthwhile - you've solved a hard problem, you're not with a big enough company to exploit it, and doing a startup doesn't seem to be the right answer.
The key point here is that a patent plus a demo version is more valuable than either alone.
This history isn't all that unusual here in Silicon Valley.
Here's why: Your patent only protects you in the country in which you register it, meaning that to retain control of your product you may need to file separately in each jurisdiction - Canada, USA, UK, etc. Also, it is a common misconception that a patent protects you from someone stealing your idea and using it commercially. This is not the case. What the patent does, is afford you legal standing so that when you happen to discover someone who has stolen your idea and used it commercially, you can subsequently sue them for compensation. Not only does this necessitate being proactive in researching possible violations on a continual basis, but should you discover an infringement, the subsequent process in the courts is generally much more expensive than the cost of the patent, and these costs must be considered in any cost/benefit analysis of a patent application. Having a patent without the resources or the means to enforce it is as good as not having the patent at all. Finally, your patent remains valid for a definite time period, after which time the intellectual property of the patent falls into the public domain. The idea here is to give an inventor a reasonable opportunity to recover development costs and make some money on a commercial implementation of the patent material, but to eventually let the intellectual property into the public domain in order to further the sum body of knowledge and technological development. By contrast, if the details of your invention can be obscured in a manner that prevents reverse-engineering, retaining your invention in the form of a trade-secret is often a better choice, as the secret lasts indefinitely - providing you with the opportunity to profit from the invention for as long as you can successfully keep the details out of the public domain.
LOL, I was wondering when some imbecile would bring up the "poor man's patent".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
While I'd question the value in responding to trolls like this one, I do feel the need to congratulate you on the use of the phrase "ideologotardic nonsense". I don't think Webster's could have said it better!
The sad thing is that these turdtards aren't really trolls, but actually buy into this quasi-Stallman koolaid.
But there is value in replying dude... imagine if I hadn't, I wouldn't have produce such a descriptive gem!!
The patent system is a travesty. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Coming up with an idea is 0.1% of the work. Working out the idea is about 1% to 10% of the work. It is bringing the idea to the market and selling it that takes the final hard push. I have brought many of my inventions to market and that is where I made the money. I did not patent a single one - Waste of money and time.
...and then try to sell it. A provisional patent is good for a year.
BTW Patenting is publishing.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
This may be the best frist psot thread slashdot has ever had.
Secret Plan for 2012: elect Bobby Jindal (gov, Louisiana) as president, then offshore that job to India.
The "natural right" to recognition applies as far as you take steps to see your name attached. You have the right to tell everyone that it was your idea and to take action against those who fraudulently claim otherwise. You do not have a right to any sort of financial gain as a result of your idea. Once ideas are shared they become the property of everyone who experiences them. One cannot unlearn that information. "Intelectual Property" laws are a legal fiction to pander to one's sense of entitlement for engaging in an endeavor that would have been performed anyway. Note that I did not say that one should NOT be compensated, just that it's not a right.
little guy with patents and such? I forget his name.
Ideas for products or services are not valuable: they are dime-a-dozen. The only ideas that are valuable are scientific breakthroughs. Product or service ideas are not valuable because the real challenge is to overcome the barriers to implementing an idea. The barriers include patent procedures, development costs, marketing costs, competition from entrenched players, etc. It is an unfair world in this regard, because established companies have a tremendous advantage; and if it were easy everyone would be inventing all the time because lots and lots of people have ideas. If you can overcome the challenges of filing a patent, then you might have something - if the idea is a good one. Even better, produce and market the product or service. That's the real challenge. Thinking of an idea is not a challenge. And no, no one will pay you for your good ideas unless you are a proven producer of ideas that have made money.
You want David Pressman's famous book "Patent it Yourself." You can get almost-up-to-date editions at any public library or buy the latest cheap at any major book seller. Pressman thoroughly answers your question.
If you patent, it'll be expensive.
If you don't patent, but end up making it, someone else will patent it and sue you, that will be more expensive.
However, if it'll never really be marketable, publish, someone might think oooo nifty, and hire you because it sounds great.
Great idea. Put all the time, effort and money into creating the technology. Then upon completion give it away to someone else so they can make money from it. If you are lucky they might hire you to work some menial job for them and spit you out when it's convenient.
I have never understood the attitude on here that just the act of getting a job somewhere is considered some amazing feat. Please correct me if I have mis-interpreted your post.
I'm having trouble following the logic here. How would he not be able to profit off of an idea that others are able to profit from? Can he not do the same thing with that idea that the others would do, and compete with them?
Ideas aren't physical objects. When you give it away, you still have it.
Simple - there is no imaginable way he would be able to compete with a large multi-national with massive marketing, sales and development budgets with established customers.
The question is also where do you publish?
I prefer Youtube. Signed, dated, and viewed by 25,000+ people?
Good luck patenting something like 10/GUI after so many have watched that video! If a company like Microsoft comes out with something remarkably similar, we'll all know where they got the idea.
Hey, paper can be forged, but cached sites don't lie about dates. ;)
If it's truly a new idea, then there are no established competitors. He will be the first, and the competition will follow.
Of course, this entire discussion hinges on the ridiculous belief that ideas are worth something. They're not. Every moron has a million ideas. Implementation is everything. If he can't/won't implement the idea, then he doesn't have anything of any value anyway.
Every moron may have a million ideas but there is a big difference between saying "I think a flying car would be a great idea" and "I think a flying car would be a great idea and here is a way I have used the earth's electromagnetic fields to power the car and here are the plans for a prototype". Now the developer of the prototype may not have the capital to go to market with their idea but there is nothing immoral about them making some money from their groundbreaking work.
Do you want a career in industry?
A patent or two doesn't look bad on a resume.
Do you want a career in academia?
A paper or two doesn't look bad on a CV.
Do you want to make lots of money?
Forget inventing and get an MBA.
I've got a theory (or rather, 7-9 theories in a bundle that works together) that may vastly decrease the cost of page layout when producing a newspaper by semi-automation of the process. I'm thinking on maybe investing my own money by purchasing programming services on e.g. Rentacoder or a similar place or just publishing the theories.
:P
As I'm unsure of how good the theories will work before I have a practical solution, and I not wanting to quit my job (in a newspaper...), or invest all my money, I'm still pondering what to do.
On the other side, if it works and I publish it, the cost of producing a newspaper (on paper) will decrease and the world will get more newspapers (or fewer bankrupcies) which is good.
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Rupert Murdoch, I need an investment
Once a patent is granted in the US, I believe that you have to find prior art that predates the filing submission date by 1 year.
Nope.
But you do have to show a publication that shows the prior art that predates their invention, not just their filing date.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Dood... like everyone else who thinks they have some great idea: you don't. Publish it on your blog that nobody reads and get back to your job at WalMart.
Contrary to wide-spread smears, Sarah Palin has never banned a book. Nope...
You have been lied to, believed it, and now spread the disinformation... Please, stop. Thank you.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This merely postpones the decision for up to one year. If you do go this route, you should probably publish it too, to prevent someone else from patenting the same thing in the meantime.
Well DoD, the trolls with mod points are apparently out in force today. Don't let the Ayn Rand/Sarah Palin acolytes get you down. A bunch of us out here still understand the point you're making.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Publish == play the politics to get what you want (and if it's not en-vogue among the academics... forgetaboutit).
Patent == play the dollars to get what you want (and if you don't have enough investors/$$$ lined up... forgetaboutit).
The system is so intertwined that it's not worth it either way. At least open sourcing it, you can get street credit, and maybe become a successful consultant, but no real protection in the end.
If you choose to patent software, may the fleas of 10,000 camels infest your armpits.
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Inventors and Inventions Feed @ Feed Distiller
Havent U read ur constiitution 2.0
Patenting is expensive. So far. Over $40,000 in fees.
It will take a long time. Patent office has BIG BIG backlog.
I filed a provisional in 2004. Filed patent 2005. Finally heard from patent office 2008.
First office action. It is obvious. Rejected. Sent revision.
Second office action. Still obvious. Rejected.
Third reply. Set up telcon with examiner. Me. Patent Agent. Examiner. Clarified claims. Sent telcon agreement.
Last office action. You may have a second patent in your claims. Replied.
Waiting for next office action.
Patenting an integrated pointing keyboard. Pointing has same performance as a stand-alone mouse.
A user can point, click, type, scroll, delete, backspace, and esc all from the home row in any order simultaneously. Both hands on keyboard.
Developing a gaming keyboard. Both hands on keyboard.
User has complete control of the computer screen.
Stand alone mouse and keyboard. Old technology.
Applying from patents in USA, China, Japan, Europe, and Korea.
Did market research. Have met Microsoft, Kinesis, Razer, and Goldtouch keyboard people. They are still trying to perfect the stand-alone mouse and keyboard.
Background. Working on Phd in advanced input technology and interfaces.
Made business plan.
VCs want to much of company.
Will make keyboard myself. About $200,000.
Use prototype keyboards for stock trading as a retail stock trader from bedroom trading room everyday.
Will self fund keyboard from stock trading.
Put up all trades in real time on twitter. One trade. Up 6000%. Took half at 3000%. Other half. 2000%. $0.07 to over $4.00 on 1000 shares bp.
Monday the 12th covered position 1300%. $0.10 to $1.40 1000 shares cern.
Other past trades: ba: 500% , ntes 300%.
I put all my trades up on twitter to show that all you need to make money trading is a trading account. Everything else is free from the library or on the internet.
There is no secret sauce to trading and making money.
With a complete trading plan, a trader can continuously make more money than one loses.
With a retail trading account, trading from a bedroom trading room, my trading buddy went from $50,000 to $6,000,000.
Then went down to below $1,000,000. No complete trading plan.
A patent is a trade. You will make money or not.
If you think you idea is patentable, put up the money and do it.
Know your field really well.
from the "father of the perfect keyboard"
inputexpert twittering as stocktradr
Patenting system used to be both: a mean of protecting your invention for given time, and a way to publish your invention and science behind it so that other people can read it. It used to be a way of spreading knowledge. This was a fair deal and your question in early XX century wouldn't make any sense.
Now, that the patent system evolved -- you need to ask yourself a question if it's worth using! You, inventor! This system was ment to serve you and promote progress. If it's not doing it's job anymore -- why does it exist in this form?
Patenting something IS Publishing it, when the patent expires anyone has the capability of seeing how the device was put together and improving/developing the design. Which is the whole point of the patent system, a short term monopoly for the long term public good.
Perhaps I should have made myself clearer. I believe that if you actually invent and make a working version you should be allowed to profit from your ideas without fear that a big corporation with manufacturing capabilities way, way beyond your own can simple steal your idea and make money from it. I don't believe that you should be able to sit down, patent the concept of breathing or some ridiculous software concept and sue anyone who comes close to your unimplemented, general ideas.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
Oh I totally agree. I have no sympathy for patent trolls, or bullshit companies created simply to find existing or likely future technologies that aren't patented, patent them without any intention of actually doing anything productive and sit back planning their lawsuits. They're the ones ruining the system for real people. However, some of the idiotic masses here on /. have the rather dim-witted opinion that any and all patents are evil, and that we should live in some communist utopia where all ideas belong to the people, and anyone trying to rise above their peers and secure an opportunity to contribute something to mankind, without fear that someone will simply come along and steal it, is evil.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
"If my ideas are indeed valuable, what is the best way to gain anything from them without investing too much financially? " If they're valuable, you wont care what the upfront is, because you're hoping to make a return. Quit being such a loser.
Slashdot News: As serious as a busted rubber
In the US, ... you've still got a year after publication to make a provisional filing, but you also get a year after the provisional filing before the full application.
This is wrong on both counts. If you choose to file a provisional patent to establish the priority date, you should file before publication or other enabling disclosure. Whether you file a provisional or not, you have until one year after public disclosure to file the utility patent application.
Unless you are experience with manufacturing the type of item you are talking about or running business in general, license the idea and move on. I know someone who had 24 toys licensed (this was several years ago). All he does is come up with toy ideas and get checks. That leaves him a lot of time to get into trouble... ..."oh, lets build a rocket to take me up so I can parachute out of it."
If you got the patent, is the idea marketable?
If it is marketable, you can get mall business lines of credit to use for the patent process.
The downside is that you then have to pay this money back. So, only do this if you can patent it and then immediately sell the license to someone who can produce it. Many of the lines have 6 month grace periods and that would be just long enough to the the patent finished.
As someone already mentioned, you can also do this without the patent. You just need to keep copious notes and do them the right way. You can probably find books on protecting your intellectual property in the library. Read them.
Personally, I would use what ever money you save on the patent to spend on a good lawyer for your negotiations.
In the end, you will get more money from a license if you patent the idea.
Jeff Miller
http://www.assistsolar.com
http://businesscredittips.weebly.com