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Finding an Intellectual Property Patent Lawyer?
KFury asks: "With the recent questions on how to approach a VC firm and how to respond to a trademark cease and desist letter, I thought this question might be relevant. I'm looking for a reliable, relatively inexpensive patent lawyer specializing in Internet patents. With spam coming every week asking inventors to disclose their ideas to fly-by-nite companies, I'm a little concerned about going to just anyone with patent applications. Do any fellow slashdotters have experience with a particular attorney or firm that they can either recommend or warn people away from? All help is infinitely appreciated."
KFury also made this generous offer: "If this story is posted and I go with a firm reccomended by the readership, I will grant Slashdot.org (i.e. Andover.Net) 1% of the royalties earned on this patent.", so if we see any money from this, we'll donate it to the FSF or some other charity that you all decide.
I'd suggest donating the royality to The League for Programming Freedom. Especially if the patent in question is a software patent.
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Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Jeff Kuester, an atlanta based patent/IP laywer has collected some info on this very topic: www.kuesterlaw.com
Its an excellent resource.
1: As was stated, the patent bar is the highest paid area of the law, IP arguably the highest within the group. There is a self-fullfilling prophecy at work that if the atty is not charging you at least $350/hour he is not worth using. This is great for the atty's as long as people keep believing it. It is possible to negotiate fees and incidentials...DO IT. When all is said and done, attys are service providers. You *will* find an atty that will do what you want the way you want it. Don't buy the general "I'm doing you a favor taking your money" routine.
2: Do not necessarily limit yourself to your local. In patent more than most other areas you do not necessarily need to be close to your atty. While it is nice and at times convienent, it can also hit you in the wallet. There is great talent around the country, don't limit yourself to a given neighborhood .
3: This is strictly a personal opinion, but I would focus on small to midsize firms rather than the big guys. From my personal experience I think you will get far better service, generally less multi-client billing issues , and a more flexible structure. Again, remember that the nature of the relationship should be on *your* terms. Far too many people still buy the "lawyers know things I don't know so I should just take the crap s/he dishes out." Negotiate, Negotiate, Negotiate.
I hope this made a bit of sense, I've had no coffee, the day is young and my brain is not yet on good terms with the rest of me.......
rootrot
I'm sorry, and I'll probably get downed for this, but I have to react to all the bullshit I have read in the earlier discussions of this nature (particularly the one about rasing venture capital).
Do we only support the open source and free software ideals when it fits us, just to conveniently forget them as soon as we have an idea we feel we could profit off? Why are the same people who complain about the way that patents, trade-secrets, and NDA's are stifling the efforts of Linux and other free software, suddenly ready to give advice on how to patent ideas, force NDA's on people, ad infinum? (go back and read the comments in the "how to find a vc" thread for more).
Ask yourself why you are in this game. If all you are after is getting rich you might as well pack up and go home: one idea is never going to be enough (maybe not never, but you might as well play the lottey). If you are in it for the sake of humanity and that of your idea, then you KNOW it is best off if you let it fly freely. I know we are born into the box that patenting your idea and taught to wing-clip our invovations, but this is slashdot for gods sake: we spend our time PREACHING that this is not the way to it.
Why can't we live up to that?
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We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
You may as well ask a bunch of animal rights activists "where can I get a really good juicy steak".
Software patents are evil (I have 4, but that was when I was young and naive), internet software patents are worst of all. Use source code escrow to prevent some other bastard from filing and then suing you, then just get on with trying to make some money. You can't play the patent game without serious funds backing you up in the first place. Patents are not the friend of the start-up, everything is stacked in favor of the big boys. Have you ever heard of a "patent ring" - you own a valuable patent, but the multinational that wants it takes out patents on all specific uses for the patent, or on all ways of reaching the point where your patent is applicable.
Lastly, "relatively inexpensive patent lawyer specializing in Internet patents" - yeah, good one. Does anyone know where I can find a relatively cheap, diamond encrusted rolex. If they do, it's almost certainly a fake.
"If you are in it for the sake of humanity and that of your idea, then you KNOW it is best off if you let it fly freely."
Sorry, I disagree strongly about this. While I respect GPL (et. al), I know that far many more innovations come into this world by force of personality -- effort and will. In order to get others behind your vision it is neccessary all too often have capital; capital requires intellectual property more often than not.
Open source doesn't see to this. Look at the empirical evidence. In the past year, just how many innovations have open source efforts made? Propietary?
Not every good idea is going to be adopted by the open source zealots. (e.g.: a new interface that is friendly for newbies -- geek antithesis). Even if the goals are deemed worthy, frequently the goals are also deemed unattainable. It is the leader, the primary risk taker, and the entreprenuer that MAKE it happen. How many people do you know that are willing to work on something for a couple years that is seemingly more than likely to completely fail? Damn few.
I suppose I've had the benefit of seeing this entreprenuerial process first hand; I _know_ Open Source simply is not a viable solution in many cases.
1) Because no matter how great your idea is, most times greatness is measured in the execution not the idea.
2) They see lots of ideas come across their desks all the time. Its their Job & Livelihood. They not going to risk it just for your idea. BTW: Everyone thinks that THEIR IDEA is the one that's going to revolutionize the world. IP lawyers have seen it all. There is truly very little that is completely original.
3) Repeat after me: its in the execution.
Poiu
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"Don't anthropomorphize computers. They hate that."
Find out who other Internet companies use for their patents. I'm not sure if the name of the lawyer goes on the patent anywhere--if so, it would be easy to see what sort of work each lawyer does before you hire one. If not, you could call other Internet firms in the area and ask them.
Either way, I would ask any prospective lawyer to give you a sample of patents that the lawyer has filed and have been approved. Anyone who has been in the business two years or longer should have something that was approved that you could look at.
I used to think that just disclosing your idea was the best way to deal with it, then it'd be prior art, right?
But, in the patent-law discussion slashdot had not long ago it was said that you can patent any idea that hasn't been published -more than one year- previously. So, if I publish an idea, there's 12 months in which anyone else can patent my idea.
Not so good.
Anyway, the patent -system- is bad, and you can use patents in a bad way, but -having- a patent is not necessarilly bad. The 'I'll cross license with all comers' model basically undermines the patent ystem and forces predatory patent holders to behave, at least with respect to your own company. And a policy of 'anything meeting OSF guidelines for free software can use this patent royalty free, all others need a contract or cross-license' wouldn't be bad either.
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
In theory, the cost of a patent should be the cost that the US Patent and Trademark Office charges you for all the filing fees. I think it was like $2000 last time I checked their website.
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The problem is that patents (especially intellectual property patents) are not something that you want to do yourself. Nor are they something you want to hire small-time lawyers (paralegals or your law-school buddies) to do. The reason is that if you screw something up, you might have your patent thrown out in court if some big company challenges it.
Think about it, do you really want to bank your entire company on something that you had done by the lowest possible bidder? You need a good foundation to build a company and that means you need to make your patent rock-solid.
Find a patent attorney that works for a major law firm. Those firms pay a lot for extensive malpractice insurance. That means if they mess it up and you end up losing financially, they can probably cover it. Small time firms are probably going to be more like "Gee, sorry I screwed up."
I don't know where this $20,000 price quote is coming from. I recently talked with a couple medium sized firms that specialize in patent law. I was told it would cost around $900 to have a patent agent (someone registered with the patent office and therefore anything you show them is kept confidential) to run a patent search. That's a great starting point. The patent search compares your idea to all the existing patents to see if there are any obvious overlaps. If there are bits and pieces of your idea already in the patent database, then it decreases the chance of getting your patent approved.
OF course, anything that isn't in the database yet (pending) isn't going to be found, so this is not an absolute yes or no (few things are in life). But, it helps prepare you for when you actually submit your patent application.
I was quoted a price of around $4,000 for the actual patent (not including filing fees). The law firms I spoke with were very clear that it could turn out that I submit my patent, and the patent office says "I took X from patent 123 and Y from 234 and created your idea, therefore it's not unique enough to be awarded a patent." At this point, hopefully I'd already know this from the patent search and now be ready to counter with reasons why it's not such an obvious connection or why it's not the same thing.
It all comes down to confidence in your idea. If you think you have a good idea, it makes sense to borrow the money to get the patent. At that point you can rest easy and not wake up in a cold sweat after dreaming that someone beat you to it.
Just my non-lawyer observations based on personal experience.
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Interesting, but I wonder how effective your patents are? Have you ever successfully licensed or defended them?
This sounds like a nice option for open-source advocates who just want to make sure that one of us has the patent on some new idea rather than some big company, but I'm not at all certain these patents will be as effective as a professionally prepared one.
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
I've heard that the best in Canada is Smart and Biggar. I'm not joking about the name either! An organization I'm familiar with hired them, and another large organization that was about to sue them just scampered off with their tail between their legs... from what I've heard.
Good luck!
"Forget world peace. Visualize using your turn signals" - seen on the net somewhere
Whether you go with an attorney or do it yourself, I found the book "Patent It Yourself" by Pressman (Nolo Press) very useful.
Also consider simply making a disclosure to the patent office (you may also want to publish it in other venues, although that isn't necessary). That defends you against future infringement claims if someone else applies for a patent on the same invention after your disclosure, and it's very cheap.
You think that software patents are evil, yet you have FOUR of them? Who cares if you were once young and *evil* in acquiring them? You don't have to keep them.
Open them up. License them out for all comers for free. Donate them to the public domain. Do something other than complain that they're evil, for God's sake!
Nuclear weapons are evil (I have 4, but that was when I was young and naive)...
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