Good point. I had forgotten about the PPA (Provisional Patent Application). Using the forms on the USPTO site, I filed one myself as I continued to look for a good patent attorney. Total cost: $210. There's very little down-side to filing a PPA, except for the fact that the world gets to see your idea. HOWEVER, the filing of the PPA draws your legal line in the sand and establishes the date of your invention against all other claims - if, of course, your patent is granted. So VoteWord was officially out there in June of 2004 via a PPA, but the patent wasn't granted until this year.
Having just patented my voting-related invention (www.voteword.org) I can tell you that I spent a lot of time on the USPTO web site making sure I was the first person in that neck of the technology woods. I also purchased a relatively inexpensive book called "Patent it Yourself", which I had hoped would guide me through the process (and probably would've, if I had had more time) After running into those time constraints, I decided to ask around for patent attorneys. I'm very glad I did, because I found a good one and I'm now patented (Patent # 6991161 - woop!) and moving forward with the oh-so-much-less-fun part of it: marketing. In sum: time, time, time, time. And some money.
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Good point. I had forgotten about the PPA (Provisional Patent Application). Using the forms on the USPTO site, I filed one myself as I continued to look for a good patent attorney. Total cost: $210. There's very little down-side to filing a PPA, except for the fact that the world gets to see your idea. HOWEVER, the filing of the PPA draws your legal line in the sand and establishes the date of your invention against all other claims - if, of course, your patent is granted. So VoteWord was officially out there in June of 2004 via a PPA, but the patent wasn't granted until this year.
Having just patented my voting-related invention (www.voteword.org) I can tell you that I spent a lot of time on the USPTO web site making sure I was the first person in that neck of the technology woods. I also purchased a relatively inexpensive book called "Patent it Yourself", which I had hoped would guide me through the process (and probably would've, if I had had more time) After running into those time constraints, I decided to ask around for patent attorneys. I'm very glad I did, because I found a good one and I'm now patented (Patent # 6991161 - woop!) and moving forward with the oh-so-much-less-fun part of it: marketing. In sum: time, time, time, time. And some money.