I pinged you, Howlin, because of your expertise in matters of law.
I pinged you, Howlin, because of your expertise in matters of law.
It took months and months to get my patent. The *easiest* path is the provisional patent, which lets you stamp "patent pending" on your product for a year while you pursue the full patent.
Read "Patent Pending In 24 Hours" by David Pressman.
I'm a patent attorney. Any specific questions?
It usually takes a little while to get a patent application written, but it can take years to actually get a patent after filing the application.
The first year provisional is relatively cheap, but later it costs more and international is major.
You need a patent attorney, and one that knows your field for the patent which may seem a dime a dozen but they don't always know the filed as good as you and claims are weird lawyer legalese.
Best idea is find a good trustable lawyer you can communicate with and that understands you and explains to you and more importantly listens to you and your questions.
And save your money for the fees. The more pages the bigger.
Initially, again, do the provisional where you don't actually have to put in claims. It gives you a year to file final patent and PCT (see www.wipo.org).
Your priority date goes back to the provisional application date so if you want to protect your IP now but aren't ready to file do the provisional.
And save money for fees.
Did I say to save money for fees? Lawyer fees and application fees.
And illustrations and other peripheral information has to be done in specific formats. You will have a chance to correct it if it is wrong, but you may have to shell out for professionals to do it.
Did I mention save money for stuff like this?
Filing the patent is easy.
bump to read later, out of curiosity ...
I've had an idea for a product but don't know what to do with it.
From what I've heard, it's almost a waste of time unless you have the backup/resources to do a lot of R & D, and actually make the product?? There's no way I can do that on my own.
Or should I just file for a trademark for the name I had to go with it, then try to sell the trademark?
Anyway, this should be a very informative thread.
bttt
(1) It will either be expensive, or you'll (at best) get a worthless document that any competitor can design around easily. There is a huge difference between a good and a bad patent.
(2) You need to do a business plan before shelling out the money. Is anyone going to pay you to use your method? Be serious about this. I see alot of people get patents that are, in the end, like expensive versions of the vanity license plates on cars. Great ideas, but no business case for it.
(3) I'm not a fan of provisionals. If its all you got the cash for, do one, and that year will give you time to decide if the business case in (2) makes sense to spend more. However, I'm a litigator, and I absolutely love it when the patent asserted against my client stemmed from a provisional. People say all kinds of stupid things in them, because they file them before getting an attorney (or without being willing to pay the attorney to do a good job on it). Everything you say in there can and will be used against you. Worse, if you fail to say enough, that will also be used against you (you have a duty of full disclosure to the PTO). You need GOOD legal counsel if your patent is to have worth.
Also, with provisionals, some people recommend them because you don't have to write claims. I consider that foolish. The claims are what gives you the right to exclude others. They are the operative part of the patent. Problem is, the patent MUST fully support what you plan to claim. So, if you draft your provisional, but don't draft the claims, how do you know if you've properly explained how to do the process you are claiming? It may seem silly, but its a very real problem with some provisionals. They don't support the invention that is eventually claimed, and thus you lose your priority claim to the earlier provisional date.
Anyway, if you do a provisional, don't consider it a rough draft, go at it professionally. Pay now or pay later.
(4) All that said, you can save yoursself lots of money in some ways. Go to the pto website: http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html You can search to see if others have patented similar ideas. You can search both patents, and published applications. You can also do a first draft of the patent application. Print out a couple patents in your field and draft up something with that as a model. Your attorney will still have to spend lots of time fixing it, but fixing a bad first draft is alot cheaper than writing the first draft from scratch (IMHO).
patent
You want to patent a vanity? :-)
Anyways, I invented an electronic circuit, but I didnt patent it. Rather, I just drew out a rough sketch of it with pen and paper, dated it, and sent it to myself certified mail.