Provisional Patents
My girlfriend and I spoke to a patent attorney recently regarding some intellectual property. The meeting itself was somewhat costly, but well worth it. I learned about something very interesting: provisional patent applications.
(Note: I am NOT a lawyer, especially not a patent one, so none of what follows is legal advice. But I found the information, even just at face value and as a mere possibility, to be useful. For these reasons, I'm sharing it here.)
Early on during the meeting, I'm pretty sure the lawyer did some cold reading and made a quick capsule determination about the two of us. In a nutshell, here's what he most likely (and correctly) concluded: "Little to no money." Granted, if that's what he was thinking, he gave absolutely no visible or verbal indication of it. (He was professional about it.)
His advice to us: file a provisional patent application.
Before 1995, if you wanted patent protection, you had to jump through all of the hoops, and as most people are well aware, the patent process is neither simple nor cheap. It's time consuming, and you have to be very methodical. It's a drag to go through the process and spend the money on an idea, especially an idea that might not be a profitable one.
So, about 15 years ago, the US Patent & Trademark Office created the provisional patent. They're relatively easy to prepare (you write one up in plain English, instead of the legalese), you can use photographs of your idea (instead of the patent diagrams, which must be drawn), and it's relatively cheap. ($110 filing fee, at the time I'm writing this.)
If you file a provisional patent, a few things happen:
1. You get to put "Patent Pending" on your stuff. Even though what you've produced isn't actually protected by an actual patent, this might discourage casual thieves.
2. The filing is an official record of when you created your invention. So, if someone else invents your idea next week, your application qualifies as "prior art", which is fancy IP lawyer talk for "they beat you to it".
3. You have a grace period of 12 months to file an actual patent, during which time you can test your idea in the marketplace and see if it's actually worth going to the hassle of a full patent.
Again: NOT legal advice. I've never done this, so I can't offer my own success story as a precedent for the reason why you should consider doing this. If you've got a great idea and have the money, you should hire a lawyer. I think it even pays to hire one to do the provisional patent for you, because then it's less likely you'll screw something up.
But, if you're operating on a shoestring budget, it might be something worth looking into. For general guidance, I found this book to be extremely informative. (It's also an extremely readable look into the way that IP lawyers think about intellectual property.)
(Note: I am NOT a lawyer, especially not a patent one, so none of what follows is legal advice. But I found the information, even just at face value and as a mere possibility, to be useful. For these reasons, I'm sharing it here.)
Early on during the meeting, I'm pretty sure the lawyer did some cold reading and made a quick capsule determination about the two of us. In a nutshell, here's what he most likely (and correctly) concluded: "Little to no money." Granted, if that's what he was thinking, he gave absolutely no visible or verbal indication of it. (He was professional about it.)
His advice to us: file a provisional patent application.
Before 1995, if you wanted patent protection, you had to jump through all of the hoops, and as most people are well aware, the patent process is neither simple nor cheap. It's time consuming, and you have to be very methodical. It's a drag to go through the process and spend the money on an idea, especially an idea that might not be a profitable one.
So, about 15 years ago, the US Patent & Trademark Office created the provisional patent. They're relatively easy to prepare (you write one up in plain English, instead of the legalese), you can use photographs of your idea (instead of the patent diagrams, which must be drawn), and it's relatively cheap. ($110 filing fee, at the time I'm writing this.)
If you file a provisional patent, a few things happen:
1. You get to put "Patent Pending" on your stuff. Even though what you've produced isn't actually protected by an actual patent, this might discourage casual thieves.
2. The filing is an official record of when you created your invention. So, if someone else invents your idea next week, your application qualifies as "prior art", which is fancy IP lawyer talk for "they beat you to it".
3. You have a grace period of 12 months to file an actual patent, during which time you can test your idea in the marketplace and see if it's actually worth going to the hassle of a full patent.
Again: NOT legal advice. I've never done this, so I can't offer my own success story as a precedent for the reason why you should consider doing this. If you've got a great idea and have the money, you should hire a lawyer. I think it even pays to hire one to do the provisional patent for you, because then it's less likely you'll screw something up.
But, if you're operating on a shoestring budget, it might be something worth looking into. For general guidance, I found this book to be extremely informative. (It's also an extremely readable look into the way that IP lawyers think about intellectual property.)