Anyone here ever file a patent? Yeah, it's a vanity.

None ^ | 31 DECEMBER 2004 | R. DeWynne Brown, III

[rdb3]

Okay, FReeps. I have an invention that I want to patent.

My questions to those who have filed for a patent are first, did you have any problems doing so, and two, how long did it actually take?

Your realistic thoughts are appreciated beforehand.

[rdb3]

"Publicly disclose" means you disclose your idea to at least one person without some form of confidentiality in place. If you don't file a patent application within that year, you lose your patent rights.

So I should remain silent on the particulars of it until the paperwork is submitted. Will do.

[patent]

I'm another patent atty. TexasAg1996's comments are good. I'd give him (or another atty) a call. Some of the other comments on the thread I'd disagree with, but that's just my opinion. General rules for patenting:

(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

[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.

So does a regular utility application. That isn't the advantage of a provisional.

[patent]

>>>>What happens if I want to patent a process to make patenting faster?

The USPTO has an entire department of people who hunt down and kill inventors like you. They refuse to make the process go faster. They have created a process for "expediting" an application. Problem is, it takes longer to get your application to expedite approved than it would to get your patent.

patent

[lowbridge]

Anyone here ever file a patent? Yeah, it's a vanity.

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.