Do any Freepers hold a patent?

self

[djf]

I am curious if any Freepers have a patent. What are the advantages/disadvantages? I have heard that there is a type of "preliminary patent" application thats sets you up well for the regular patent, and puts you into "patent pending" status.

Has anyone gone through the process?

[frankenMonkey]

You want a "Provisional Patent."
Very little if any cost. Check out the Patent Office web site. USPTO.GOV

[The Electrician]

Yes (sort of) - there is a 'Provisional Patent' that, once filed, would allow you to truthfully claim "patent pending" (if they haven't changed the rules lately - I passed the USPTO patent bar exam around fifteen years ago, but never actually worked in the patent field - I am co-inventor on a half dozen issued US patents and a similar number of European patents, but have not independently filed or prosecuted a full patent application on my own and had it granted).

But there are some gotchas - for example, if you file for a provisional patent, it expires after one year, and if you haven't filed a full patent application to follow up on the provisional application in the interim, then you could lose your rights to the invention (I've done that - twice!). Also, there may be complications with getting international recognition of the provisional patent filing date as the 'real' invention date. It is cheap to file for the provisional patent, however, and the rules for doing it are (or at least, they were) much less stringent than for filing a real patent application - the provisional application is not 'examined' by the USPTO, and you are not issued any kind of formal recognition of the filing - but if you're serious about filing the real, complete application, then you would be best served by making the provisional application as close to the final real application as possible - especially since you can not get the benefit of the provisional patent's filing date for the 'real' patent unless what you claim as your invention was actually described in sufficient detail in the provisional application.

So, to make a long story shorter, discussions that I've had with a patent attorney lead me to believe that the downsides to filing the provisional application probably outweigh the possible benefits, but YMMV... Look for the book "Patent it Yourself" (if I'm remembering the title correctly) from Nolo Press for loads of good info...

[thefactor]

i asked this very question a few months ago. basically, it costs a lot of money and takes a bunch of time. but it depends if you have a truly original idea or if you are combining existing technologies or improving a technology.

there is a freeper called "patent". you might want to look him up.

[djf]

Thanks! Provisional, I knew I had heard a bit about it. I just had an idea and STRONGLY, STRONGLY believe that it could sell for some serious bucks.

[Jeff Gordon]

Patents are relatively cheap to acquire. Defending patents is very expensive.

[blam]

I was awarded a number of patents while working for a large electronics company, all the paperwork was handled by company attorneys, etc.

I did learn that 97% of all patent applications are denied on the first pass...at least according to the company attorneys. Another thing I learned is that large companies often trade patents.

[piytar]

Background: I have a couple issued patents and several pending myself. I try to keep up with the relevant law.

Everything you said is 100% correct and applies to the currrent state of the law, as far as I know. (This is NOT legal advice, just my lay understanding of the law.)

Any success monetizing your IP?

[dighton]

Since you ask, I hold a patent on replies to a post.

[djf]

Interesting.

Working for a company, don’t they somehow maintain a kind of vested right into things their employees develop?

See, I’m not in that situation - i thought about this last night right as I was drifting off to sleep.

I googled it and looked at hundreds of pictures of comparative products. None of them even come close. I could easily see some of the largest corporations in the world going into a massive bidding frenzy over it.

The ONLY thing I will say about it - the ONLY thing - is that it is a modification to internal combustion engine design that has only a few more moving parts than a toothbrush, could run on any combustible fuel whatever, and would easily go over 90% efficiency.

Extremely simple and extremely effective.

[Slump Tester]

Here's a chance for me to brag about my late Father.

In addition to being the world's best dad, he was also an engineer's engineer. He had several other patents for regulators and what not on the B52, that he signed over to Westinghouse. All he had was a high school education, and radar training from his time in the Army. He was much sought after when there were problems. He even took my mother to England a couple times to help Rolls Royce iron out some bugs on the generator for the Harrier.

[The Electrician]

Any success monetizing your IP?

In short, 'no' - or at least, not yet and not directly.

I was a cofounder of an Internet startup, and I assigned all of my rights in those patents to the company. It has yet to pay off, although there is still a chance that it will do so down the road.

Strangely, the only real $$ that I've earned so far related to patents was through work that I did as an expert witness in a patent litigation - it seems that lawyers and their associated entourage often make out better than the engineers and inventors (because clearly we live in 'bizarro world' - but that's a discussion for a different time and a different thread)...

[CurlyDave]

I have 20 patents, all assigned to my employer at the time of invention.

All were denied on the first filing, I suspect this is a patent office ploy to see if you are really serious about it.

If you have a really gonzo idea go ahead & pursue it.

From what I read, most of the companies that advertise they are looking for ideas and will help you patent them are shams.

Despite the pitfalls, unless you can self-finance the whole patent process, you may have to find a backer. The only really safe way to do this is to have them sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) prepared by your attorney, not theirs. Do not even attempt to write one up on your own.

Have your own attorney read over anything they want you to sign before you do it.

A fairly inexpensive way to get a “sanity check” on whether your idea is worth pursuing is to get a consulting engineer familiar with the technical field concerned to look at your idea (after the NDA of course).

The very best ideas are ones which are so good, and so blatantly obvious, after being disclosed, that an engineer in the technical field says: “why didn’t I think of that?”

[blam]

"Working for a company, don’t they somehow maintain a kind of vested right into things their employees develop?"

Yup. The employee gets pretty plaques and monetary awards...the amount depends on the value of the patent to the company.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

I don't know much about the patent process, but I recall the Senate took up a bill to change the patent laws several months ago. I seem to recall the changes were going to bring the US patent laws into conformity with international laws.

If I recall it was going to hurt the US garage inventor. The basic flaw was once you applied for a patent, the clock started ticking for you to complete the process. In the meantime the patent was not secret as it used to be. Anyone with deep pockets could review the idea and beat the little guy to the filing deadline. It seems the law was changed to favor international corporations. Since we gave our manufactuing away to China and India. Few were motivated to raise a fuss. No one rioted in the streets.

Do I recall this correctly?

[PugetSoundSoldier]

And just so you know, I have a copyright on the lame “I have a patent on replies” quote... The RIAA will be by shortly to collect for me...:)

To the original poster, your understanding is correct. I hold several patents that I did 90% of the work in filing, using a patent attorney really to help guide me writing the claims so that my coverage was a broad as possible but still specific to the invention (legal interpretation of what I was claiming).

[djf]

The very best ideas are ones which are so good, and so blatantly obvious, after being disclosed, that an engineer in the technical field says: “why didn’t I think of that?”

Thanks! This is exactly that type of idea! It's always been sort of a hobby of mine to take things apart and put them back together, and I'm fairly competent at working on vehicles, computers, etc. So I've seen alot of different types of engineering efforts (some of them guys are gonna be sorry if I ever meet them in an alley!!), and the simplicity of this and lack of moving parts and reliability would be amazing.

[CurlyDave]

The ONLY thing I will say about it - the ONLY thing - is that it is a modification to internal combustion engine design that has only a few more moving parts than a toothbrush, could run on any combustible fuel whatever, and would easily go over 90% efficiency.

I posted before I read this part.

I have a feeling that you might run into that pesky second law of thermodynamics with this one...

Keep your money in your pocket until you have an NDA with a good engineer. Preferably mechanical or chemical.

[econjack]

I wouldn’t call them cheap. I got a patent for some imaging software I wrote back in the early 1990’s and it cost me about $5000 back then. My guess is that it’s even more expensive now.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Well, it’s a bit different from that...

Right now, once you disclose (either by public exhibition or public documentation) you have 12 months to file. After 12 months, you lose the right to patent.

In the US, right now, it is first to invent; proving your timeline of invention can be critical, so KEEP A LAB BOOK, and get weekly (or at worst, monthly) notarizations of a page in chronological order in the book.

The rest of the world is on a first-to-file basis. You may come up with the idea first, but if you sit on it and someone else files, well you’re out of luck.

In the US, you sit on it, someone else files first AND you file within 12 months of their filing, then it becomes a legal nightmare.

Essentially, right now the US allows you to sit around before you decide to patent, without any real repercussions. The rest of the world says you can sit as long as you want, but if someone else files you’re out of luck.