What Good is Having a Patent?

Whether big or small firms, patent protection is the only way out to claim your ownership of the invention. Any inventor should be having a motive behind his hard made invention. The first step is to atLeast to apply for a patent. Indigenous patent applications should not be costing more and even PCT filing for that matter. Foreign patenting is of course is costly. There is no way out, if it needs international protection in designated countries, where there exists a market potential.

SME world bank supports, local innovator support, international competitions are plenty.

If the patent is filed on individual basis, then costs can be reduced.

Plenty of Angel inventors and Venture Capital firms are also available, that the inventor has to choose about.

Other important fact is the selling of patent rights or licensing, which can be done by confidential Non Disclosure Agreement.

The other option which needs to be implemented is a common global patent, for which efforts on the way it seems.

Exploitation choice and avenues are plenty for an inventor, making the right deal for the right returns.

So never miss a patent application process, the journey may be painful, but just live with it

My solution, after some rather frustrating experiences, was to abandon the patent process all together. My ideas are maintained as secrets, and I am sure I have enough ideas on the back burner so that I can stay ahead of anyone who wants to reverse-engineer my systems. Most products today have a pretty short life-cycle- if someone is copying you, then your product most likely has realized its most significant marketing growth already, and it is time to be thinking about a replacement product.

The only issue I have with the current patent regime is that someone could possibly block my use of independently-developed concepts...Other than protecting one's right to use one's own technology, a patent is pretty useless, unless one has very, very deep pockets.

There are or were companies that all they do is fight patent infringements and take 40% of any award. One was listed on stock exchange some years ago I know since I had stock in it. Do an internet search some may still be around seems like a big business.

I believe that the root of this problem in the USA, at least, is the gradual deterioration of the US Patent Office from lack of funding and general inattention of the leadership. Perhaps there is also some special interest influence involved. Certainly the level of competence required of today's patent examiners is a much higher order due to the increasing technical complexity of today's inventions.

Ed Weldon

Protecting your patents has always been an issue since the idea of patenting patents was patented.

Samual Morse didn't enforce his patents and telegraph companies started popping up everywhere. You let one get away and you loose the right to enforce it on anyone else.

Bell Telephone saw what happened to Morse and enforced their patents diligently and it took 20 years after the telephone was invented before it could be sold to the regular people after the patent expired.

Standard Oil did a good job enforcing its patents until oil was discovered in Texas and Texas was too far away to enforce a patent on them effectively so other oil companies started springing up.

Steve Jobs took the right steps and brought his idea of personal computers to IBM's attention and IBM laughed him out of the meeting room. Steve Jobs showed them.

When someone tries to sell a company their idea, the companies will reject it and not give support to it, then try to produce and sell it a couple years later, after they think the original notion has cooled down.

We manufacture a machine that picks up oranges and packs them in a box in the proper pattern for shipping. We had to wait for a patent on a machine created by Sunkist expired before we could jump on it and put ours into production. Ours is a complete different design but the function is the same. Ours is safer to use by the operators and is faster.

The story of the history of the battle over the patent for the laser is a good example- by the time it was all sorted out, the original inventor owned only a very small percentage of the rights to the patent, while a corporation of patent lawyers owned the bulk of the rights. The original inventor sold off his rights to the corporation to finance the battle...

Should the copiers pay you the profits they got using your invention without permission? Is it bad or good?.-

It's good that they pay you for using your invention. But it is not general human nature to pay voluntarily.

A just legal system will force the payment; but only after you have proven your case and the copiers have had an opportunity for their side to be heard. In advanced nations this usually means an expensive legal procedure or at least the threat of one. Therein lies the quandary.

The rich and powerful succeed by the force of their resources rather than the legitmacy of their claims. This is the historic nature of human existance. Best to remain beyond their sight.

Ed Weldon

Even when i agree with your comments mostly,i'd be humanity sidepart:Did you see right on this forum at least, how ready are participants to answer and help to anybody else without any reward in change (may be at most a "GA" be enough) ? May be a good sample for this is the amazing number of free programs developed by people just in change of what?Glory? (Is it so wrong anyway?)Was so smart people gave away a half of their fortune (recently)discovering so rich is not so happy?Please dont take this as a "naif" comment, just i wonder,if we were released of our main purpose (keep alives ourselves and our people),the complete power whats in the brain of people would be released with unexpected consequences and laws,years of lost human time studying it,feeding lawyers politicians policy to make it works and so on dissappears...

Panamations of the universe unite.

I had a bit of a time constraint on me over the last days and found your post and the time to read it. Very down to earth and well written. You want me to ad anything? I couldn't if I tried. Well, one little bit from recent own experience maybe:

To have an invention and get it to market readiness one needs certification, sometimes, of all kinds of things. Environmental impact study, Work place health and safety, general acceptance of materials and other parts as suitable for the purpose, life cycle studies and on an on. Still no patent in sight.

This process has taken years to get to the stage it is at now. If anyone would imitate what my little beauty does they would need to do the same. Government approved certification. It would not be allowed on the market unless approved. The cost of this is comparable to an international patent but is money well spent.

That the certifying institution (strategic alliance) is now part of the team is not important. Share dilution was always on the cards. What is important is that it will take a couple of years for any competitor to do the same and that years after they reverse engineered the parts they will have to do the same. Simplifying what I have come up with might just be found in the "too hard basket".

By that time we have established a brand name and have an organization that will be vigorously defending any new comers, thieves, we will be home and hosed. Next project, yes please. They would be dobbed in by the franchisees making a living out of the system. The government has a duty of care, you know. Patent attorney? What patent attorney?

Looking forward to meeting you one day Mate. Our world seems part of the oyster bed. Eff the sharks! Chris said recently; "If you swim with sharks don't behave like food". I've still got a grin on my face.

Symbiotic relationships are the answer. I painted this nearly 20 years ago and only now do I understand the significance. Note the shark in the back ground.

Just baiting, Ky.

My little woodgas camp stove bio-burner at www.aaalogging.com will probably go into small scale sales and production in late fall or early winter.

It differs from other woodgas camp stoves on the market in that it is self aspirated, needs no fan to work.

I am quite poor, can barely buy new parts for the units to be sold, etc.

I am not filing a patent for this, as woodgas tech is pretty old anyway.

I can not afford even a provisional patent at this time, so they are going to market anyway, because lots of people want one already.

This way china at least has to BUY one to back engeneer it, and i dont ship to china,lol.

When you patent somthing, suddenly all your "secrets" are available worldwide to everyone.

Plans for the bio-burner will also be sold, but probably with a confidentiality agreement, and ,of course, copywrited.

In addition to my previous answer you can also use an (Industrial Design) some protection and for much lower cost. At least it shows your design according to date and that establishes some precedence. Take a look at industrial design and copy write that identifies the appearance.

A very, very important protection is having copious dated notes in securely bound notebooks to demonstrate that you have established your concepts independently and have claim to "prior art", should anyone care to challenge your right to use your own ideas in a business...

Huge percentage as in 99% plus!

What can be done to help small businesses protect their intellectual property?

Sell it to a BIG business...

Small businesses have some levarage to be able to do that. The individual is at a disadvantage in the they have to get someone to take a venture with them.