Patent Searches?

[PanMan]

Hello everyone,

Wondering if anyone has tips on patent searches. I feel I have a feasible product idea, but am new to the idea of patent protecting a product and pursuing licensing.

Anyone have any tips/recommendations, additional reading suggestions?

Thanks for your time!

[Sven]

First of all, a patent is a lot of extra work and it costs a lot of money, especially if you go world wide. All this cost has to be payed for trough higher profit.

A patent gives you the exclusive right to the manufacturing of the product for a specified area and a specified (extendable) time period. This right can be transfered to some other party by sale or by licence.

Patent search is a valuable way to explore your idea. It helps you to prevent you from reinventing the wheel. Patents are published as part of the proces. All patent aplications that have been granted are open to be studied. (In Europe this is free, I think its the same in the US.

Hope this helps! To further advice you I'd need more background on your product.

Sven

[kamakiri]

You can always try Google Patent Search http://www.google.com/patents

I would say:

1. The chances of your idea being patented are high
2. The chances that you can make it without one are high
3. The chances that the original patent holder will ever find you are low

With that in mind, you might want to study the market and develop your business plan instead of focusing on patent protection. There are tons of patented inventions out there doing nothing and going no where. Just look up watch phone.

[datangeL82]

I've worked with patents and patent applications for about a year now and you can do your own patent search fairly easily. If you live in the DC area they have public patent search room at the United States Patent and Trademark Office that you can utilize or get your VA to utilize. Google Patents is a great source they have even begun to put patent applications that have been published on there and the search algorithm is in many ways better than what is available in the public search room. You should also look for papers that have been written on the product that you are searching for. Google Scholar is good for that and the European Patent Office (EPO) also has a search interface on their website. There are also some resources at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and if you read Japanese try the Japanese Patent Office (JPO). Oh yeah and there is book called "Patent It Yourself" that has a lot of good information in it.

Hope that isn't too overwhelming.

datangeL82

[PanMan]

I'll have to look into those recommendations. I've been tinkering around with Google patents.

I'm just a little leary putting in time and money without going for some protection.

Thanks again.

[TimW]

Let's say you have a patent. Let's say a big company, or a foreign company, decides to manufacture your idea on their own w/o any compensation to you.

How much money do you have to take them to court to get a court order? How much money do you have to follow through on enforcement?

Some companies will follow a cease-and-desist letter. Others need more "encouragement". And a patent will not protect you if a foreign company violates is and never sells the item inside the US.

Additionally, a patent gives your competition (or anyone reading it) the exact recipe (as it were) to make what you're making.

That's why my friend never patented their bullet-making process...since it was so unusual that nobody ever figured it out, and spelling it out in a patent would have allowed them to.

[Marcie]

Additionally, a patent gives your competition (or anyone reading it) the exact recipe (as it were) to make what you're making.

This is true. It puts all your details into the public domain, so they can technically make some "tweaks" and sell their own version. The only way to challenge that is likely an expensive court battle. Generic drug companies do this for a living, for one example.

[Sven]

Also, working on a patent takes a LOT of energy away from the actual development.

But with all these comments in mind, there will always be inventions that would be stupid not to patent. This probably are strokes of genious, very simple, and very obvious that there are huge amounts of money to be made.

Keep in mind that your invention may not have been seen in the public domain or the patent is useless, even if it is granted.
Sven

[datangeL82]

Additionally, a patent gives your competition (or anyone reading it) the exact recipe (as it were) to make what you're making.

That's why my friend never patented their bullet-making process...since it was so unusual that nobody ever figured it out, and spelling it out in a patent would have allowed them to.

This is only sort of true. No one at the patent office sits there and tries to piece together your invention in Patent Office kitchen. So therefore, as long as it sounds good on paper, its fine. You don't even really have to disclose every bit of minutia that went into forming the invention. Just as long as you disclose the meat and potatoes. Most examiners don't have the time to even look at that other crap anyway.

[TimW]

I never implied that people at the patent office do that. However, the meat and potatoes is enough to give competitors a huge leap in development should they choose to do so. If you're patenting a process, do you not have to detail that process in order to differentiate it from current/future processes?

As the example I gave, my friend and his father came up with a very unique way to anneal bullets...so unique that NONE of the other competitors ever figured it out. They contemplated a patent until they realized they'd have to detail the process, or at least enough of it to give other bullet manufacturers a VERY good idea of what they were doing. So, they decided against it.

To this day, I don't know exactly what they did, and he's not saying, since they sold the company to another individual who does the same process.

[Marcie]

Yes, I was referring to after the patent is issued. You have to give great detail and all that detail then becomes public domain...

[Sven]

This is only sort of true. No one at the patent office sits there and tries to piece together your invention in Patent Office kitchen. So therefore, as long as it sounds good on paper, its fine. You don't even really have to disclose every bit of minutia that went into forming the invention. Just as long as you disclose the meat and potatoes. Most examiners don't have the time to even look at that other crap anyway.


If you aply for a patent you have to decsribe everything that distinguishes your invention from others. If you do not then it is not protected! Stuff you leave out is not protected!

This is fine if this is a part that no one can figure out any way.
This also means that if there are multiple ways of achieving what your product achieves, then every way has to be patented seperately. The one that is not patented can be used by the competition...