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patent experience

Started by -chris, August 26, 2008, 08:05 AM

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-chris

Does any one have any experience with patenting an idea? I've been searching through http://www.freepatentsonline.com/ and US Patents online but it is like looking for a piece of hay in a pile of needles. A Patent attorney could be pricey especially in the NY area.
I took 3 manufactured pieces of equipment and made one original piece of equipment out of them. I searched all the manufactures and there is nothing like this out there.

Has anyone ever patent their original idea, if so, can you provide any direction?

Mark Pedersen

Hey - I got divorced through here and saved a bundle of money.
Give it a try:  http://www.legalzoom.com/provisional-patents/provisional-patents-overview.html]http://www.legalzoom.com/provisional-patents/provisional-patents-overview.html  

Patrick Quigley

I'm a recently graduated mechanical engineer and have dealt with patents quite a bit.  Google patents is a really good patent search on the free level. patents.google.com

Two problems: 1. doing the search yourself to make sure you're not infringing on anyone else is very very difficult. The lawyers that will do this for you... quite expensive. If you try to do it yourself, you'll miss something I guarantee it. 2. filing the paperwork is no cheap task either.

It boils down to whether or not you're willing to spend a LOT of money in what you're doing.  Any specific questions?


Bart Elliott

While LegalZoom may have its uses, I would never recommend it for patents. I have a good friend who is a Copyright Lawyer, and he tells me that he gets calls constantly from people who tried LegalZoom. They basically want him to fix all their filing problems ... for free of course.

You get what you pay for.

Mark Pedersen

Quote from: Bart Elliott on August 28, 2008, 02:12 PM
While LegalZoom may have its uses, I would never recommend it for patents. I have a good friend who is a Copyright Lawyer, and he tells me that he gets calls constantly from people who tried LegalZoom. They basically want him to fix all their filing problems ... for free of course.

You get what you pay for.

Hey - the divorce worked!!! ;D

Todd Norris

Well, luck would have it that I just filed a provisional patent today (my first).  We didn't use an attorney to do this, but will definitely be paying big bucks in the next 12 months to get the full patent filed properly.  We did have some "water cooler" advice from a very high priced patent attorney so we are confident that we got the provisional properly filed. 

What riot said is true.  It's incredibly difficult to do the searches and make sure you're not going to infringe on somebody else's.  Also, be aware that the patent process will most certainly call for a series of revisions being sent back and forth to the patent office. 

Dave Heim

Quote from: Bart Elliott on August 28, 2008, 02:12 PM
While LegalZoom may have its uses, I would never recommend it for patents. . .
You get what you pay for.

Agreed.  There's a reason some attorneys specialize in patents.

eardrum

Quote from: Dave Heim on August 29, 2008, 07:09 PM
Agreed.  There's a reason some attorneys specialize in patents.
Correction, not "some", several large boatloads of attorneys specialize in intellectual property and patents ;) It's huge including very large firms with hundreds of attorneys specializing in this area catering to the tech fields - lots of them go into private practice after learning the biz with the large firm. I have two friends who do this. If you are going "Do it yourself" or "cheap" you need to get yourself seriously educated and a web forum is not the right place. There are hundreds of books on the subject so you should be reading one to first to learn the difference between copyright, patent, types of patents (process/design...), etc.  There are classes at community colleges.. If the invention you are trying to protect is really worth something, I don't think you will avoid spending a bunch of money to protect it so you better come up with a clear business plan or stategy before spending a lot of time.   Also, be careful about the firm that wants to help you take your invention through the process, gain ownership and squeeze you out. These are typically not patent attorneys but they will still gladly take your money and then some.  One more piece of advice - do not make your product and start selling it commercially before filing.  You cannot patent a product that has been commercially available (I think there's a one year period).  Hey, I'm no lawyer and this is free advice so don't believe a word of it....

-chris

I appreciate all the advice from everyone. I don't have the time to take a college course, but I do have time to spend at Barns and Noble.
Thank you all.

-Chris