Product designers
Out of context: Reply #4
- Started
- Last post
- 8 Responses
- boom0
the process for getting patents is horribly inefficient and ineffective. i've been talking with a patent attorney over the last month and walked away pretty discouraged.
If you put your idea out in public you have 1 year to file a provisional patent on it. The provisional patent simply states when you had the idea and what the idea was. This might be helpful if someone else came up with the idea as well, (it only states that you had the idea before they did) but it holds little to no weight if you wanted to sue some for stealing the idea from you. In the US (at least) you get that 1 year (after getting the provisional patent, or making it public) to file for a real patent. filing for the provisional patent makes the idea accessible to anyone- making it 'public'. You can file for a utility patent (protects function/mechanics) or design patent (protects the look) at any time but is much more pricey and complicated.
Heres where patents are somewhat stupid: creative people do not have a hard time changing the look or function of your idea to make it theirs. its usually fairly easy to modify it slightly and work around patent claims. and even if you found someone that copied you, you'd really (really) have to pay through the nose to protect it.
unfortunately you have to file a patent in every country that you would sell the idea in. there is also such thing as an international patent, but i don't know much about how it works..
James Dyson gives a good talk about how he came up with and protected his cyclonic vacuum cleaner patent (and other ideas hes had)
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/36…
cheers,