I guess it depends on how much you think it would cost to build a prototype. If it’s some type of new technology, you’re right that a rough sketch would probably be useless, unless it’s sketching circuitry. And your skill level – could you build something like it yourself, or would you have to farm it out to some engineer-type? More disclosure, maybe more partners, etc. I would talk to a competent patent lawyer before doing anything else myself, unless I was sure I could sit down in my own workshop and build it myself.
It’s in all the doing, not the knowing. If the person who came up with the idea doesn’t have a workable model, even on paper, then there is nothing to patent. They’re just spitballing. Do what you want, give them 0% of the company but maybe a little credit would be nice.
Coming up with ideas is not the hard part of invention. I could rattle off 20 potentially lucrative and currently unknown inventions off the top of my head right now, or any time you ask. Everyone has ideas. It’s the rolling up your sleeves and building the damn thing (and testing it, and marketing it) which distinguishes an inventor from any other person, not the idea.
PM me the idea and I’ll give you my opinion, FWIW. I assure you I’m far too lazy to take the idea and run with it. Errgh, running … :shiver:
I would love to get some opinions on it, I can’t even do that.
My buddy invented a wind driven turbine to boost power to his trailer. Not sure of the application other than it gave his workers more power to run certain tools on the way to the next job site.
He drew up the plans and specs then mailed them to himself. I guess as long as the package is unopened and has the post mark it serves as a self patent.
That’s all I got
It would have been more efficient for him to just use his alternator. I don’t think those self mailed patents would hold up.
No it does not serve as a self-patent. This sort of thing is legally useless.
All the designs can show is that he designed the thing at such and such a date. If someone later tries to sue him for patent infringement, he could defend himself by showing that his design was created before the patent, which would invalidate the patent. But the postmark on his self-mailed envelope doesn’t have any particular official status. I can send myself an unsealed envelope and get it postmarked, and then years later insert whatever documents I like into the envelope. If it comes down to a legal dispute, simply testifying that the date on the documents is accurate is just as convincing.
Since he never took steps to patent his invention, his invention is not patented, unless someone had patented it before he created it. Then he’d be violating the patent, even though he invented it independently.
However, if the invention were patented, the patentholder would have to somehow discover that he was using the patented invention, and sue him over it. Then they’d have to fight over who invented it first, or if the invention is patentable. There are no patent police, if you have a patented invention it is up to the patentholder to enforce it himself through the courts.
http://www.hjklaw.com/blogs/archive/entry/the_myth_of_mailing_yourself_your_invention
That doesn’t work. If you invent something and keep it secret, anybody else who invents it after you is free to get a valid patent. Part of the contract in a patent is the government giving you a monopoly on it for 20 years, but, another part is that you have to teach people how to practice your invention first. If you don’t teach anybody, you haven’t earned the patent.
And, you can’t patent something that you didn’t think of. Only the inventor can get a patent.
But if the inventor doesn’t get a patent, you are perfectly free to go ahead and make and sell or use the invention.
Once anybody talks about an invention publicly, the inventor has a year to file a patent. If you talk about the invention, which you are allowed to if you didn’t agree to confidentiality, that clock is ticking (if it wasn’t already), and nobody will ever be able to patent it.
One option is to start selling the invention and make as much money as you can before cheap competition moves in. You would, after all, have a head start.
Ummm … no. Like I said the US is now first to apply not first to invent.
Arrgh.
This is mixing up two different things.
Copyright isn’t something you have to apply for, or register for, or whatever. Copyright goes to whoever wrote it first. Assuming they can prove they wrote it first.
Thus, a simple trick for securing “proof of copyright” on the cheap was to mail yourself a copy of your manuscript, and leave it unopened. Then you can mail other copies off to various publishers, and if one of them steals your great American novel you can bring the sealed package to court.
This is … dubiously useful, but probably better than nothing.
Patents go to whoever registers them. The reason the patent for the telephone went to Alexander Graham Bell and not Elisha Gray was not based on who came up with the idea first, or who started work first, but on who was the first to the Patent Office.
(At least, according to the legend. There is considerable evidence that Bell bribed a clerk for a look at Grey’s application, then … amended his own application to include many of Grey’s ideas. There is also evidence that a Cuban immigrant in New York built a working phone a decade earlier, but never patented anything.)
While the postmarked package will help to prove he had the idea by that date, it won’t help if somebody else beats him to the Patent Office.
The stupid mailing yourself your manuscript thing is called a Poor Man’s Copyright and is of no use in the US and most other places.
I keep hoping that people will stop suggesting it on the board.
It used to be that documenting the creation of an invention (via getting a notary to sign off on a document or notebook) was important in establishing priority for a patent. But no longer. Filing is all that matters. And the recording of the filing by the USPTO is all that’s needed for that.
If someone steals your idea and files first you can theoretically sue. But if it comes to that everyone has lost. Which is why I suggest to the OP to forget it and move on. Your dreams will never come true but some really awful nightmares might.
I have no intention of stealing the idea. It just seemed like such a waste to me. Very tempting though I admit.
Then make the prototype and give it to the inventor. You risk getting nothing, but you also have a chance to make this thing real.
Try to get in touch with the first guy and deal with him. The prototyper might not have any right to the invention anyway and can’t make those kinds of decisions or deals.
How hard is it to build the prototype? Can you do it on your own?
If the prototyper and inventor is blabbing the idea around, the inventor might not have much protection at this point. I think you might actually be safe from litigation. You never met the inventor, so he doesn’t have much grounds to say you stole his idea. He could perhaps sue the prototyper for blabbing, but that might not hold up if they don’t have a confidentiality agreement.
In general, there’s not much protection for someone who only comes up with the idea. You have to do something with it. One important reason is that we don’t want someone coming up with 1000’s of random ideas and sitting on them (idea-squatting). You have to get a patent to protect the idea. The fact that he has done nothing with the idea for several years would probably be looked at like he abandoned it.
Even if you have an idea for an invention, you might not be able to patent that idea because it’s too general. One example of that is the weed-eater. You can’t patent the idea of putting a string on the end of a spinning shaft. However, you can patent specific ways of attaching the string to the shaft. The guy who came up with the weed-eater cannot sue everyone who also makes a weed-eater. He can only sue companies who infringe on his specific patents or create a weed-eater which looks so similar as to cause confusion.
You can further protect yourself if you don’t infringe on his patentable ideas. If he came up with the idea of a weed-eater (a string on a spinning shaft), you can safely create your own. But if he tells you the specific method he uses to attach the string, you would want to come up with a different method. Even if he doesn’t yet have a patent, he could patent that method before either of you get to market and then you would be in violation and would have to change your design.
You have absolutely no reason not to. As someone said above, an idea is worth next to nothing, and they are a dime a dozen. It’s only the execution that matters.