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Unread 21-11-2005, 13:23
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Re: American Inventor reality TV show

Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil
I might watch the show but question its validity. On Howard Stern the other day he was talking about how Simon Cowell had this new show but here's the kick, by going on the show you lose ownership of the invention. I forgot whether the new owner was Cowell or more likely ABC.

Yes, I do believe this to be true even if it was from Howard Stern. Stern does not lie about things. He may misinformed, but he doesn't lie.

having done a fair bit of intellectual property research recently this is only partially true. If an inventor goes with an idea which he has patented or is patent pending on then ABC has no rights to the idea, the same thing goes for a provisional patent. If someone goes and just tells the idea to ABC then it would be possible for ABC to "steal" the idea but with proper documentation since the US uses a "first to invent" process it would be unlikely that ABC could just steal the idea. I have not read ABC's contract so i don't know for sure. But lets face it the patent isn't what makes the money the licensing is, and with the amount of money ABC is going to make on advertising from this show i doubt they would go through the trouble of steeling peoples ideas.

on a side note there is another show just like this that holds a bit more validity in my mind. http://www.invent.org/challenge/
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