Any good patent lawyers willing to help a team?

[nitneylion452]

Something you can do is get a hard copy of your design and mail it to yourself. That serves as proof of when you developed the idea and will hold up in court should someone try to steal your idea. My grandfather called this the "poor man's patent." But this could protect you from potential problems if the idea sneaks out.

[dtengineering]

Just to be clear, the OP is not looking for a patent agent to file a patent (at least not at the moment) but to ensure that their design does not infringe an existing patent.

The common term for what you are seeking is a "freedom to operate" opinion, and they can be very expensive. As pointed out, sorting through hundreds of possibly relevant patents to insure your product does not infringe their claims will take hours... and hours. And so far, I suspect, you are only talking about American patents. Care to know what has been claimed in Canada, Australia, India, Brazil or Europe? Do it all over again and again. Want to know about China and Japan? Better add some translation fees in there. Bill that time at a few hundred dollars an hour and you can see it add up.

Allow me to point out, however, that assuming you want to produce or sell your product in the United States, and that there is an issued American patent that claims your particular device... that does not prevent you from producing and selling your item. Rather it merely gives the patent holder the right to prevent you from infringing upon their patent.

They have to tell you that they believe you are infringing. At that point it is up to you to decide whether to cease producing/selling the product, negotiate a license fee for using their intellectual property, or to tell them "see you in court" where you can either attempt to have their patent thrown out, or demonstrate that you do not infringe. (And if you thought the freedom to operate opinion was expensive....)

So if you do a reasonably decent check of the online patent databases, and don't find anything directly related to what you are doing, then I'd say go ahead and start selling it. If you can't afford a freedom to operate opinion then I suspect you are talking start-up expenditures in the hundreds or thousands of dollars and therefore have relatively little to lose. Freedom to Operate opinions are generally sought where start up expenses greatly exceed the cost of the FTO opinion, and thus the legal fees are only a component of the overall bill.

Go for it!

Jason

P.S. As to the "mail it to yourself" suggestion, not only are there far, far better ways to protect an invention (such as filing a low cost provisional patent) but that in 2013 the USA will finally catch up to the rest of the world and change from a "first to invent" to a "first to file" system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_t...irst_to_invent

[nitneylion452]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

P.S. As to the "mail it to yourself" suggestion, not only are there far, far better ways to protect an invention (such as filing a low cost provisional patent) but that in 2013 the USA will finally catch up to the rest of the world and change from a "first to invent" to a "first to file" system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_t...irst_to_invent

Does that provisional patent cost as little as a postage stamp and an envelope?

In all seriousness, so long as the patent is filed for before March 16, 2013, the first to invent system would still hold true.

Thanks for posting that link though. It made for a really interesting read.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by nitneylion452

Something you can do is get a hard copy of your design and mail it to yourself. That serves as proof of when you developed the idea and will hold up in court should someone try to steal your idea. My grandfather called this the "poor man's patent." But this could protect you from potential problems if the idea sneaks out.

Originally Posted by nitneylion452

Does that provisional patent cost as little as a postage stamp and an envelope?

That's really different from what a patent offers, though.

A patent grants you the exclusive right to commercialize the invention for a fixed period, in exchange for explaining the invention publicly. Someone could challenge a patent, but it's time-consuming, expensive and complicated by issues of legal standing—in other words, a patent is quite valuable to its holder.

By contrast, the postage thing gives you a piece of evidence that can be introduced in civil court, to bolster your claim that you knew of the invention on or before a certain date. The opposing lawyer will likely try to cast doubt upon it: could it be forged, for example? Since the postal service does not keep records of regular mail transactions,¹ it's almost entirely subjective. Even if it is accepted into evidence, all you've demonstrated is that at the time of mailing, you knew something about the invention. That doesn't even indicate that you were the inventor—so you're not going to make an infringement action stick on that basis.

In fact, the real value to the postal technique is as defence against someone else's infringement suit, targeting you. Assuming the court accepts its provenance, if your sealed letter predates the alleged date of the invention, it is prima facie evidence of prior art, which defeats an infringement action.

¹ Try registered mail or a courier service, next time. (And inquire about how long they maintain their records. Keep the receipt too.)

[Carol]

Mailing something to yourself doesn't really hold up in court. If you want to verify that you had an idea on a certain date, write it down, sign and date it, and then get someone else to sign as a witness. This is how the classic laboratory notebooks are done (many of which are electronic now, but that's a different topic). If you want to be absolutely sure, get a notary to stamp it.

But what does this get you? Just proof that you made the invention before someone else. It prevents anyone from taking your idea and filing a patent on it. It does not give you any rights to the invention. An easier way to do this is to publicize your idea.

As Jason pointed out, any patent filed after March 2013 will be under a first to file system. Therefore if someone can prove that they developed the same invention independently of you, and you hadn't made your idea public, they can still get the patent and stop you (and everyone else) from using it.

If you do find a pro bono patent attorney to help you write the patent, they can help you with the search as well.

What you can do now is to file a provisional patent now for $125. A provisional patent has many many less formalities involved (such as formal drawings), and you can do it yourself (after a little education). This gives you a year in which to find someone to file formally for you (which costs only $380 but there may and probably will be other fees involved). You will also get the benefit of the first-to-invent provision and an earlier filing date.

The US Patent Office has a lot of help on this - the link is below. Just rememer, getting the patent is the easy part (but beware of scams). Making money from it is harder. You need a business plan. But you can do it!

http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/independent/index.jsp

[efoote868]

If you want to sell your idea / device, I would recommend NOT searching for patents that you'd infringe on.
Specifically, if you infringe on their patents KNOWINGLY, you're liable for triple damages.

The other thing you can do is file a provisional patent application. This will give you a year to sell your idea and be able to claim "patent pending" while still not filing for the real thing.

A book I'd recommend is Patent It Yourself
http://www.amazon.com/Patent-Yoursel...0352096&sr=8-1

So you can at least get some background on what you're doing.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by nitneylion452

Something you can do is get a hard copy of your design and mail it to yourself. That serves as proof of when you developed the idea and will hold up in court should someone try to steal your idea. My grandfather called this the "poor man's patent." But this could protect you from potential problems if the idea sneaks out.

This does not give you a patent, but does serve as proof/evidence that you were aware of the idea/product at a particular time/date.

Also, if you do this, make sure that the postmaster stamps the date across the seals of the envelope, and do not ever open that envelope until a court askes you to. It's the unbroken seal that helps your cause.