Any good patent lawyers willing to help a team?

[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.