General > General Technical Chat
Patent vs Open source
kosine:
Patent fees are actually quite cheap. Here's the current UK price list: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/patent-forms-and-fees/patent-forms-and-fees
The expense comes from hiring patent agents, but you can do quite a lot yourself in the early stages.
Online searching is free. www.espacenet.com has a pretty comprehensive system. Everything is cross-referenced, so with a bit of digging you can build up a family tree of relevant prior art. You'll probably find a few dozen patents related to your idea, so there's quite a bit of reading to be done. But it won't cost you anything to find out whether your idea is worth pursing.
If you do think it's worth going ahead, then an initial application is cheap and only requires a description and drawings to be filed. Once you've read up on the prior art you'll have a good idea of what you need to prepare, and it's entirely possible to write these yourself. You will need an agent to draft the claims and proceed with the formalities, but that doesn't need to be done for another 12 months. (Although you need wheels in motion after about 10 months to meet the deadline.)
So for the investment of a little bit of time and effort, you can at least stake your claim and enjoy a year to work on the project. Just make sure you describe every possible variation of your idea in your application! Ultimately it's the claims that matter, but these can only be derived from what's in the description. So include everything relevant. Even if your description and drawings are a bit amateurish, as long as the claims are done professionally, you'll be OK.
In other good news, applications aren't published unless you request it and pay the relevant fee. So if you haven't publicly disclosed your idea during that application year, you can actually file again and restart the clock. (It's slightly risky because someone else could have filed for the same invention shortly after you did, but if the idea is not obvious, then it's unlikely. A calculated risk, but still a valid option that is sometimes made use of.)
Note that going international is considerably more complex, and you will need professional assistance to do that. But again, it doesn't need to be done for 10-12 months from the filing date of your local application.
So basically, when you're ready, go file an application yourself and use the following 12 months wisely. Ideally you want to get to market as soon as possible after filing, so only file at the last minute if you can. Making a decision on the costs of a full patent are much easier if you're already making money on the idea.
Good luck with it!
Raj:
I think I should make a prototype first then see how to go about from there.
Apparently patents aren't helpful for small inventors, since getting it involves lots of research and other hassles even if it's cheap.
After getting it, companies will still use your design against you.
Better to kickstart with enough orders to make even than to patent stuff.
mawyatt:
Have a little experience in patents having over 30 granted in the US (few more outside), been an expert witness in infringement cases, and given a few presentations on patents where I was employed.
Here is the US the patent law changed a number of years ago in 2013 from 1st to invent to 1st to file. Be diligent and careful who/where you discuss the concepts with, and start the filing process early.
In the US your patent becomes public knowledge, this is to foster more development in general, and you are granted specific rights for a specific time frame for making the patent public.
Do your research into prior art as this is the 1st attack on your patent in a infringement case, also do not exclude anyone that contributed, this will void the patent. Same goes for including someone that didn't directly contribute. A large company where I was employed decades ago, many of the managers would include themselves on the patent because it looked good on their personnel file, not realized they just voided the very patent.
Don't expect significant direct income from your patent, larger companies use patents as bartering tools to license usage in exchange for licensed usage of another patent. Smaller companies or individuals don't have much leverage, and it's rare to see them benefit from an infringement. As mentioned many unscrupulous companies will just copy and ignore your patent and go ahead with business as usual, and many countries will impede an infringement case and protect the infringing company. I have a couple patents that are in massive infringement worldwide and informed my prior employer (I'm retired), they decided not to pursue because the cost and length of time involved doesn't make a good ROI business case.
Edit: Forgot to mention that generally when you are employed with company you signed an agreement for employment that the company owns anything you conceive or develop. Thus any patent they are assigned to the company and you are the inventor, but have no real rights since the patent is assigned to the company. This right to everything you conceive or develop has been challenged many times, and often in favor of the individual. Recall the general ruling was that if the IP concept/idea/development was done without any company involvement, outside company facilities, without any company equipment/materials and completely outside any company technology/business area, then the company has no rights to the IP. The company HR uses this "agreement" as a bullying tool into forcing individuals into "thinking" they are 24/7/365 employees, and thus can't do anything outside for their own benefit. If you are a highly creative individual in areas outside your direct employment field consider having your own specialized employment agreement which outlines specific IP ownership and rights. So when you are employed to develop audio amplifiers and you invent cold fusion at home your employer can't claim any rights ;D
If you really want to protect your idea, a Trade Secret is probably better since it's not public disclosed. Recall long ago Tektronix had a Trade Secret on the delay transmission line T type coil which allowed them to have a bandwidth advantage over HP, took HP over a decade to equal the TeK scopes bandwidth due to this and the brilliant Ft doubler amplifier. This wasn't easily understood without the information Tek possessed in the Trade Secret and thus prevented it from being easily duplicated.
Anyway, just a few more things to consider if you decide to protect your idea.
Good luck and keep us informed of your progress.
Best,
SiliconWizard:
--- Quote from: Berni on July 12, 2021, 05:27:27 am ---A patent by itself does not grant you any protection.
--- End quote ---
AH, I do not agree with this. Let me explain why though.
Whereas defending a patent if some competitor infringes can be very expensive - so forget about it if you're a lone dev or a small company - it does grant you one kind of protection: being able to exploit your concept while making sure no one else can patent it and further prevent you from exploiting your own concept! That can be every bit as problematic, if not more, as the first case. So patents are still worthwhile for this. They can also give some added value to one's resume and to a company's portfolio.
There are other means than patents for this kind of protection of course, including open-sourcing, as the OP mentioned. Or publishing a paper about it, and have it presented in public, or published in a journal. That gives you priority over the ideas with a defined date, at least in many countries. Patents still have one benefit over this: they are not published until the patenting process is sufficiently advanced, but the initial filing date still holds for priority. So that can give you a while - typically a few months - to start exploiting your idea before other people can do the same. So that gives you a small time window to delay any competition, if your idea is really interesting and being on the market first would make a definite difference.
Just my 2 cents.
mawyatt:
--- Quote from: ataradov on July 12, 2021, 07:13:37 am ---
--- Quote from: RoGeorge on July 12, 2021, 06:29:08 am ---It's not your job to look for similar already existing patents, the patent office will do that anyway.
--- End quote ---
USPTO just grants all properly submitted patents and lets the courts decide who is correct. Given the number of patents submitted, they can't realistically do a thorough check on each one. This system allows only contested patents to be checked.
--- End quote ---
This isn't exactly true in either case, the US Patent Office will do a cursory look for prior art, the applicant should have already done a more thorough prior art investigation. Between the two often some things will arise that the Patent Office will challenge some of the patent claims, then the applicant will be required to defend the claim with supporting evidence. This is usually a give and take struggle with claims and the patent office. Generally a thorough investigation is when an infringement is filed, the defendant will do a thorough investigation to try and come up with prior art, after you've been successful in prosecuting the infringement the the patent is much stronger because of this investigation. A case Honeywell filed against Minolta regarding the AutoFocus technology Honeywell developed and patented followed this path. The courts awarded Honeywell Triple Damages due to the flagrant infringement by Minolta, Minolta tried unsuccessfully to claim Honeywells patents were served by prior art by themselves and others. Honeywell had approached others, and were put off until Honeywell won the case against Minolta, then all the other camera OEMs ended up paying for past royalties and got usage licenses for future sales. Think this was the first case held remotely by video conferencing.
Best,
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