Getting a patent

[Eaglesfan1]

ok, so a friend of mine is looking to get a patent. The product has excellent potential and a huge market. Though the problem is, he's not sure exactly how to go about getting a patent to fully protect himself.

I've done a little reading and it seems like getting a lawyer for this type of thing is the best bet protection wise. He also said he was thinking about doing it online with www.legalzoom.com, which I immediately suggested against.

Anyhow, anyone have any tips on this matter? Any help is appreciated.

[Frinkenstein]

A lawyer for this should be a must! You want to be certain that your patent is properly written and will protect you in the way that you want to be protected. You'd hate to lose out on potential $$$ just because you wanted to be a little cheap in the beginning.

[rjp]

A lawyer and patience. I've applied for a patent a few years ago and still nothing yet. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[z28dreams]

Here's a few tips.

I used to work for the US Patent office, but don't consider any of my words as professional legal advice.

(1) In the united states, unlike any other country, patents are decided on first to invent, NOT first to file. That is, if you have evidence that you were the first to create the invention, it doesn't matter if someone else files first.

(2) HOWEVER, despite #1, you must file a patent within 1 year of the original invention, otherwise others are legally allowed to file for the patent, and you will have no claim.

(3) In seeking help, you can go with either a patent agent or a patent attorney. Patent agents are considerably cheaper, but won't be able to do litigation for you if you run into trouble in the future. If your idea is relatively important, I'd highly recommend going directly to an attorney.

(4) When you make your claims, make them as broad as possible. You're about 99.999% guaranteed to be rejected on your first application, as this is how the process works. When I was working there in 2006 I was working on patents from 2002 and 2003. It's a slow process.

(5) You can do a preliminary search for your idea to see if you even want to pursue it. You can contact the USPTO and ask them to give you some advice on which categories and subcategories to perform your search in.

(6) When originally submitting your application, fit in as many IDS references as you can. Basically here you tell the patent examiner to look at specific older patents that you think might conflict with yours. The advantage here is that many examiners only glance over these. Later, if your patent is challenged, if the conflicting patent was originally in the IDS they are not legally allowed to challenge it.

(7) Keep in mind that most patents are rejected under USC 103, which means that an exact invention doesn't have to match yours. In most cases the examiner will find a 'base' patent that looks similar to yours, and then argue that it would be obvious to combine features from other patents to use with it.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

[Mr. Now]

Patent attorneys are federally licensed; they can be located anywhere. You can do it all over the phone and over email.

I know a good patent attorney who has done some work for me in the past. I can vouch for him. He successfully handled the filing for one of my patents. He does good work.

Kyle Brant
Indianapolis IN
317 297 9801

Give him a call. He knows software best. One thing he recommended to me was to simply get the filing in ASAP. His cost for this was competitive with the price of an extensive search, which the PTO does anyway as part of researching of your filing. There are issues with "first to file" and he can explain this. Also provisional patents.

Don't wait if you idea is good. Get the filing in.