I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject of the Patent process but
over the years I have learnt some valuable lessons that others might find
useful !!!!
1. A Patent isn't worth the paper it is written on unless you have a large
enough sum of money to protect it in a court of law, or another way of
putting it is,
(A Patent is only worth what your prepared to spend protecting it)
2. You can take out Patent Insurance to protect you from the cost of a
court battle, but this in itself is expensive and is even more expensive to
take out once your Invention is made public and even then your not
guaranteed that you will win, also the insurance only covers you for a
preset amount of costs incurred...!
3. The longer you have your Patent the more expensive the renewal becomes.
4. Patents are notoriously easy to circumvent and believe it or not some
people/companies search the latest Patents filed to see how they can alter
them just enough to do this so that they can rip-off the original Inventor
(Bas###ds)...!
5. Some countries DON'T recognise the patent process (China for one)....!
6. It is up to the Inventor to Police his/her Intellectual property, in
other words you have got to have eyes in the back of your head.
7. Tell anyone about your Idea before you have Patented it without getting
them to sign a confidentiality agreement and if discovered your Patent is
useless due to a thing called Prior Disclosure...!
Take all this into accout and you have got to ask yourself "Is it worth
Patenting your invention"?
My personal opinion is NO but this is up to individuals to decide, some
people/companies have used the patent process with great success, but many
many more have found it to be terribly flawed...!
The first bit of advice I was ever given on the subject and still the best
is, If you can produce the product yourself and think you can get twelve
months out of it "DO IT". The reason for this is:
"Firstly" not many people/companies will have the time to tool up and copy
it.
"Secondly" you should be able to make enough money in the first twelve
months to walk away and let the sharks fight between themselves (given the
idea is any good)
"Thirdly" No one remembers who was the second person to do something...!
Life is too short to be possessive live for the day have low stress levels
and don't stagnate on one idea. "keep changing" (CHANGE IS THE ONLY WAY WE
PROGRESS)
Anyway the wife says I must get back in my straight jacket now so, BYE...!
Darren Hesford
darren@dhesford.freeserve.co.uk
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