Patent an idea

[Jay Sean Juggy D]

Anyone here ever patented their idea(s) ?

How is it done and what is the quickest way in obtaining a patent for an idea ?

What is the easiest and most cost effective way to do it ?

 

[Jay Sean Juggy D]

What about those infomercials you see on TV to patent your idea with an invention submission company , is that a scam or are they legit ?

 

[OMGWTFBBQ]

Scam.

Patents are pretty much useless for the "little guy" these days.

You have to pay for a patent search to be done to show that the idea doesn't already exist or infringe on areas that are similar.
Any patent attorney that is any good writes the patent so that it is as broad as possible to cover more than just your idea and protect you from trouble.

You can technically do searches yourself to save money, but you still need a real one done - it is just cheaper to do it yourself and find out that it exists and then not have to pay someone.
But if you do a search, can't find anything, then you can pay.

If it is still not out there, then you have to pay the attorney to write it up for you and then you have to pay for the process of getting it in (which I think is $5K or so).

Then it expires over a fixed amount of time (it used to depend on what field it is in as to how long it lasts - not sure if that has changed).

All of that said - say you go out and patent something extremely useful and worth a lot of money.
These days all big companies have a team of lawyers on hand to 1) sue people infringing on their own patents and 2) take care of people suing them for infringing on other patents.
So you would then sue a company and go up against their large sums of money and you would lose - not because you are in anyway wrong per se - but just because the large difference in pools of money means those that have more money can draw out the issue longer and basically dry out your pool of money.

The first concepts of the patent system were cool, but they have been so abused lately that it is now a creepy world.

Ask a patent attorney about "submarining".
Also, I forget the name of the company - but they used to have the ads "We don't make the XYZ, we make it better." where the XYZ is some general product.
What they really do is they steal patents and then research how to combine them all and then tie it all up in court while they are making money on the product on the market.
(that by the way is not submarining - at least not in the true form)

I think Citruscide is/was a patent attorney - ask him about this stuff.