How do you treat the acquisition of a patent application on the financial books? Expense? Capitalize? What?
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It appears that the question period has expired.  If you have received an answer that meets your needs, please choose one of those as a 'best answer.'  If you haven't received a good answer for your question, you may want to consider the following,\n\n1) Re-post your question.  Newer questions get more activity on Yahoo! Answers than old ones.\n2) If you do re-post your question, consider why it wasn't answered the first time.  Could it be more specific?  Could it be worded better? Were there grammatical or spelling errors? Was it in the best category?\n\nIf it doesn't seem likely that re-posting your question will help you, then here's a listing of my favorite 'answer sites'.  Maybe one of them will help you.\n\nAnswers.com http://www.answers.com/\nBartleby http://www.bartleby.com/\nYahoo Reference http://education.yahoo.com/reference/\nHowStuffWorks http://www.howstuffworks.com/\nWikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page\n\nSince I really haven't answered your question, it is not necessary to give me any points.  Regards.
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Capital expenditures ("CAPEX" )  or capitalisation in accounts,   are expenditures used by a company to acquire or upgrade physical assets such as equipment, property, industrial buildings. In accounting, a capital expenditure is added to an asset account (i.e. capitalized), thus increasing the asset's basis (i.e. the cost or value of an asset as adjusted for tax purposes).\n\nAn ongoing question of the accounting of any company is whether certain expenses should be capitalized or expensed. Costs that are expensed in a particular month simply appear on the financial statement as a cost that was incurred that month. Costs that are capitalized, however, are amortized over multiple years. Most ordinary business expenses are clearly either expensable or capitalizable, but some expenses could be treated either way, according to the preference of the company.\n\nThe counterpart of capital expenditure is operational expenditure-
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You will get info about US patents on www.uspto.gov.\n\nHowever, the process of patenting is fairly costly and time consuming. Not every invention---even though they are good---is worth patenting. The main criteria generally used to  determine whether it is worth going through the hassle of patenting are: \n\n1) Is your invention important? In other words, do people care about the problem your invention solves? If not, then no one will pay to license the invention.\n\n2) Is your invention sufficiently different from the "prior art"? Here prior art implies both things that are generally known and things that have previously been patented. You cannot patent and invention that is already known in prior art. Moreover, if there is a prior patent that is very close to your invention, you might be a target of costly patent infringement law-suits (where only lawyers makes money). However, note that the legal standard of "sufficiently different" is sometimes ridiculously low (it seems that Microsoft owns a patent on "double click"!)..\n\nThe above two were more obvious items. The less obvious points to consider are:\n\n3) How easy it is to bypass the invention and obtain the same result? If a competitor can do a small change and get the same result, your patent would not worth much.\n\n4) How easy it is to detect patent infringement? I.e., can you detect if someone else is using methods that violate your patent rights? This is important because you cannot expect your competitors to come to you and give you money just because you hold the patent! They will try to bypass and possibly infringe. So it will be your responsibility to detect infringement and bring law-suits.\n\nIn many cases, it is actually simpler to "protect" your invention by publicly disclosing it (and hence preventing anyone else from patenting). You also get an advantage of being an "early bird" and hopefully produce the outcome before your competition and get the market.\n\nFor India, I do not know how effective patent laws are in preventing patent-infringements---my guess is that it is not much. In that case, you might perhaps consider keeping your invention as a trade-secret; i.e., not disclose at all. This makes sense if no one else can copy the concept by buying your product: i.e., if reverse-engineering is difficult/impossible. The formula for Coca-Cola is a good example of a trade-secret.
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Step one would be to come up with an original idea.\n\nAfter that, it just takes money and a lot of paper work to get the patent.\nhttp://www.uspto.gov/ebc/index.html
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Patent the ideas. That way you make a profit out of them if someone else uses your ideas.
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Research, research, research – this cannot be stressed enough. Read as much as you can. Here are some book titles that are relevant:\n\n* From Patent To Profit: Secrets & Strategies For The Successful Inventor, Third Edition by Bob Dematteis\n* How to License Your Million Dollar Idea: Everything You Need To Know To Turn a Simple Idea into a Million Dollar Payday, 2nd Edition by Harvey Reese\n* The Inventor's Bible: How to Market and License Your Brilliant Ideas by Ronald Louis Docie \n* The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to Cashing in On Your Inventions by Richard Levy\n\nThere are plenty of free informational resources out there. Check the source box for links to articles.\n\nHope that helps! I wish you much success & happiness in all your ventures!
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Don't worry about who is doing it, an agent or an attorney.  Just go to several patent firms and get a quote.  Several people will probably be working on it anyway.  It will be expensive no matter where you go.
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Dr Kay,\n\nI'm a member of the Texas Inventors Association and I don't know- however- sometimes if you do a patent search online for similar patents and then look at the assignee field- it will tell you the names of the companies/brokers/agents who have purchased patents in the same field--- I have a provisional patent for a distance learning thing so if you find out please let me know- the fields are soemwhat related...stay in touch, cheers, Brett Hagins
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If you intend to invest in IPOs, wait for the announcement of companies. You can collect the application form from selected banks and such other financial institutions. You have to pay the initial application money for the number of shares you apply. If the company receives applications in excess of the shares to be issued, they may allot the shares on pro rata basis and the excess money you paid may either be returned or forwarded towards your next payment.
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First question, disclose in the notes to financial statements, because to anticipate income for the possible $50,000 award is subject to significant uncertainty.\nSecond, make an estimate of the Warranty liability amount, and accrue a Contingent Liability for that amount of estimate, thereby increasing the current year warranty expense.
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Subtract your basis from the amount you received from the sale.  Your basis is the amount you purchased the property for plus the acquisition costs plus any improvements to the property.  \n\nIf this was an investment property part of your basis will be re-captured deprecitaion.  This will be taxed a special 25% rate.
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3-steps:\n\n1) Patent you idea (after searching for other similar patents and making sure your idea is original).  This is not too expensive to do.\n\n2) Contact a major corporation who plays in the area of your idea/invention, to partner with them (they will typically (caveat) not steal your idea like some smaller companies may).\n\n3) Have the major corporation make the investment in product development by negotiating a contract for royalties on any sales of the final product, plus prohibition on selling the idea to any third party.\n\nYou're in business!!  Cheers!
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Intellectual Property Rights are gaining quite a bit of momentum.\n\nTo answer you simply, \nanyone here (outside of one) can act like a lawyer \n(which they are not) \nand you would be a fool (which you would not want to be) \nto take anyone's advice who is not (a lawyer) \nwhen your monetary gain will be possibly thwarted \nby your bad move (that being taking advice from someone who is not a lawyer)\n\nI would suggest,\ntalking to a patent attorney.\n\nIf your idea is worth the weight you are putting on it here,\n\nIt is time to invest a small portion (the attorneys fee) \nto see if this is worth pursuing.\n\nYou do NOT want to answer that silly advertisement you see on television which begins like this:\n"Do YOU have an idea that may be worth money?"\n"Do YOU want to protect yourself?" \n\nIF THEY AIN'T LEGIT, DON'T RISK IT!\n\nSee a real attorney, and I am one guy  who is hoping this idea of yours is a great one that makes you alot of cash \nand benefits me in my dealings with banks.\n\nTake care.\nBe Smart.\nTalk to an attorney.
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As a business librarian, I suggest these three, quick, easy ways to get accurate answers to all the information you asked for:\n\n(1) Visit the company's Web site and look for "Investor Relations" or "Financials." They should have SEC filings, such as a 10-K, which will give you current information released by the company to its shareholders.\n\n(2) Visit http://www.hoovers.com/free/ and search this business database for more accurate business information.\n\n(3) Visit http://www.marketwatch.com/news/default.asp?siteid=mktw to get up-to-the-minute stock information.
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contact a stock broker or your bank, they should help you out with the documentation.\n\nlook at ratios such as P/E ratio and EPS mainly, and also read the investor prospectus as thoroughly as you can.\n\ninvesting in indices - will diversify away some risks - so look into that...
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Heh, I knew I'd heard of this HBS case before.  I'm pretty familiar with Kevin Rock, too.  Unfortuntately, I don't remember this exact case much since it's been so long.\n\nUsually on these HBS cases, they don't expect you do come up with anything novel or new.  They really care more about financial analysis that you'll probably have to do in the B case, if you have to do that.  I don't have the case handy, but really all you have to do is read it carefully and summarize what's in there.\n\nFor M&A, it usually comes down to synergies if they're in the same business.  Other things to consider might be the optimal capital structure of the newly formed companies and how they might benefit from tax savings.
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The cheapest way to patent is to prepare a patent application yourself.  Filing fees will run you about $200.  But you really need to know how to prepare the application.  If you don't, your application will be rejected because the patent examiner simply won't be able to understand it.  This is why most people choose to hire patent attorneys who are skilled in writing applications and have professional draftsmen to help them with illustrations.\n\nAlso, disregard the advice from "trucker" above.  What he is describing could be useful in cases of copyright infringement, but has nothing to do with patents...