Has anyone released an invention without a patent. If so how did it go and how did you protect the idea.?
373638
If you don't get a patent, copycats will be on your heels the moment you bring your product to market. You will have no legal leg to stand on even if you send cease and desist letters. And if they find that you have not patented the product, they may even beat you to it.\n\nFrom the article "How to Protect Your Idea or Intellectual Property" http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol81/protectidea.htm here are some steps you need to take:\n\n1. Consult a patent lawyer and check if your idea can be patented. \n2. Keep extensive records tracking the development of your idea.\n3. Conduct an extensive research to find out if there are similar patents. \n4. Document where, how and to whom you showed your idea.\n5. Do your own market research if your idea is marketable\n6. Explore the possibility of developing the product yourself, or licensing someone else to make the product for you. \n\nTo bring your idea to market, here are some tips from the article "How to Get Your Consumer Invention to Market" http://www.powerhomebiz.com/012006/invention.htm\n\nGetting Started: \n\n- The Ideabook = Keep a bound ideabook of your invention idea. Date your entries. \n- Get it Notarized = get it officially confirmed that you conceived your invention idea on a particular date, and have your notes notarized. \n- Seek and Search = Do your own patent search to ascertain if your invention is original and prospectively patentable.\n- Create the Initial Prototype = Use simple materials to rig it up, to see if it works. \n- Get Educated = Educate yourself on the inventing process. Go to a bookstore or inventorhelp.com and review the plethora of books written on the subject. \n- The Non-Disclosure Form = Agreement signed between you and anyone you reveal your invention to. \n\nMoving Ahead \n\n- Analyze Costs to Produce = Ascertain what the costs will be. \n- The Evaluation Process = Analyze the benefits and features, strengths and weaknesses of your invention. \n- Get a Professional Prototype = Have professional prototypes made, the quality of which can be shown to potential retail buyers. \n- Protect Your Idea = Apply for a provisional patent yourself. \n- The Non-Provisional Patent = Your patent attorney files your non-provisional patent application.\n\nOptions for Marketing\n\n- Licensing = The inventor has the choice to license the invention to a manufacturer in exchange for a royalty percentage in sales. \n- Manufacturing = Manufacturing and distributing your invention entails higher financial risk but can reap greater profits.\n\nHere are some books that can help you:\n\nFrom Patent to Profit by Bob De Matteis \nProtecting Your #1 Asset : Creating Fortunes from Your Ideas : An Intellectual Property Handbook \nPatents and How to Get One : A Practical Handbook \nHow to Register Your Own Trademark : With Forms \nPatent It Yourself \nProtecting Your Ideas : The Inventor's Guide to Patents
1127455
I think you are very wise in having gotten the Patent Rights for your invention in the first place - congratulations!!!\n\nIn order for one to get Patent Rights, am sure your invention must have been put thru some rigorous tests so that means that there must be a company out there that can use your invention! Am sure that once you try out some companies that could benefit from the invention then the sale of the same can be worked out!\n\nAlternatively, why note exhibit your invention! Am sure there must be fairs going on in and around your city!
597910
I don't know what to tell you other than what happened to me. I paid $500 for a patent search. The company told me that this was a great idea and nothing else like it was on the market. They could get me a patent and help me present it to people who could make it. I would make X-amount of dollars and would be rich (lol). The patent cost me another $5,000.\nThey did get me a patent. A Design Patent. This patent just covers what the product looks like, not how it works. If you design a telephone with the buttons in a certain place, this is a Design Patent. What makes it work (the guts to it) is a Utility Patent. Someone can come along and change the way that it looks, you're out of luck. \nCheck with BBB and past clients. \nI felt ripped off and that was 14 years ago, I still see their ads on television everyday. Every ones idea is a winner, just watch "American Inventor". Be careful!!
750548
The short answer is no, you cannot patent something by mailing it to yourself.\n\nThe myth that an idea can be protected frequently stems from what many call the "poor man's copyright." With the poor man's copyright you simply mail your work to yourself and that is believed to somehow protect the idea. It is absolutely critical for everyone to understand that mailing your idea to yourself will do absolutely nothing to give you protection. If you do have original expression that is fixed in a tangible medium of expression it is copyrighted immediately, but not federally registered. All that mailing your work to yoruself will prove is that you had it as of a certain date, and that is only assuming there is a postmark on the envelope (which does not always happen) and the envelope is not opened. It provides no rights whatsoever.\n\nSimilarly, the myth that mailing your idea or invention to yourself somehow protects the idea or invention in the form of some kind of poor man's patent. I have never heard the term poor man's patent used, but many believe that if there is a poor man's copyright there must be a poor man's patent. As discussed above, there is no poor man's copyright and, likewise, there is no poor man's patent. Mailing your invention to yourself creates absolutely no exclusive rights. To the contrary, mailing the invention to yourself and then doing nothing with it could be used against you later on to demonstrate lack of diligence, abandonment or even supression and concealment, none of which would be good things! The one thing that mailing a description of your invention can do is demonstrate that as of the date of the postmark you were in possession of whatever is included in the envelope. Given that the US patent system is a first to invent system, such a mailing could be useful evidence, provided of course the envelope does have a postmark and provided the envelope is not opened. Do not overestimate the importance of mailing your invention to yourself. It is not bad to do, and in fact can be helpful in a limited number of cases, although cases are few and far between where this evidence is required. The main point is to remember, however, is that no exclusive rights attach to or will be derived from such a mailing.
8951
You can protect your idea by filing a provisional claim with the USPTO. This is kind of like a "patent lite" and allows you to protect the product for up to a year.  The cost is US$200 and should be done straight away. Visit the PTO website for information on filing applications electronically. \n\nAfter that, prepare yourself for a tremendous uphill battle. If this is a design patent (i.e. a new form of an existing product), you will find it difficult to locate interested buyers. If this is a utility patent (a new product or process), you will need to find companies within the industry and see if they are interested. \n\nYou will want to get a hold of a standard NDA/NC (Non-Disclosure Agreement / Non-Compete). These are fairly boilerplate and should be easy to locate on the 'net. Requiring NDA's is STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE when shopping around an idea and manufacturers are generally comfortable signing them. If a manufacturer refuses to sign, WALK AWAY. There is something wrong. An NDA is no guarantee that a company won't steal your idea, but at least it provides evidence of due dilligence during any potential infringement lawsuit.\n\nSearch the various government department websites for grant applications. The government is always looking to foster the development of new ideas that can potentially benefit the nation. There are grants for both non-profit and for-profit company's available and some even include grants for "concept development and R&D". \n\nBarring that, you may want to consider some form of rapid prototyping. Depending on the invention idea, this could be a short production run of the product, some kind of stereo lithography or other RP, or a "proof of concept" 3-D model, engineering analysis, etc. Having a physical, working prototype that a potential buyer can see, touch and interact with is FAR more impressive than a napkin sketch. Be prepared to spend $1-10K on a prototype. Well worth the investment, because if a picture is worth 1,000 words, a prototype is worth 1,000,000.\n\nGood Luck!
891164
So which was it?\n\nDid you "put it on to be patented" or did you not patent your idea?\n\nIt makes a difference - if you didn't patent your idea you may be out of luck unless you can show that the company making your invention had access to your work
72133
Look up the US Patent Agency online, see if someone has thought of it first. Then go from there, they have a fairly good self help center.
1017048
Research the idea on the US patent website.  If the idea has already been invented (but not marketed) you can not do anything more.  If it has not been invented, go find yourself a patent attorney!  Happy searching
335098
Oh, man, tomorrow!? I have not ideas for an invention (actually, I'm working on something, but don't' want to share because it does not have a patent yet).\n\n Ask your parents for help. Can you ask your teacher for an extension on the project? \nThink of some problems (besides this one) and how you can solve that problem. Does it have to be realistic, or can it be futuristic?  \n\nGoogle "inventions".  Maybe you'll get some ideas.
504468
Here's an example of an invention machine (not necessarily from Invention Machine Corporation) generating an idea that led to a US Patent (but without the actual patent number or title). It's an article about John Koza's 'Invention Machine'.\n\nThe article says :-\n\nHis “invention machine,” as he likes to call it, has even earned a U.S. patent for developing a system to make factories more efficient, one of the first intellectual-property protections ever granted to a nonhuman designer.\n\nGood luck with finding other examples.
1053239
Do you have the patent already? Otherwise don't proceed any further til you've done that.
116023
I would recommend you first hire a pentent lawyer and patent the product or idea.  I think that your lack of a college degree is an advantage.  I don't have one either and am very glad I don't.
409424
There are some right answers above but a lot of bad information.\n\nFirst of all, you don't need a patent.  You haven't invented anything.  \n\nSecond, never, never mail your idea to yourself and not open the letter.  That's just the poorest, silliest way to prove anything that I've ever heard of.  It costs thirty dollars to register a copyright.  To save thirty bucks, it's not worth the risk of some half-stoned mailing scheme.\n\nThird, it's spelled copyright; not any of the many more creative spellings above.\n\nFourth, there is nothing you can do to prevent piracy.  People produce pirated t-shirts.  It's just a fact.  Calvin and Hobbes have not been licensed to appear anywhere, yet they're on t-shirts that sell in legitimate stores.\n\nFifth, the moment you fix your ideas down in perceptible form, you have a copyright.  You don't have to register it or mail it to yourself or anything.  You are entitled to the protections of state and federal copyright law.\n\nBut, sixth, registering your copyright gives you some added protections and puts the world on notice that this creation belongs to you.  So, draw whatever it is you want on a t-shirt and submit the drawing with thirty dollars to the US copyright office (which is NOT the patent and trademark office) at http://www.copyright.gov/\n\nGood luck.
853991
You cannot patent and idea, but you can develop the idea into a product, record and research its worth and then if you have something unique or novel or even a new use for a similar design, you may get a patent on that... Check our www.inventconnect.com.au and list your idea for free on there...
616385
First, file a complaint against the company with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. see http://www.uspto.gov/web/forms/2048.pdf\n\nNext, collect all of your materials, including copies of the materials you sent to/received from the invention company, and find a registered patent attorney to advise you.\n\nI wouldn't worry much about the company stealing your idea. They make their money by extracting $700 - $21,000 from solo inventors and aren't geared up to do more than push paper. However, they can compromise your ability to obtain patent protection in other ways, so do consult with a registered patent attorney. You can find one near you with this link: http://des.uspto.gov/OEDCI/GeoRegion.jsp\n\nGood luck.
1003577
I believe that if you disclose your invention to the public you must submit a patent application within one year, or lose it.  Make a fairly clear (pen & ink) sketch of the idea and ask a disinterested (non-relative) person who can understand it to sign and date the sketch to establish your priority (were you the first inventor?).  Seek the help of a pattent attorney who will have a patent search conducted to avoid infringement and will prepare the patent application in correct form including necessary diagrams and claims.  The attorney may allow you one free consultation to accept your case and should estimate typical costs.  Study the patent process yourself.  Remember that even a great invention must earn back more that the cost of the patent application to justify submittal and the patent only helps you defend it from infringers.  Best of luck!
430647
before you sell your idea I hope you patented it. go to www.uspto.gov , check if ur idea is already established , if not file for a patent and then ask the main surfboard makers if they are interested in buying your idea