[Closed] Intellectual Property Advice

"patents are granted for inventions that

* are new
* involve an inventive step, and
* are susceptible of industrial application.
"
[url= http://www.epo.org/patents/Grant-procedure/About-patents.html ]EPO Website - about patents[/url]

There's plenty of advice on there about what you can patent and how to do it.

Is your device new in some way - has it been altered, even slightly, to allow it to fulfil it's new task? If it hasn't been altered then it's not a new invention and can't be patented.

Is it an invention that would not be immediately obvious to someone in the, for example, lock industry?

Can it be commercially exploited in some way?

NOTE: all advice given in private capacity, I am not a patent examiner.

I am no IP lawyer so this may be wide of the mark. The only protection I can think of for this type of thing is a patent. Other types of IP protection like copyright, knowhow, datbases etc don't apply to a concept. Therefore the best way of protecting the concept is not telling anybody or if you do under the obliogation of secrecy.

If you want to commercially protect this idea you need to convert it into a patent. To do this you need to make the idea into a workable proposition which you then take to the patent people to protect. Probably your web research told you what you need to do to get a patent. The downside with a patent is that it becomes public knowledge, Using your example if you use a lock for a slightly different purpose than designed yiou could infringe somebody elses patent.

I really don't think you can just protect ideas - if you think about it this is only reasonable. Otherwise somebody coulod just write down every idea they ever had and then if aqnybody else comes along with the same idea stop them using it. I think you need to go through the tiresome process of getting down to technical details of how it works and hope somebody else has not already patented what you have "invented".

if the old lock specified a 'spring', you can use a rubber bumper

if it specified a 'compressible material', you can't

it's a minefield

most IP lawyers will give a free consultation

And if you've mentioned it to anyone, even in a private conversation, it's liable to be considered prior art IIRC. Applying it to a new field is a touchy one, but if it's only a slightly different field, rather than a very different field, its a no go.

The key point is the inventive step. If that step is an obvious option for someone in the industry then then it's not patentable.

Sounds pretty unlikely to me. Also do you have the financial support to back your patent when some 'lockmaker' in china says, "hmmm, I could make 'bikelocks'" or what ever it is? There is a lot more to making money from a patent than just having an idea.

...also if it possible that someone else might have had the idea then its probably too late. We used to take out hundreds of patents that would never be used just to cover every option the we or a competitor might want in the future.

That said, my old boss. James Dyson, made quite a few quid from borrowing filtration technology from industrial paint and sawdust extraction and sticking it in a vacuum cleaner. He had to change the way it worked quite a bit to get the patent then fought hard to protect it and the whole process was slow and expensive.

humm...
lots of handy advice there people.

I'm not especially fussed for the making money bit (though it would be nice) however i would like to see my idea in production.

my prototype is fully functional but some one in the industry could clearly improve on the mechanics making it cheaper and more efficient.

Hiya Podge,

If you would like just drop me an e-mail and I can discuss things further with you. I live in Coal Aston so not too far from you I think. Of course no charge for any discussions but I can certainly point you in the right direction re IP issues but also for initial funding for product development if you wish to take it further.

Good luck fella,

Rob

email me for advice without having to tell me anything. i've been involved in product design and getting innovative technology to market. without knowing more, beware that if the idea has value, can you pay your lawyers more than they can pay theirs?

I'm not especially fussed for the making money bit

Then a patent is not for you.

Slight deviation but with things like a cafitierre I assume that someone came up with the idea of a glass jar and a plunger thing to make coffee.

There are loads of these about now so is every one paying a licence or does the patent expire or become circumvented?

Is is worth knocking out you invention and hoping it gets enough market traction that it remains the market leader after everyone else has copied it?

I don't think you can patent anything so universal as a cafetiere ! Or somebody would run out and patent doors and windows....

if you come up with an idea for a 'better' cafetiere, you can patent the 'things' that make it better - if they are a unique collection of parts and methods. i'm sure aspects of the handpresso machine is patented, but making coffee with pressurised hot water isn't

there is a lot to be said for getting to the market first and being the best with something, but expect cheaper and often better rivals if it looks in anyway viable as a product.

getting a patent can be quite easy, defending it in lots of lucrative worldwide markets is another matter.

thanks for the info.

Archaic & iDave, I'll be in touch

Hels - you can patent something as universal as a cafetiere - just as long as you are the first person to think of it.

[url= http://gb.espacenet.com/search97cgi/s97_cgi.exe?Action=FormGen&Template=gb/en/advanced.hts ]Search for patents with the word cafetiere in their title[/url]

I have a feeling that this may be an opportunity, but you feel it isn't an opportunity for you? ie, you don't want to be running your own business flogging this device, and developing prototypes?

As far as I can see, your best option is to sell the idea to the likes of Kryptonite, Abus etc. and try to retain some royalty rights. However, it's difficult to avoid imitators / being turned over.

Another option would be to get some expert staff in, but you're probably going to need to go to venture capital with a good business plan to do that. And you're still running a business. However, that kind of approach can work well in terms of exit strategy - you can sell the firm and it won't implode when you leave with your knowledge of how everything works.

I would seriously recommend spending some time on google patents checking out similar ideas to get an idea of how well protected it can be before spending any cash or time on experts / business plan writing.

I didn't think it was possible to patent an idea or a concept... I thought the whole idea about a patent was that it protected a particular design to achieve a purpose.

If someone else thinks of another way to achieve the same result then that's patentable by them.

But I don't think you can just patent the idea for a bike lock per se.

[i]your best option is to sell the idea to the likes of Kryptonite, Abus etc. and try to retain some royalty rights.[/i]

I have a similarly brilliant idea but don't fancy the hassle of setting up a business. How do I go about selling the idea to an existing business without them just walking off with the idea?

Scenario 1
Me : I want you to buy my idea
Them : What is it?
Me : I can't tell you
Them : Bye (shuts door and shakes head)

Scenario 2
Me : I want you to buy my idea
Them : What is it?
Me : It is an XXXXX
Them : Bye (shuts door and builds XXXXX)

Neither scenario leaves me any money. I thought that is why I would have to go the patent route.

I have a similarly brilliant idea but don't fancy the hassle of setting up a business. How do I go about selling the idea to an existing business without them just walking off with the idea?

There's the rub 😀

Basically, you need a patent to make the idea saleable. It protects you (to some extent), but it also proves that you actually have a novel idea, otherwise you wouldn't have been able to get a patent.

You then need to prove that it's a goer, and end up doing almost as much work as you would for a business plan. And then you need to flog it to someone.

One source of free advice is universities - if you've been to uni, your alma mater will almost certainly have some facilities for alumni with business ideas, and if you haven't, you may be able to get the advice of a PhD or Master's student who's spent years absorbing case studies and reading textbooks on entrepreneurship, in return for letting them use you as a case study. Most of the better business schools have Entrepreneurship & Innovation departments now.

There are books on the subject too - Profit from Your Idea: How to Make Smart Licensing Deals comes up with a quick google and sounds interesting.

BBB there are opportunities available for new ideas and non disclosure agreements can be used to help maintain confidentiality (of course they have to sign them still tho). It is also possible to secure funding to test ideas before it becomes a financial burden. There are schemes available from Business Link such as [url= http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?site=220&topicId=5001246318 ]Innovation vouchers[/url] whereby you can gain expertise to help you. If all that is works there are a wide range of companies which can help develop a new product or help take it to market.

As has been mentioned free advice is available from a wide range of sources and free patent searches can be performed via [url= http://ep.espacenet.com/ ]espacenent[/url] or of course google patents.

I have a few different ideas.

Am I likely to learn much from going through the process once with a low value idea before trying my potentially more valuable idea?

Everyone and their dog has an idea for some kind of useful thing. Ideas are ten a penny.

my prototype is fully functional but some one in the industry could clearly improve on the mechanics making it cheaper and more efficient.

That is good news. An idea is only anything useful once you get to the stage of having working prototypes and proper designs. Otherwise you don't really have an idea of whether it really works or not. If you look at people who have made lots of money out of things, and look at their patents, they actually had pretty well formed designs, not just 'good ideas'. Good ideas are worth next to bugger all, unless you've tested them to some extent. So by making something, you're going the right way to demonstrate that you actually have an idea.

Good luck getting big companies to sign NDAs by the way - I know when I've worked for bigger companies, they mostly had policies of not signing NDAs except in big tech sharing type agreements where they were getting an NDA in return from other people, which isn't what you'll be doing.

Patents are great if you have an idea of how to do something, and you're confident that it can't be done in any other way. Chances are a malicious big company seeing your patented design could hack their way round the patent to make something that solves the same problem, so they don't offer masses of protection. I know the only patent I was involved in, probably 20 other companies or university departments have made things that do roughly the same thing in slightly different ways. They are quite expensive to get (thousands of pounds).

Joe

2 of the ideas I have had had successfully reached home made prototypes. Neither have an equivalent on the market. Both cheap to produce using existing technology.

It is the hassle and cost of getting a patent only to find the big bad business world rips me off anyway that is stopping me progress. I will see if I can find a UK based book on royalties and licensing.

BigBikeBash, I work as a furniture and product designer and I've registered my own designs and agreed several licence agreements to manufacture other people's designs. My advice would be:

Be honest with yourself and talk through what you want to get from your ideas with someone you trust (partner, friend etc). This makes a good deal of difference to how you approach things. Do you just want the buzz of seeing something you came up with made? Do you want to run your own business? Do you want to gain financially?

Get as much free and confidential advice as you can. There is loads out there (in Scotland from the Cultural Enterprise Office and partner organisations, there will be equivalents elsewhere). Don't spend money on an IP lawyer unless there is no other option. I have engaged them in the past and although they are good, they earn the same in an hour as I do in a day.

Non-disclosure agreements (same as a confidentiality agreement) are easily available online in template form, and most manufacturers are happy to sign one before meeting.

Also, be informed about protecting your ideas but don't be scared of going and meeting people - the worst case scenario is that the idea stays in your shed and never sees the light of day. There are plenty of designers who simply get their idea out there first, get it publicized and make some money from it, and never protect anything legally.

There are lots of funding opportunities out there for innovation, knowledge transfer, small business seed funds etc. Make some enquiries and tap into the cash!

I have a feeling that this may be an opportunity, but you feel it isn't an opportunity for you? ie, you don't want to be running your own business flogging this device, and developing prototypes?

this is exactly my situation, though i did enjoy the prototype bit