Intellectual Property is an important consideration for technology products. Here at Novation Tech, we are careful to investigate copyrights, trademarks and patents. Our designers have many patents, though they can be quite expensive to obtain. We thought it would be good to briefly discuss one aspect of patent law that is very important in terms of economics, but may not be well known — provisional patents.
The current US patent law is based on “first to file”, meaning the law gives a great advantage to the first entity (person, company) to file an idea for a particular invention with the patent office. That might sound very logical, but it could be that the first person to get an application in is not the first p
erson to have the idea. For example, you might have had a great idea for an invention months ago, but for one reason or another, you did not file for the patent yet. If at a later date, another person independently had the same or similar idea, but put in an application before you did, the law will favor them. Even though you had the idea first. Wow, it seems so unfair…whoever gets to the patent office first wins.
“First to file” seems especially unfair to an individual or a small business who does not have a large amount of cash to invest in a patent. In this cat’s experience-when all is said and don-it has typically cost somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000 to get to the point where the patent is granted.
But here’s the good news: you can file for something called a Provisional Patent that you should be able to do on your own, will give you an official filing date, protects you for twelve months and costs in the hundreds, not in the thousands, of dollars – even if you have a patent attorney help you.
Pretty cool huh? And, frankly, if you don’t have a few hundred dollars to produce a provisional patent, you probably should not be thinking about patents; just keep it all a secret and hope no one has the same idea as you. Trade Secrets are viable and effective ways of protecting an idea – just look at the story of Coca-Cola® to be convinced.
The moral of the story is: if you feel you need patent coverage and you have a great idea, don’t delay.
You can find all you need to know and even file for a provisional patent on your own on the US government’s USPTO web site.
And to help ensure your idea has not already been patented, search here for free. You can also search a specialized Google patent site (uh huh, also free).