Posts Tagged: "Invention Promotion"

Several years ago I was speaking to an inventor group about carefully selecting who they work with so they work only with reputable companies. At the time one particular invention promotion company, as near as I could tell had a remarkably low success rate. This company reported their successes all-time and reported the number of clients over 5 years, making it impossible to know what the success rate actually was. At best the success rate was approximately 1 in 2,700, but likely was much worse. I asked the room full of inventors this simple question: If I told you that only 1 in 2,700 inventors would ever succeed how many of you would be convinced that you would be the 1 and not the other 2,699? Virtually everyone raised their hand. That eternal optimism is wonderful, but it also contributes to getting taken advantage of by those who make money by telling you your invention is wonderful when that really isn’t the case.

What follows are the decisions from April and May 2012. In this time period in 2012 at the OED the Office found themselves dealing with a patent attorney that accepted referrals from an invention promotion company, a patent attorney that didn’t notify a client of an abandoned application, a trademark attorney that submitted false statements in three petitions to revive abandoned applications and a reciprocal discipline involving negligence associated with maintaining a Trust Account.

But surely inventors, who are very smart people, could resist the advances of the unscrupulous, right? While that is what you might expect, my experience tells me otherwise.  Aside from the conditions being right (i.e., being told the invention is brilliant, etc.), most inventors tell me that even if they were told that there would be only 1 success out of 3,000 inventions they would be utterly convinced that their invention would be that success.  I have asked this question many times at presentations, the answer is always the same, and while on one had you have to love the optimism and tenacity, this is the final ingredient that leads so many to the doorstep of the unscrupulous.  Even with perfect knowledge and information many will still make what many would characterize as a bad move.

On Thursday, November 4, 2010, I attended the 15th Annual Inventors Conference at the USPTO.  In my article Reporting from the 15th Annual USPTO Inventors Conference I discussed the morning sessions and lunch speaker, for day one of the conference.  After lunch, and a panel discussion of the morning speakers, the attendees of the conference went into two sets of…

Friday afternoon I attended the second day of the AIPLA annual meeting. I got to the Marriott Wardman Park hotel at 9:00 am and was there until after 11:00 pm, for a full day of activities. I met so many interesting people while there, including the current Chief Judge Randall Rader for the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit,…

On May 17, 2010, Invention Submission Corporation (ISC) d.b.a. InventHelp® and IPWatchdog, Inc. settled the litigation initiated by ISC against IPWatchdog, Gene Quinn and Renee Quinn (collectively IPWatchdog). Effectuation of the settlement has taken longer than initially contemplated, and this article (published after review, contribution and acquiescence by InventHelp® and their attorneys), has gone through multiple revisions and is the final piece of the settlement. The case is now over and all terms of the Settlement Agreement have been satisfactorily met by both parties. The parties are pleased that the lawsuit was resolved to their mutual satisfaction. Aside from the details contained in this article the terms of the settlement will remain confidential, although the lawsuit itself may be discussed.

have retained the services of Hiscock & Barclay. Michael Oropallo has filed an appearance and is the lead attorney. In a nutshell, we moved to dismiss the case, with a Motion to Dismiss hearing scheduled for April 9, 2010. Not surprisingly, we also opposed ISC’s motion for preliminary injunction. Everything we filed can be found below, including declarations in support of both the motion to dismiss and our opposition to the preliminary injunction, voluminous exhibits and memos of law are below.

As you review the statements below, all of which were publicly available on the Internet when I found them, I think what you will find is that those companies you would most like to review your ideas and inventions are the companies that are not going to do so on a confidential basis. Many companies require an issued patent, or at least a pending patent application. Over and over again they recommend that you at least file a patent application prior to submitting in order to preserve your rights, and recommend that you contact a patent attorney.

Invention promotion firms, sometimes referred to as invention promotion companies, have been widely criticized in numerous circles, including political circles in Washington, DC, for many years.  The American Inventors Protection Act (AIPA) was enacted into law in 1999 and by its very name sought to address head on the problems faced by so many inventors.  In truth, the title of…

Just 12 days ago I publicly resigned from the Board of Directors of the United Inventors Association over concerns I had with respect to the UIA.  Since that time I have received many e-mails and telephone calls regarding my resignation.  Some have been extremely supportive, and some have questioned my decision saying that I should not have run out on…

I was at work today, doing what I usually do. I talk to inventors who want to patent their inventions. I speak to so many different levels of inventors. There are those who have no disposable income at all and are hoping their invention will change that for them; there are those on a tight budget who are hoping to…

About a week ago I received a fairly typical e-mail from an individual who was inquiring about whether I could help provide certain services.  As you can probably imagine, I get inquiries from people looking for all different kinds of legal services, and I also get a lot of e-mails from those who have great ideas and want to sell…

After being told that patent reform in 2008 was all but a done deal, once again nothing happened.  I am happy that patent reform died in 2008 because the reforms that were being proposed were largely bad ideas, and they would have done absolutely nothing to address the many real and substantial problems that are facing the US patent system…

Those who regularly read IPWatchdog.com may remember that on August 25, 2008, I wrote that the United States Patent & Trademark Office had finally, once and for all put an end to invention scams thanks to the fact that they had adopted new rules that would significantly impact who can engage in the representation of clients before the USPTO on…