Posts in Patent Basics

Unfortunately, despite what you may have heard from late night television, satellite radio commercials or snake oil salesmen, there is no effective way to protect an idea… If you get stuck in the idea phase don’t just throw in the towel. Many good many inventors will become stuck in the idea phase from time to time, so if that is where you are you are not alone. It may surprise you to learn that you just think you are stuck in the idea phase and you might actually have an invention without even knowing it yet… Many people will have great ideas, but what separates those who can turn their ideas into money from those who cannot is a strategy to define the idea enough so that it can become an asset that can ultimately be protected.

That being said, the possibility that a utility patent could be obtained cannot be definitively ruled out even if an invention seems quite likely to be obvious, which is one of the biggest problems with the law of obviousness. Indeed, one of the more frustrating things about working with the Patent Office is that there is a real lack of uniformity in application of the law of obviousness. For example, on January 7, 2014, the Patent Office granted U.S. Patent No. 8,622,700, which for all intents and purposes granted rights to the inventor to a glow in the dark ceiling fan blade. If this claim to a glow-in-the-dark ceiling fan blade is ever challenged I see no way that it could survive, but the patent issued.

Inventors and entrepreneurs frequently take this mouse-trap quote all too literally, thinking that if they make a better product it will sell and make them rich beyond their wildest dreams. Although inventors hate hearing this, the truth is that the invention is the easy part of the process because it is the only part of the entire cycle from idea to commercial success that is completely controlled by the inventor. Once you invent something market forces and the reality of life takes over. There are any number of reasons why an invention won’t make money even if it truly is unique and superior to available alternative solutions.

most successful inventors and product development companies that I know, start off with a Proof of Concept Analysis BEFORE they start spending money. So if they do it, why not you? A full Proof of Concept Analysis consists of three equally important parts: Business Analysis, Ownership Analysis and Product Analysis. These steps should be developed simultaneously or at least completed before moving on to development or you WILL certainly regret it later. So after you savor that wonderful “Moment of Discovery” and you have finished daydreaming about striking it rich, you really do need to move forward to take a cold hard honest look at your new product. At this point you don’t have to go into excruciating detail, just a quick overview to make sure it is worth pursuing. The questions generated will form the basis of your development process.

Whether that provisional patent application can ever be useful moving forward is unknown and unknowable at the time it is filed, which allows for those who knowingly or unknowingly peddle bad services or bad advice to largely hide behind the unknown. In fact, you won’t know whether the provisional patent application was worthwhile in terms of disclosure until you later need to rely on the disclosure to establish your priority filing date. If your disclosure was not complete you have nothing useful, and potentially may have compromised all right to obtain a patent. You may not realize that the provisional patent application you filed was defective until after you file the non-provisional patent application and you are now in prosecution working with the patent examiner who won’t give you the priority benefit of the earlier filed provisional because it discloses little or nothing. Filing a defective provisional patent application can be catastrophic.

In reality, it is probably better to think of the description requirement as the core to patentability. If you can describe your idea with enough specificity you no longer have an idea, but rather have migrated past the idea-invention boundary, which means you have something that can be patented if it is unique. The crux of this so-called adequate description requirement is that once the first four patentability requirements are satisfied the applicant still must describe the invention with enough particularity such that those skilled in the relevant technology will be able to make, use and understand the invention that was made by the inventor. For the most part, and from a legal perspective, this requirement can be explained as consisting of three major parts. First is the enablement requirement, next is the best mode requirement and finally is the written description requirement.

Due to the laws of nature, and the reality that there are only a finite number of solutions to any particular problem, every generation invents, or re-invents, many of the same things. Thus, it is always wise to do a patent search to start the process. I guarantee a patent search will uncover inventions that you did not know were out there. With over 8.5 million utility patents having been granted in the U.S. and well over 1 million pending patent applications, and millions of other published but abandoned patent applications there is always something that can be found that at least relates in some ways. You are always better off knowing about those related inventions. This allows you to determine whether moving forward makes sense, and it also allows for a patent application to be written to accentuate the positive, and likely patentable, aspects of an invention.

Without a patent pending you also don’t have anything to license other than an idea that lacks tangible boundaries. While that is not always an impediment to moving forward, the further you can develop your idea the better. The more tangible the more valuable. So an idea is worth something to some people, but an idea that has taken more shape and is really an invention is worth even more. An invention that has been defined in a provisional patent application is worth more, and of course an issued patent takes away much of the risk and questions associated with whether your invention is new and unique. But now we are getting ahead of ourselves. The business of inventing needs to be considered a marathon — not a sprint. Take things one step at a time, proceed deliberately and invest little by little and only so long as it makes financial sense. That is why starting with a provisional patent application is frequently the best thing to do.

The patent system incentivizes innovation. This is accomplished by granting exclusive rights to inventors or the corporations who own rights by and through their inventor employees. This exclusive right dangles the prospect that if there is a market for the invention it can be exploited only by the patent owner. It is important to note, however, that patents do not protect ideas, but rather protect inventions and methods that exhibit patentable subject matter. In other words, a patent can only protect something that is considered patent eligible. Generally speaking, in the United States the view of what is patent eligible is quite broad.

When writing a claim it is important to describe how the various components are structured and how the various components interact and connect. First, include a claim that defines your invention in broad terms, leaving out any and all unnecessary options. Second, include another claim that defines your invention with as much specificity and with every option you can think of. It does not matter that the claims won’t be in perfect format, with appropriate being defined as the format the Patent Office will ultimately require. At the initial filing stage what matters most is that claims are present and they have appropriate scope, with some being broad and some being narrow and quite specific. By starting to write these two claims you will “bookend” your invention. By this I mean you have disclosed the very broad and generic version of your invention, as well as the highly specified version.