I have a quick question totally off the wall of what your talking about, but i was hoping you might be able to help. I`m about to apply for a patent on a product that I came up with. How do I start getting someone to look at my idea for production? Can you or someone else please guide me to where I need to go to get some attention for my product?

I am not the best person to ask. If you look above this thread, there is a search button. Put some related terms into the search and you will find a lot of useful information already posted on these boards.

You can also click on the red “show fourms” link and check out the marketing and manufactoring fourms.

Good luck!

I have been developing a line of novelty clocks,While there is nothing unique about the idea of a clock per say my design appearance is origional art and is protected by copyright and is unique as far as what is currently available. Don’t know if that helps or not.

Sure, that helps. Thanks.

Hi Carrie, My product is a pillowcase – certainly not unique and not protectable as just a pillowcase; however, I added an attachment which IS unique and I got a patent which makes it protected. Hope this also helps.

Thank you, Julie. That does help me. I like your pillow case. Good idea!

Most patents are on slight improvements to existing technology. That is the whole basis of the patent system. You are required to disclose your ideas in full, the government gives you a temporary monopoly and in return the public gets to see your idea and try to improve them.

To answer your question, if you have done google searchers and are confident that nothing else like your idea exists OR has been suggested by someone else, then I would say it is indeed unique and protectable.

Good luck and keep asking questions.

Hi Brad/Anderson,

Brad, you have clearly mentioned about the benefit of patent. As everybody said, the idea should be unique/new, and also it needs to be non obvious, ie it should not become obvious to the person working in that particular field.

To find the idea already exists or not, google search only not sufficient, also you will have to do comprehensive search on patent at world wide patent database like http://uspto.gov, http://wipo.int.

If you are not sure about how to perform the patent search in patent database, you may hire a patent agent/patent attorney to analyze the patentability of your invention.

All the best.

Senthil
Patent Consultant
http://www.intepat.com

Just to clarify, most google searches now include patent literature for US and WIPO. Not sure about other countries. The USPTO website is old and difficult to use and offers no value since google should pull the same results.

Thanks everyone. Assuming that it had not already been protected, would an idea like shrink wrapping diaper changing supplies (in the naming contest) be considered unique and protectable? Or would it have to be something more like a new kind of diaper material. I’m sure there is a lot of gray area. Just trying to understand it all.

The best way to figure out any of the product searches is they are looking for ideas that would be MASS Market items and that some aspect of them is unique and patentable as in the case Julie pointed out with her pillow case. The pillow case is not patentable, but her improvement is. They are looking for products that have some degree of protection they can use to hold back competition and ripoffs.
Karl, you said your idea is copyrighted. Could you also get a design patent on it?

http://www.rogerbrown.net

Roger, along those same lines, I guess I have a notebook of around 100 inventions that I beleived at the times that I had come up with myself, as I had never seen them on any store shelves. Upon further reviewing and searching I’ve recently learned that about 2 in 3 of them already exist or have something similar patented. So I guess my question is,… not that I’m trying to steal anyone elses ideas, but how different do my similar ideas have to be to make them patentble?

Rodger,I haven’t looked into design patents and don’t know how important that would be. What i am currently working on is a line of novelty clocks and hope to end up with possibly 15 or 20 different models that have good market potential out of a list of about 150 ideas…to obtain a design patent on each one sounds pretty expensive compared to Registering a copyright.

Karl, Are the ‘innards’ of each clock the same but different than anything already patented? Or is the outside design/style the only thing which is different?

Will the pricing be too high for the clocks to be stocking stuffers? If they could be s.s., I would just go ahead without patents – always remember the Pet Rock.

Julie,The case design is unique to each model but all the clocks so far use a readily available quartz clock mech…tentative retail should somewhere in the $20.00 range

Maybe high-end stocking stuffers or last minute gifts. Maybe hit the market again in May/June for graduation. However, you probably have other, even better ideas. I wonder if giving each design its own unique name would help: if it becomes successful, you can trademark the names for about $728 each through LegalZoom. (Trademark if you have done your homework about what is available.)

Have been thinking about trade mark for the line but have’nt yet worked on the design of it,each individual design has its own name. I feel that copyright is sufficient protection for origional art.

Have you tied up the domain names for each individual design? I have about 20 domain names (some just to keep others from getting them) and they are inexpensive enough – especially in bulk – all through GoDaddy.com. I love doing the searches.

just two that might work as trademarks.

Keep plugging along and play with the words: the RV step cover was originally called Travel Tread. However, that name was not available so I tied up TravelersTread and had to change the label, the brochure, the business cards, etc. The earlier you can get a name and secure it, the better. (I’m talking Domain Names here, not trademarks)