Looks like Jobar is the kind of company that will copy any idea that hits the market. They have an office hidden somewhere in Carson Ca. I never do like doing business that only has a PO box.

Matt,

The info below indicates Mister Steamy had knock-offs at the show. I assume the infringing company was Jobar International Inc since they “still” have a similar product on their website. My question to you is did Mr. Steamy have an “issued” patent on it "Utility or Design before EN handed out the cease and desist order ? If not Jobar doesn’t legally need to cease/desist if EN or the inventor only has a patent application do they ? If Mr Steamy has a design patent I’m not so sure there would be any infringement since the two products have a different Design “Look”.

Recap of the Home and Housewares show
Have you ever heard imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? Consider Edison Nation flattered! We discovered three companies, Innovative Ideas Limited, Jobar International, Inc. and On TV Group (a/k/a Seen On Screen TV, Inc.), who were offering for sale products that appeared to infringe at least two of Edison Nation’s patents. Patent infringement involves the unauthorized making, using, offering for sale or selling any patented invention within the United States. Edison Nation took immediate action and had cease and desist letters hand delivered to all three companies late in the day Monday, which was the second of the show’s three days. Both Emery Cat and Mister Steamy had knock-offs present. Edison Nation takes its duty to police its intellectual property seriously, and we will continue fighting on behalf of our inventors in an effort to chase down alleged infringers.

Maybe your cease and desist order could be considered a “Furious Demand” order if there is no actual U.S Patent issued. Either way its good to see EN is Guarding the inventors invention/idea..
Hats off to you and EN Matt……..

copy the link below for some great cease/desist knowledge for inventors…..Use WWW instead of TroubleU

TroubleU,troubleU,troubleU.smithhopen.com/litigation_cease_and_desist_letter_strategies.aspx

Matt… Just wanted to add my thanks as well for the info you posted. I´m new to patent process, as well as being a new active member here at Edison Nation. In fact I can thank the Edison Nation process AND Community comments for pushing me to investigate and take more seriously idea protection and patents. Thanks!

Jane… sorry to read about the pc troubles… I echo Rainer and penster´s good recommendations… on anti-virus, firewalls, and backups. I´m super cautious (bordering on paranoid), and I´ve used some great security software that´s kept me virus free for quite a few years now — Avast and ZoneAlarm. Best wishes on trouble free inventing!

Thanks Matt for the great explanations. I am new here, but am active on the forums, and I must say one thing. But the EN team members, Roger and the old community members here are extremely helpful and they go into so much detail to explain stuff. Even private question sent to EN are responded to very fast. I haven’t seen this anywhere else. EN is like a dream come true to inventors. EN is just too good. Keep it up. I really thank all of you for this.

GRATEFUL & just GREAT!

Thank you for your kind understanding and helpful explanation! Very much appreciated!

For inventors EN is a celebration!

Gotta love EN!
Thanks Matt

Thanks Matt! That should put some minds at ease!! Thx. EN !!! : )

Hi Guys!
We’re on top of it. The law goes into affect in 18 months so we’ve got plenty of time to work through all of the details and make sure you guys remain protected. You’ve all seen that we’ve had quite a bit of international success with our products and the countries in which we’ve had that success all have patent rules similar to the rules that will go into affect with this law.

Sure, you are currently protected by the “first to invent” rule at the USPTO when you submit ideas to Edison Nation… but you’re even more protected by the legal agreement that we enter into with you when you submit an idea. That won’t change. Also, your idea is protected as we present to sponsors through legal agreements that we have in place with them.

It is in our interest just as it is in your interest to keep those agreements in place and enforce them if necessary. We’ve never needed to do such a thing with our sponsors because they know they’d be destroyed in the land of public opinion (and courts) if they tried to take advantage of us (and you). We have, however, successfully gone after countless infringers of our (and your) products who were not sponsors and we continue to do that on a daily basis. Here’s a photo of us serving an infringer at a major trade show: http://blog.edisonnation.com/2010/03/17/recap-o...

Anant, with a few possible exceptions, we do not patent ideas prior to reaching G8 status. If we do file for patents, your name will be on the patents along with any other team members who helped reduce the idea to practice (that’s the law).

Thank you for your opinions and answers to my initial questions.

After reading today’s blog article and all of the aspects to patenting products, as someone who likes to come up with ideas, I am impressed by EN. I understand that the original invention concept (idea) is from what I have heard one of the more simpler aspects of the whole total invention process. I know that I would not have the knowledge, speaking for myself, to see an idea from start to finish, and with EN, they develop the prototypes, patents, contacts and even presentations etc… I can’t be thankful enough for the opportunity that they provide.

I enjoy each day more, having hope as others have been helped, that I may eventually be helped in this process of creating marketable products.

I probably am too eager to find out answers about my original wondering regarding the effect of the new law and EN. Through this thought process though, it is becoming more of a celebration that EN is THE PLACE to be for careful help regarding the inventing process. Also in helping inventors on a different level than at least I have known before, and know that I have read that many here can say the same.

My current perspective and my concluding thought to this thread, if someone else would like to add comments feel free… The new law is just that, ‘new’, and has a lot of pluses such as less USPTO money being used elsewhere and eventually speeding up the patenting process for all, and making the patent process for micro-entities less of a financial risk. This will be an overall good thing, in my understanding, because products can be put on store shelves faster and jobs can be created quicker by manufacturing these new products. As for having questions and thoughts about how the new law will effect submitting an idea to EN, I think that EN will let us know if there are any significant changes. I myself will continue submitting to EN as before the new law.

Thanks for your comments… I am grateful for the growth of EN and believe we are really in a good place.

Thank you Rainer and Penster, I will put my files on an external hard drive that I have, I never thought that I shouldn’t keep my files also on my pc’s drive…good thought and thanks Rainer. I appreciate your help Penster…I haven’t had a crash on this pc ever and it has been years ago since I had one on a different pc. I will take both of your good advice and back up my hard drive and delete my files off this pcs hard drive. I am okay now, just kinda spooked me for a few minutes.

Ah well, back to the subject at hand.

Thank you for understanding my slight detour off topic, but If anyone else has any other input regarding this thread’s initial or following questions regarding PPA’s, NDA’s and such like, it would be great to read about the thoughts and learn more.

You should also consider backing up your files to an external drive at least every month. I use carbonite, it takes a long time to upload but all of my data is always there if computer crashes or I need to access it from another computer. There is a fee but if your computer crashes, there is a significant chance of losing data.

Good luck Jane

Do u have a firewall and anti virus program ?

If you have a anti virus program do a full scan now and see if anything pops up. Also download
free version of “Ad-Aware” and run a scan..great program …very popular and does a great job finding things
other programs can’t.

Use Ad-Aware in addition to your anti virus and firewall programs.

I put all my files on an external hard drive …never on the pc’s drive.

The weird thing is my computer just crashed for the first time “ever” this morning. As it was crashing, it said that 100 of my files were being download to a disk, not sure what that means? I shut my computer down manually and it stopped the downloading. You know I can’t help but wonder if my invention ideas stored on my pc were compromised. I am always wondering and I am a thinking person by nature. So I question why, who and etc… I really am also unsure about the safety of computers and the internet anyway, and needless to say this didn’t help. I hope that it is okay to write this on this thread as it has nothing to do with the topic. I digress, sorry, but just had to get it off my mind.

Thank you Peter! I did not know that the $55 fee would go up. Like you I went to the USPTO website and looked at their updated fee schedule and I couldn’t make sense out of it because it didn’t add up to what I thought the fee would be of $55. Your estimate of around $62.50 makes perfect sense now! I appreciate your answer.

Jane… Your very welcome! I just checked the current fees… It seems USPTO is increasing their fees a bit. After Sep/26/2011 the PPA fee jumps to $250 from the current $220. (from which any discount is base on) It would indeed have been $55 based on the $220 rate.
Cheers!

I just got back home…and…Thank each of you for your responses!

Michael – Yes, the ideas that are more promising would be better suited for filing a PPA as it would still, for me, be difficult to have the finances to keep up with all of the full non-provisional patent fees for every possible invention concept that I would have.

With this said, I do think that, as Greg brought to the forefront, EN handles our submissions by non disclosure agreements and this will alleviate much of my own concern about how to proceed with submissions. I will do as Greg says as per usual.

A follow up question to the prior, will the USPTO, consider a sign NDA, enough proof of the initial inventor concept, that it would supersede someone who may see the merits of the inventor concept and file their own PPA on someone else’s concept, or would their PPA supersede the NDA? Is the NDA stronger or the PPA? Maybe this is the main crux of my initial thread and wonderings.

Anant, I am not really sure when the PPA would be initiated by EN. I don’t know if it is case by case or if there is a definite level that this would be started.

Peter, thank you for saying this was a great question as I am/was a bit nervous to post, mainly because I am unsure, if I am understanding the main ideas involved correctly.

Peter I thought that somewhere I had seen that the micro-entity fee for a PPA would be $55 under the new law, but it could be as you mentioned higher by a bit. I was not able to find it online myself. Still not sure, but have a feeling we will learn more soon!

Rainer, yes, I read the statement you had quoted as well. The micro-entity status is for inventors who haven’t had more than 4 previous patents. I am not sure if micro-entity is for possibly small groups or businesses as well or just individuals?

I am grateful for all of your responses and help! Thank You!

Straight from the bill…

“Defines the term “micro entity” as a certifying applicant who: (1) qualifies as a small entity as defined in regulations issued by the Director; (2) has not been named as an inventor on more than four previously filed patent applications, as specified; and (3) has gross income below a designated level without having transferred ownership interest in the application to an entity with gross income exceeding such limit. Authorizes the Director to impose income, annual filing, and other micro entity qualification limits under provisions related to institutions of higher education."

There’s more to the “micro Entity”…I believe you only qualify by not having more than a certain number
of patents.I’m not sure yet…still trying to read up as they say.."The small print "

Jane… great question — I’ve been holding off on a particular idea submission wondering about the same things.

Greg / corsaire… great answer — you put my mind at ease on a few points.

On fees…
According to the revised USPTO Fee Schedule effective September 26, 2011… a provisional patent application filing fee = $250
…qualifying ‘Small Entity’ are discounted by 50% which = $125

I understand that qualifying for ‘Micro Entity’ will receive the benefit of a 75% reduction in USPTO fees.
…so possibly $62.50?

Here’s the final bill ( H.R.1249 ) for your viewing..Have fun wading thru it :(

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:HR...;

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c112:5:./...:

I have a doubt. I have heard that EN files a patent, in the inventors name with rights being their’s. When exactly do they start doing that? It is after R7 or after R8. Also, they would start with a PPA right?

“The new program emphasizes Green Technology developments and accelerates patent applications for that sector.”

I don’t believe any sector should be push faster along than other’s. Plus Using the new patent law and basically calling
it a job bill by saying it will help create more jobs (Green Technology) is just plain old politics.

From my understanding, a PPA only starts a twelve months clock on when you can file your NPA and claim the filing date of the PPA as your filing date. A PPA isn’t made public after that period of time.

Then for submissions here, the companies being shown are signing NDAs; so, no clock starting that way.

I’d rather see EN filing stronger PPAs covering more of the invention’s claims and possibilities than I might have in my initial envisionment when they have need or desire to do that over a NPA.

Basically, I don’t see a change in status quo in regards to EN under the new law.

Jane,
I have been wondering the same thing. I understand that the first to file will reduce red tape and hopefully the fees as well.
With that said, I am almost a little nervous about my ideas that go G7 and are presented without protection.
For me, I think it could slow down some of my more promising ideas as needed for the extra expense of the PPA. However, for ideas that I wouldn’t go any further on my own with, I will continue to submit to EN on a regular basis without the PPA. I think it’s a little bit of a judgement call for each of us…IMHO. ;-)