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Patent a product that already exists
Christin Carter	I want to create & patent a product but it already exists. When I thought of this product, I didn't know that it already existed. I did a quick google search and nothing similar came up. I did a patent search with keywords, and found something similar already made, and patented. Here's my question.......Can I create a product and patent it even if it's similar to the other product already being sold? My product would be designed differently and be made of different materials. Do I even need to patent it, could I just create it and start selling it? Thank you in advance for any help/advice given! 0 posted March 22, 2018 10:57 Report this topic Tweet Reply
Michelle Sartori 36,500 Insider Points	Hi Christin and Welcome to Edison Nation! We cannot as a company provide legal guidance on the patenting process. To secure a patent, an invention must fulfill three requirements: it needs to have novelty, utility and be non-obvious. 1) Novelty: The invention must be a new or novel idea. If it has been publicly disclosed, used or sold for more than one year before the date of application, the invention cannot be patented. 2) Utility: To be patented, it must also be useful. The invention must offer a benefit to society and perform the described function. 3) Non-obvious: To be patentable, the invention must not only be novel, but also non-obvious. Changing the size, materials or other obvious alterations on an existing product or patent are normally not patentable. Because of these three requirements, it's smart to conduct various searches for existing products or disclosures of ideas like yours. If you find something similar to your idea, you must be able to communicate why yours is different. It's very rare to come across an idea that is completely 'new'. Usually an invention is an improvement on one or more products. Here are our favorite go-to websites that we use to find existing products and ideas: www.google.com/patents www.uspto.gov www.amazon.com Doing this research ahead of time will help to guide you on your path to success, and help our review team to evaluate your idea even faster. To learn more about intellectual property evaluation, check out this blog post! 0 posted March 22, 2018 14:31 Report this post
noel kreutzmann	Hello Christin, from my knowledge of patenting if you change your design by 7%-10% from original patented product you are not in way of copy right and you do not infinge on others patent , yes put a provisional patent on your product , you then have a year to act and see if you wish to take your ideas future, if the other patent of same idea is 20 years old i believe , you have no issues at all 0 posted March 31, 2018 01:50 Report this post