researching patents?

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Hey fellow (want to be) inventor did you try the government? well that the first place i'd look. government.com i guess (not a fan) if not stay up tell 3AM and watch network tv i see tons of you know sell your ideas adds. though I would NoT trust them. hey colaredo (closes enuf) is some thing to do with Tesla??? :wiz: HaHa no what is you idea No need to tell me. just wondering i had one for a shirt folder watching my sis fold cloths. well soon enuf i saw the on tv you know (as seen on tv) Man i had it to!!! really! well dot let this one go try the GOV. :)
 
i think my best bet is to just get ahold of a patent attorney and have them research it for me, or give me some info.

thankfully, its a techincal invention, not one any joe can just say "hey, lets make this!" so urgency isnt too key. however, there might already be patents for it, but i bet money if it was out there, it would be something i would know about, because it would be popular.

anyone in here ever go through the process, or currently hold a patent?
 
Hi cowanrg

There are many sites throughout the world where you can search for patents. One exaple is this one:

http://ch.espacenet.com/espacenet/ch/en/e_net.htm

It is the worldwide search facility of the Swiss federal institute for intellectual property. There is also on American one but I forgot the URL.

There are some points your invention has to fulfil in order to be patentable. The most important one is that it has to be new. If it is already patented, common knowledge or already described in a magazine article, it's novelty is not given anymore. And don't talk to anyone else about it !

Regards

Charles
 
thanks for the advice everyone!

i have only told my dad about this, and he is very tight lipped of course. im working on it pretty much by myself. unfortunately, its not something you sell millions of, but you may sell 10,000 at $1000 each. its not cheap, but would be in demand for those who could use its application.

ill do some more searching i guess. i already looked on the US patent office site, and its amazing what's actually on there! there are SO many patents there.

i think a lawyer would be my best bet still, becuase this is very complex, and i would need to look at it from every angle to make sure no one stole the idea.
 
As Jan said, www.uspto.gov has great search features, both for issued patents and published applications. You'll need a TIFF plugin to view images. The big disadvantage is that older patents aren't searchable except by number and classification. The Derwent searches are better in that regard but expensive.

Having a lawyer search for you will set you back quite a bit of money. A good compromise is to give the lawyer the searching keywords and ask for the raw search report. Then you can plow through the abstracts, note which patents are potentially relevant, and look them up online or order hard copies.
 
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cowanrg said:
i think my best bet is to just get ahold of a patent attorney and have them research it for me, or give me some info.

thankfully, its a techincal invention, not one any joe can just say "hey, lets make this!" so urgency isnt too key. however, there might already be patents for it, but i bet money if it was out there, it would be something i would know about, because it would be popular.

anyone in here ever go through the process, or currently hold a patent?

I went through the process, and I would be very carefull with the patent lawyer. You will have to spoon-feed them everything, because he/she most probably is not intimitely familiar with your invention (if he/she was, they would have patented it themselves). If you are not carefull, you end up doing the legwork, they run an on-line query and you pay horrendous fees.

To be honest, I thought I had a clean-cut case, and they came up with no less than 3 "prior art" patents, one going back to 1953. That guy (a son of Mr Miller, the guy from the Miller cap!) didn't make any fortune on it either.

But, I am now the proud owner of a completely useless patent, because since they changed patent laws in Europe you can get any patent, as long as YOU think it is valid, and as long it is not contested. It hides that nasty stain on the wall...

Jan Didden
 
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Joined 2001
Yes, I went over both to the Great Britain site and the US patent site, and I never found the patent for the Fris Daline. I tried Fris, I tried Daline, I tried Decoupled Anti Resonant Line. Nothing.

Okay, so we have a site for Europe, and a site for America. Anywhere else? How about Canada, Asia, South America and Africa. If a patent is taken out there, doesn't it apply worldwide?

A long time ago, Johnny Carson had a fellow on his show, an American, who was making some waves by inventing what he claimed was a perpetual motion machine. He tried to patent it in many countries, finally succeeded in South Africa, which apparently had freer patent laws. This was before the end of apartheid. I have no idea how that might affect this issue, if indeed it does.

Isn't something patented in South Africa, or anywhere, recognized universally?
 
Isn't something patented in South Africa, or anywhere, recognized universally?

No, not at all. A patent can only be enforced in a country in which it's issued. And enforcing a patent is a horrendously expensive process.

I tried Fris, I tried Daline, I tried Decoupled Anti Resonant Line. Nothing.

Trade names and marketing slogans won't often get you results in a patent search. Try something like "loudspeaker AND transmission AND line AND xxxx", where xxxx is some feature that allows you to narrow down the search from all the other loudspeaker patents. You want to search all the patent text, not just title and abstract. You'll end up slogging through about a bazillion irrelevant patents, but it's cheaper than having a lawyer do it.
 
Re: patents

janneman said:
Patents are an excellent source for knowledge, and can give you a good view of the "state of the art". A good site (the official one) for the US Patennt and Trademark office is at www.uspto.gov. If you register (free) you can look in all patents, search in various ways and download patents (US$ 3 each).

Jan Didden
You can download for free, elsewise they will mail you the patent for $3 -- helpful for ideas which are pre-1976. Some of the Johnson ideas for tube amps are of this vintage.<p> As mentioned, you need the TIFF viewer to examine -- why they didn't use Adobe is beyond me, I suppose that there was some compression issue. FWIW, it costs anywhere from $15,000 on up to engage a patent attorney and if you have a really great idea it's better to prevent it from being pirated by not patenting it.
<p>With regard to enforceability -- if it's patented in the US and you try to bring in a competing product from abroad you are going to have a rough time.
<p> some of the search clues are given in the advanced search engine --- use identifiers like "AN/" for the assignee, "IN/" for inventor etc.
<p>The reason that many countries have poor pharma industries is that they have poor intellectual property rights in chemistry and allied sciences.
<p> I started putting some of the interesting patents for loudspeakers on this site: http://www.tech-diy.com/patents_loudspeakers.htm
when I was recuperating for a few weeks from an accident (lots of spare time, I watched every movie made in the 1930's over a six week period). I will be happy to add to it if folks forward their links to me.
 
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