New Product Concept & Patent Rights

[sayzer]

It is more difficult today to come up with a new product concept then it was 5-10 yrs ago.

I do have a bright and promising product concept which I think is quite genius (a toy).

However, how am I supposed to get it protected under patent rights?

What I know is that for global patenting the total cost is approx. US$20K.
Where am I going to get that much money? GoTo a sponsor and give them the idea, and forget the rest? How to trust? Or GoTo a well known toy maker and let them capture your idea!

I am sure there are experienced people on this forum.

May I ask for some suggestions?

[Luciano]

Hi,

Toys = China

China’s forgery laws are extremely well formulated
but largely unenforced.


Best regards,


Luciano

[Melanie]

A Patent gives you the right to sue. You still need more money in the Bank to execute a successful Action at Law - and you may need lots of it to fight a big corporation.

A Copyright is free, effective in most major civilised countries and breach of Copyright is cheap to enforce.

The best and most expensive catch-all Patent will not stop someone trying (possibly successfully) from attempting to circumvent it. Patent or not, it will still be copied with impunity in 40% of the world.

My recommendation is to bring your product to market as quickly as possible and as widely as possible. Make sure you stamp (c) Copyright Sayzer 2006 on the product and the packaging. You'll frighten half the people from attempting to copy it, and you'll be six months ahead of the other half - so make sure you make the most of your lead advantage. Hopefully, you'll have made enough money in the first six months to be able to fight-off the worst of the Copyright infringements when they come.

It's not nice when someone copies your product. When it happened to me, my first instinct was to round up the boys from the production department and go and burn the offenders warehouse down... three years on and I still feel like that (and today is a good day - ask me again when I'm in a mood!)...

[sayzer]

I am trying to be optimistic but after Melanie’s post above, how am I going to do that?

The first problem is with getting this product into the market “as quickly as possible and as widely as possible” as Melanie says, and the second problem is to solve the first problem first.

Welcome to Sayzer’s paradox!

Donations are accepted! %50 will be spent to protect deer species :-)


-----------------------

[Christopher4187]

How can you obtain a free copyright? I was told it costs $200.00 to file? $200.00 is good but if the cost is free, where can I go to do that?

Chris

[Melanie]

The act of creating anything original is Copyright in itself, but you need time and dated proof. The easiest and cheapest way is to send yourself a Sealed Registered Letter or package containing your concept or product. When it arrives, you put it away for the day you need to open it in front of a judge. If you wish, you can send it to a solicitor, your Bank to put in a deposit box or other notary.

The other way is to bring your product to market. The act of doing so tells everyone that it hit the street on 1st June, so when a copy comes out in a few months time, yours was first and half the population of the world is your witness. This is the option I take most of the time.

[Christopher4187]

Thanks for the clarification. From what you describe, it sounds like there is no way for anyone to complete a search to see if that specific product has already been invented. Here is a hypothetical example:

You design a product and slap a copyright on it. You market it and sell one unit to a guy on a mountain in Colorado. Theoretically, you and him along with some of your friends and family only know about the product.

At the same time, a guy in Florida invents the same product and markets it world wide with a patent. He researched the product and found nothing on the market so the patent is his. I mean, you can't fault the guy for doing research and finding nothing so he tries to market it.

Can a copyright really stop a patent? Is there anywhere "official" to file a copyright?

[Melanie]

You have as much right to your own original work as anyone else has to theirs. Later today I may invent a new kind of telephone, just as someone else in the far corner of the globe invents one just like it. We both achieved the same goal with completely independent means and thought processes. We both have a copyright on the work we created. As long as you can prove your product was your creation you have a copyright on that work. If someone files a patent subsequently, and your product is in the public domain (you have started selling it), then you have the defence of due dilligence that they missed your product when they performed the Search. Yes, there are Copyright Agents that will file your design for a fee - but we were talking here of doing something on the cheap.

Life is short, get it on the market, make some money and move on with something new. We all dream of the killer invention... the big one that will make us all millionaires... trust me, it's a lot easier to produce a hundred little things, making ten or twenty-grand on each one, than wasting your life dreaming of the big one.

[Christopher4187]

[QUOTE=Melanie]

Life is short, get it on the market, make some money and move on with [QUOTE]

That is so true. I guess some people waste a lot of time and money on trying to protect their invention but never actually get to do the fun part, produing and selling. That's good advice Melanie!

[sayzer]

big one that will make us all millionaires... trust me, it's a lot easier to produce a hundred little things, making ten or twenty-grand on each one, than wasting your life dreaming of the big one.

100% agree on this.
There are people who are spending life time only trying to be rich in short and quick way, but ending up with where they started.

These people are no different then treasure hunters; spend huge amount of money for high tech detectors, GPS, GPR etc. dreaming to find that famous big cave underneath the earth! They eventually spend 50-60 years and get nothing other then another clue to the imaginary treasure. They do not realize that they could earn good amount of money if they sold one piece of detector staff to the people they met each time on treasure thingy. Just as Melanie describes.

These people are also like the ones who seek for that perfect job and waste years in finding it. They are incapable of understanding that if they found a “normal job” early and start earning money, they could also keep seeking for that perfect job while already making money. Just as Melanie describes.

For the patent issue, back to the subject, I am wondering if geting a patent & copyright etc. in a country can be used as evidence (of invention) in another country sometime later? (I know that global patenting cost is approx US$20K.)
Since it will be in production and being sold, as Melanie said, but initially in one country only, can it be a consideration of evidence in another country WHEN applying for patent & copyright thingies in that country?

If this can be done, I can be optimistic again.

[languer]

Direct from the horse's mouth -> http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#cr

In fact it may have been Melanie the one that provided this link back in the days.

Don't get to wrapped around with trying to decifer this. That's what lawyers do, and you could have two different outcomes from the exact same situation depending on which lawyer you have.

Quick example, you create a cool little product and sell a few. Somebody else on a different place creates the same little gadget, they have more money and a market for it so they patent it. You, "in theory", are not required to pay any royalties because you created your product without any apriori knowledge of the other product, and it was not created after the patented one. Even if it was after the patented one, if you can somehow prove that the idea was conceived before (or at the same time) as the other one you are good (again, it really depends on your lawyer).

[Travin77]

I work with a patent lawyer here in the US. In the US, you can do something called a disclosure. It is a poor-mans patent in a sense. What you do is send the patent office a disclosure of what you are working on including how it works ect..... From the day they receive it, you have two years to apply for a patent. Your item is in a sense, "patent pending". Also there are different kinds of patents. In the US the main patents are design and utility. Most individuals nowadays get a design patent. That means that you found a new method of doing something that is already patented. A utility patent is when you have invented an entirely new process or object. If you need help feel free to ask. I can help you or anyone here get a US patent or at least get you some free or almost free advice from a registered patent lawyer. BTW, these comercials like inventtech are a scam. You pay $8000 and all you get is the disclosure. For $500, I can get you a patent search and for another $500, I can get you a disclosure. PM me if anyone needs more help.

Travin

[Melanie]

When somebody ripped my product off (made the counterfeit product in Lebanon - they even copied the copyright notices and our telephone number which was etched into the PCB) I was livid and really felt like beating the guy (an Egyptian 'make a fast buck' merchant) to death with my bare hands was the only way to get satisfaction. The product was simple, didn't contain a PIC or any software so was real easy for anyone to copy. My boss took me aside and basically said "Get over it. It would be two, maybe three years before it would erode significantly into our market share, and by that time we would have another fifty products in the field". A few threatening letters stopped them from using our name and phone number on their counterfeit product, but that's all. Today, there's about six companies that have ripped that product off, fighting amongst themselves for an ever decreasing market share. I'm happy in the knowledge I had exclusivity in the marketplace (and made good money) for almost three years before the product was copied. We ceased production last year, and yes in the interim we put around fifty new products into the field. So the advice here is not to waste your time or money on Litigation, but move on and do what you're good at.

[Ioannis]

Just out of curiosity, what was your copied product about Melanie?

And after all, using your phone number could get you in touch with a new client! (Hopefully).

Ioannis

[Toymaker]

Hi

I am a toy inventor and have licensed 35 toy game and gift items across the world.

We too have had 3 concepts/designed ripped off (one making millions of dollars), it's horrendous when this happens, you never get over it! The trick some player's use to do this is beautifully simple, especially those that will not sign off your NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement), and attitudes can be that if you want to present items to them it's on their terms. Now when they see something they like, very often you get "we are working on something similar", because by then they have seen your concept sheets and design's - it can then be a couple of years later that you find they are bringing the exact same thing out to the general market. In our case they were exact copies of what our detailed concept sheets! There is nothing you can do about it, except never present to these companies again. You have to learn by experience who are the 'good guys' to take concepts to.

You have to keep trying and eventually something does get through. We currently have a product that we invented here in the UK (called Cube World) that is starting to sell all across the world. The product is shown beautifully in the US TV advert shown on Firebox.com it can be seen on:-

http://www.firebox.com/index.html?dir=firebox&action=product&pid=1201

Best Regards

Tony

Conceptioneering Ltd - Inventors of the award winning CUBE WORLD - Visit: http://radicagames.com/cubeworld/index.php
To see Product Innovation - visit our website at www.conceptioneering.co.uk

[Melanie]

It was a safety device for commercial Boilers. What's annoying is that the market really didn't exist before we invented the product. When we launched ours www.k3planet.com/Datasheet-9934-2.pdf suddenly everybody wanted one, and in so doing created a whole new market... then about three years in the copies started...

I shouldn't really complain, I earned good Royalty on each one, and over 300,000 were made before we stopped production. It's just when you're on a winner (simple product, easily made, one unskilled person could assemble more than 100 an hour) , you want it to go on forever...

[Melanie]

Great product Tony. Wish you every success. Even I'd have a couple on my desk just for entertainment... (right now I've a "Sunshine Buddy")...

[Toymaker]

Hi Melanie

The guy's are great fun and can be very addictive, there are so many routines and permutations with the cubes, that their is such a lot of cool stuff to see! I also built in an orientation sensor, so you can "wind them up", if you turn the cube, the character falls, if you do this some more they get very agitated and end up being sick!

They are defiantly fun to have in an office! I have a wall of them here in my lab, and they keep me entertained every day!

Best Regards

Tony

Conceptioneering Ltd - Inventors of the award winning CUBE WORLD - Visit: http://radicagames.com/cubeworld/index.php
To see Product Innovation - visit our website at www.conceptioneering.co.uk

[Melanie]

Round of applause to Toymaker... just seen your TV ad earlier this week for your cube on Cartoon Network/Nickelodeon/Nick Toons/whatever... hope you sell millions in the run-up to Christmas. Well done Tony!

[Toymaker]

Hi melanie

Thanks for those kind words, Cube World is doing great, espically in Japan and China! I have done a cool movie of series 1 and series 2 cubes on youtube.com, checkout:-

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rvxKF85O8C8

I have also posted a movie of our voice recognition Dalek:-

http://youtube.com/watch?v=X7kygMHrYq8

It's fun making toys!

Best Regards

Tony

[mister_e]

Nice work... i liked the World domination mode :D

Also nice, TV advert!

Good luck!

[Toymaker]

Thanks Steve

I just found this Cube World music video this morning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlyRbpIShKI

What a great job this lad has done!

Best Regards

Tony

[keithdoxey]

That is sooo cool Tony.

Well done, I hope you makes loads of money from it :)

[Toymaker]

Thanks Keith

I checked out you website and your cool Home automation stuff. I have played with Home automation, and my older automation system is detailed on my website:-

http://www.conceptioneering.co.uk/automation.html

I now use X10 for controlling stuff, it works very well.

Best Regards

Tony

[keithdoxey]

Hi Tony,

I had a look round your website the other night and saw your HA page, looks good.

At the moment all my development effort is being concentrated on my KAT5.tv products. I have a video switcher that I have been working on for far too long that has 16 PIC16F88s talking to an 18F452. Each of the F88's decodes IR signals from the distant end of a link. Getting everything to happen when it should is hard work but I am getting there.

When things are fairly quiet, the main program loop excecutes about 300 times a second so there is very little lag when an event occurs :)