New Product Concept & Patent Rights

[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).