LEVITAT

So what should you do first?

1. Blog about it?
2. Tell everyone down the pub?
3. File a patent immediately?

• If you answered 1. Blog about it, or 2. Tell everyone down the pub, you just lost your millions. Patents are granted to you by governments, giving you (the inventor) a monopoly on using the idea in exchange for you making public your know-how. They do this so that others can learn from your work and develop other useful products on top of it. If the idea is already in the public domain, why should they give you a monopoly?

RULE 1 - do not make your idea public prior to filing a patent. (Note that the system is different in the USA, where you are allowed to make your idea public up to one year before you file a patent.)

• If you answered 3. File a patent immmediately, you just cost yourself a lot of money. Patents get expensive very quickly. You have to file separate applications in every country you want protection in… and you also need to renew each of them every year. Expect a couple of hundred Euro, every year, in every country… it adds up. If it takes 2 years to develop the idea, that’s 2 years of expensive patent fees that are unnecessary. You might run out of money before the product is ready to sell.

RULE 2 - Don’t file your patent until you have to. The ideal is to keep your idea secret, work with people under terms of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), and file your patent the day before the product hits the shelves. You might not quite manage that, but delay filing as long as possible.

So what should you do?

Step 1 is to research the idea. Has anyone done this already? Has anyone tried to do this before? Why has it not been done before? Is there a real market for this idea? How big is that market? If you are happy that the market is there and is big enough to make it worth your while, then…

Step 2 is to carry out a patent search. You can do an initial search yourself online (Esp@ceNet, USPTO) but should get a patent agent to do a final search before you commit too much money to it. Many ideas, even if they’re not on the market now, will have been tried by someone, somewhere, before. If you idea has already been tried, you won’t be able to get a patent… unless your idea brings something new to the table.

If you clear those two hurdles you might be on to something. I’ll talk about what happens next in a later post. If you are already at this stage and can’t wait, talk to a patent agent before you do anything else. Good luck.