Create, Consult, Control
News & commentary on intellectual property issues.
Apr242009 | Steve O'Donnell
What about those invention places that advertise during daytime TV?
We've all seen them, the commercials touting how some company will look at your invention and give you a report on on the estimated market for the invention and help you obtain a patent. They sound like a pretty good deal, but are they? Probably not.
I can't say that all of the invention companies are. . . <ahem> of questionable scruples or that there isn't one that will give you good value for your investment. I can say that I've never encountered anyone that was satisfied with what they got for their money. I have also never met anyone that received bad news from one of these companies. Sadly, I've also never met anyone that made any money with what they got from these types of companies.
I understand that someone might be skeptical that a patent lawyer might try to dissuade a potential client going to such a business. After all, if everyone did that, I'd have to find another line of work, so don't simply rely on my opinions. The United States Patent and Trademark Office has a brochure available that points out the most common warning signs that an invention company is shady. The office also collects complaints against invention companies and publishes them, as well as responses from the companies here. The FTC also has an alert concerning invention companies. Still unconvinced? The United Inventor's Association also has a list of publications cautioning people about the many scams that are used to prey on inventors.
Again, your milage may vary, but I wouldn't count on it. A better idea is to talk to a patent attorney to advise you before you contact an invention company.
Mar272009 | Steve O'Donnell
Do you have hidden intellectual property?
The thing you immediately notice when looking at any large company's intellectual property profile is that it is massive. Big companies know that the demand for their products will diminish as they become obsolete, but that new products will come out of their ideas.
Their patenting procedure is to obtain patents on every idea they can, even if they don't have immediate plans to do anything with the idea. It may be years before the company is ready to do anything with their patent, if that time even comes. Even if the company has absolutely no intention to do anything with the idea, they will patent it so that they can either prevent a competitor from using that same idea or license the patent to their competitor, creating a passive revenue stream. If nothing else, a patent is an intangible asset on a balance sheet.
Many smaller companies or novice inventors think that patents only cover big, important inventions, things that are game changers. In reality, many, if not most patents, cover small innovations. Often, these innovations aren't even for what most people would consider inventions. The inability to recognize when something should be patented results in a missed opportunity. Too many inventors have lost control of their intellectual property because they never sought patent protection only to have their inventions taken by a larger company that can do a better job at marketing.
No one realizes the importance of a wide patent portfolio better than Apple. A quick search of the Patent Office finds 2531 patents assigned to Apple. Although some of these cover things that fit into most people's definition of an invention (such as their 7508662 patent for a heat dissipating device handle), a number of them cover things that people might think of as clever, but be surprised to learn that they're patented inventions (such as Patent No. 5694151 for a “Method and apparatus for providing visual feedback during manipulation of text on a computer screen.”
In the following posts I'm going to select some patents covering inventions that could easily have been overlooked by the inventor and try to help you identify what intellectual property you have hiding in plain sight.
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