First Step Toward Patenting Your Invention: The Search

Perhaps you might have an concept for a new product simmering in the back of your mind. You have done a few Google searches, however have not found anything similar. This makes you confident that you have stumbled upon the NEXT BIG THING.

Daily inventors inform me they "have not found anything like it." And whereas that's a good start, chances are high that they haven't been trying in the right places.

Earlier than investing additional cash and assets, it is the suitable time to search out out definitively if the invention is unique, determine if there's a market an invention idea for it, and discover tips on how to make it better.

Inventors should do a search on-line with a purpose of discovering two or three competitive products. In the event that they're scared to do the search, that's a very good factor, because in my expertise, it normally means they're on the proper track.

And yes, the objective needs to be to find other products in the market that are already trying to solve the same drawback as their invention. That demonstrates that a answer is actually needed. And if there's a want by a large enough group of people, then they stand a far better likelihood of turning the invention into a revenueable venture.

So inventors ought to go to a patent agent or patent lawyer with examples of or three different related products, and after signing a retainer agreement (which establishes the agent/shopper relationship) the dialogue turns to the specifics of the product including drawings, mockups, and/or prototypes.

At this level, the agent or legal professional will do a more thorough search of the U.S. Patent Office and other applicable databases in the United States and/or internationally. They're figuring out if this invention is certainly distinctive, or if there are even more, related patented products.

Some inventors take into consideration doing the search of the Patent Office on their own, however there are several downsides to this plan. Their emotional attachment to the invention will cloud their judgment, and they will steer away from discovering different products which might be similar. Though likelihood is they have already recognized a couple of different rivals, looking out the U.S. Patent Office is a more intense process. From my expertise with purchasers who have completed their own search, they've ignored related products which have already been patented because they can't face the reality that their concept isn't as distinctive as they as soon as thought it was.

However, discovering additional comparable merchandise doesn't imply that all is lost. The strategy changes to evaluating the proposed invention with the patented one, and discussing ways to enhance it and make it patentable. A very good patent agent or legal professional will provide objective insight at this phase. The process is to take the invention, ignore the parts that have already been incorporated into another patent or patents, and the remainder is a patentable invention.