A patent essentially means the U.s. Government recognizes you as the owner of your idea. Thus nobody can use your invention or a variation of your idea without buying it from you or paying you royalties. Any related uses also mean additional compensation. Consequently you can see the huge amounts of money at stake if […]
Is a Patent Worth It for New Inventors? Read More »
For several decades filing a patent with the USPTO required a time-consuming and tedious process of attaching multiple claims to the application. A claim can be thought of as a ‘fence’ that circles your invention and describes where rights to your idea end and another entity’s rights begin. This provisional patent created challenging hurdles for
Why 1995 Was a Key Year for Inventors Read More »
Protecting your idea or patent with the USPTO will in many respects dovetail with the age-old debate of “form over function”. In a nutshell, there are two different types of patents, design and utility, which respectively mirror the metaphor above. You may have heard of both (particularly design patents) in the recent titanic patent dispute
Inventor Patent Conundrum: Form over Function? Read More »
Would you believe that protecting your invention in the United States requires a delicate balance of speed, precision, and intelligence? In fact, it’s very much like the egg and spoon races many of us engaged in as kids. Going too fast and you could you drop the egg and get booted out the race; too
Inventor, Don’t Drop Those Eggs! Read More »
In the old days, inventors were required to hand-deliver their working prototypes to the physical USPTO offices, quite unimaginable in the age of the Internet. This also led to many patent attorneys renting expensive office space near the USPTO headquarters. Those days are mostly gone but you will still find big players basing themselves in
You Are (Patently) Closer To Me Than You May Think Read More »
Provisional patents can be a valuable avenue for inventors and startups in the first-inventor-to-file system, but there are inherent risks if not done carefully and methodically. These risks are often not explained carefully enough by low cost document preparation companies that push these types of patents. In my following video, I offer further details about
Beware an Improperly Filed Provisional Patent Application Read More »
While it’s not mandatory to conduct a patent search prior to proceeding with a patent, it’s a useful first step to find out if your idea is actually unique. While there are instances where you may wish to skip this step, failure to do so could actually end up costing you money if someone else
The Pros and Cons of NOT Doing a Patent Search FIRST! Read More »
There are some risks to conducting Google patent searches online, one of them being that certain marketing companies track and monitor keyword searches, potentially allowing an employee to steal your idea without you ever knowing how this came about. Watch my video for the full story!
How Google Searches May Allow Others to Steal your Idea Read More »
As many of you know, I have been working on my new book entitled, Escaping the Gray: When Launching Your Idea Full Throttle is the Only Option for a number of years. I am proud to say that my book is now nearing completion! In my book, I showcase valuable lessons for inventors learned during
Book Launch Event at Barnes & Noble for John Rizvi’s New Book for Inventors! Read More »
This is one of the first things inventors ask me after the initial non-provisional utility patent has been filed. In the following video I outline its journey through he U.S.P.T.O (which is often slow) and, unfortunately, usually ends up being rejected by the patent examiner whose job it is to establish the uniqueness of your
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