Protecting your "new" fishing lure or tackle

[rockhopper]

I get many questions on how to protect my new invention without running and filing for a patent.

There are a few ways that you can still protect your "filing rights" without spending any money, this gives you time to find out if your new lure or product is actually worth filing a patent on, well it let's you get a better idea if it is anyway, sometimes a sleeper like the Sinko happens, and you don't find out until it's too late.

In the U.S. and Canada we are first to invent countrys, which means it's not the first person to file for a patent, but the first person who can prove they invented the product, """and did not abandon it"" that receives the patent, or wins the court case. You have 12 months from the first public disclosure or use,, or offer for sale, or give away, without an NDA, to file an application for a patent,, this application can be the much cheaper provisinal application, if you plan on filing a utility patent later (You can not file a provisinal patent on something you plan on filing a design patent on, you must file the design patent before the 12 month's from disclosure occurs)

Paper trail,, keep a paper trail, where you can prove you showed a company your invention,, this will keep them from ever being able to file for their own patent, on your invention. as you can prove you showed them the invention. it would be fraud for them to file claiming they invented it, and could land them in jail.

NDA's

"Non Disclosure Agreements", this is a contract that keeps your invention secrete when you are offering to license the invention to a manufacturer, or when you show the invention to someone, or when you give someone the invention to use, and test. The NDA does not protect you if you "sell" someone a prototype or finished product to use and test. selling starts that one year clock running, so would posting a photo of it, or detailed description of it, on a web site.

Provisinal Patent Aplication, this is not a patent, there is no provisinal patent, this is just another way the governement has given you another year, before you must shell out the big bucks for a utility patent. The Provisinal Patent Aplication just nails down your filing date, so when you do file for a utility patent the date is backed up to the provisinal date. If you don't file for the utility patent within the 12 months of the provisinal application, the the provisinal application is tossed by the PTO. Remember everything in your utility application must be in the provisinal (PPA) for all the material to be covered by it's filing date, anything not shown in the PPA (any mprovements made after filing the PPA) will have the utilities filing date, unless another PPA was filed with those improvement added, then that date is the filing date on that material.

You may put "patent pending" on your product after you file for the PPA, but you must remove it, if you fail to file for the utility patent within 12 months, a fine of 50 dollars per "item" marked Patent pending can be leavied against you for marketing a product patent pending, if it is not. this could run into many, many, thousands of dollars fine, as it would be 50 dollars on each package on the store shelves. The USPO does grant some leway here for old stock to clear the shelves, but no new packages can be sent from you to the market after the 12 months expires and no other application has been filed

Why protect your new invention ?

Well it has to do with money,, do you want to be the one who benefits from your design, or do you want the big boys to get and sell it , and not give you a dime ?

If you plan on manufacturing, and selling your own invention, or having it manufactured for you to sell, when the OEM first sells you your product to resale, the 12 month clock starts, on that day (This is considered the first sale of the product, although you are buying your own invention) you must either file a PPA, or utility patent before the 12 months from that date expire, or you loose your rights to file forever.

[LaPala]

Good info, thanks Rodney.

A little article on patent in New Scientist came to my attention, you can read it here: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7213 . Interesting "grey" area mentioned there.

[rockhopper]

Good info' date=' thanks Rodney.

A little article on patent in New Scientist came to my attention, you can read it here: [url']http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7213[/url] . Interesting "grey" area mentioned there.

This is a reson why one should have the best prior art search done they can afford, yes you can do a search yourself, but a word search only goes back to 1975 or 76, these are the "full text" stored patents,, before 75 you must do class seaches where you must read and view "every" patent in that class, and many inventions are, or can be in many classes, and these all need to be searched, but there is still no way to guarenty that all the patents are availible for the searcher.

Now the lawyer getting a patent on the wheel,, this shows that the examiner in Austraila really didn't know what he was doing, as the "wheel" is not patented, all he had to do is look out a window, to see it was old art.

:oops:

This has been a big joke in the industry since this news first broke out, of course this also shows , just because you have a patent , it does not mean it can be enforced in court,, as all the defence has to do is prove public prior use to the filing dates.