Have you ever solved a problem from start to finish,that has patent
potential.That you can talk in general terms about. Protecting my
interest has given me a read between the lines reputation on this
forum. I have spent thousands of dollars with incompetent patent
firms. Example,you sit down with a patent attorney and draftsman,
then you meet with another member of firm. His job is to submit
your work to patent office,they are so busy that he has no clue
about your paper work.You are asks for fee's to continue ,the cost
rise's as a search, bad search is preformed.The patent office has
so many 30-90 day rules,that are explained to you as they take your
money. You can go to free forums at the library, they go thru
the whole process to tell you that you will never get a non-
disclosure form signed by anyone. They Introduce an Inventor
that tells you,Good Luck. That why staff attorneys with multi-
million dollar corporations get most patents. The night time
Infra- commerials make billions of dollars, Arm & Hammer makes
most of the products. Some of the companies stock sells for
$54-00 now. Not arm & hammer do your home work.

 

I have spent thousands of dollars with incompetent patent
firms.

That has never happened to me. I've worked with great patent attorneys. Generally, a good one will recommend writing patent disclosures to protect your ideas while you try to figure out if it's worth the high cost to patent the idea. Most of the time, patents are a waste of money. Note that, like most competent people, good patent attorneys do expect to get paid for the good work they do for you.

You need to find a good patent attorney. There are definitely many good ones out there. Any patent is going to cost >$10,000 nowadays however, and I would never spend that without very good reason. By the way, if an idea is really worth the cost of patenting, you do not want to try to write the patent yourself. However, you do need to educate yourself to recognize the requirements of a good patent. Writing the claims is critical and should not be left to an amateur.

In general, attorneys get a bad wrap, but good attorneys are outstanding people. You can find bad engineers too, so don't hire one of those either.

 

The patent office was on the verge of closing in 1888, because "everything had already been invented".

I'm named as a "co-patentee" on a couple of UCLA patents, but my chances of deriving a dime from any of them is just about nil.....not because of any evildoing on anyone's part, but because these are so specialized, and quite unlikely to generate any profit for ANYONE. Of course, I wouldn't complain if they did. It's easy to be #1 in a a field of one!

Actually, having a "company" patent isn't always a bad thing. My dad had gobs of them with Hiller Aircraft and Boeing, as well. These companies paid all the attorney fees, and were both very equitable in sharing the profits. 5% of MILLIONS is worth a lot more than 100% of nothing.


Just my thoughts

Eric

 

Plus you get paid to be resident.of the North Pole,or share in oil profits.
Has a chance to work my way to Alaska, but I had a conservation grant
I had to finish. I love the cold weather,I can build me an igloo in
Florida you wouldn't believe It. You can't doubt my ability. I was going
to make 200 ft ski slope so I could ski.