How I should go about it was vague at first but I thought that I could put the idea online in the form of a wiki and let it be just an information gathering website. But I still could see very little incentive for me to go to the expense of creating the wiki and put it online. I thought it would be nice if someone created it for me and then I could just use it as a tool in my personal investing. So I asked one of my brothers how much money could be made from a successful wiki. He said "Not much". I now know that this may not be true if because you can always advertise on the wiki and make some passive income that way. Then my brother gave me some suggestion and he showed me how to make it a profitable business venture. Over time the idea grew in my mind and the potential became more evident to me. The point is that it took some people who were close to me to better develop the idea. But realizing that this idea could be a good startup business I knew I had to keep it close to the vest and not tell everyone lest someone beat me to market.
This is true with most any product as well. Protect your ideas you may need to tell a few people to get some feedback and develop it further but tell it to only people you know you can trust. Having the best product in the world means nothing if your competitors can replicate your ideas. I remember a friend of mine had an idea for a product that we have never seen. We took the idea to one of these places that offered cheap patents and they say they could pitch the idea to different manufactures to make the product as well. We told them about the idea gave them specs and drawings we had made for the product. Then they told us their price just to do the research. The price they came back with was way out of our league. We had no way of coming up with the money at the time. So we gave up on the idea for the present. About a year later we saw a commercial for the very same product that we gave to the supposedly cheap patent office. It may have been a coincidence but we had a hard time believing that at the time.
Therefore you need to put some protection in place or barriers from your competition. Below is a list of different protections you can use for your ideas all these things are grants of exclusive rights from the government:
1. Patent: Are designed to protect utilitarian or functional concepts.
2. Design Patents: Protect the appearance of a product.
3. Copyrights protect the way things are express such as works of authorship.
4. Trademarks: Protect a company's reputation and goodwill.
5. Trade Secrets: Protect anything that you can keep secret such as the recipe for diet soda.
Your idea may require just one or a combination of the above to properly protect your idea. Probably the easiest way to go about getting a patent would be to talk to a patent attorney. Make sure you find a reputable one so you can avoid the same mistake we made. Also discuss price to make sure it is reasonable for you before describing the product in detail you can also download a confidentiality agreement and have him (and everyone else who you talk to) sign it. Patent attorneys can research existing patents and tell you if there is one in existence that is similar to your product. If you're lucky enough to find that you have an original idea then you can use your patent attorney to create a patent for you. Admittedly the patent process can be very complicated and an attorney may be the best bet. It can also be very expensive. So in this article I will describe some things you can do before hiring an attorney if you have more time than money.
1. Write down your idea in detail and date it. Have a friend witness and date it as well This can give you a little protection against possible idea thieves.
2. Do your own search to see if anyone else has your idea patented already.
a. You can find information on doing your own search @ uspto.gov. Check out the inventors assistance section for information for new inventors.
b. Drive to the nearest patent depository libraries (find these on the website mention above) where librarians are there to help you.
c. Use Google Patent Search and do keyword searches for similar products to yours.
Doing this may save you a ton of money if you find that the product is already patented. If you found nothing on your search take heart but it doesn't mean that the patent doesn't exist. There are over 244,341 patents granted in 2010 alone. The next step would be to pay for a professional search. If this comes up empty it is time to talk to a patent attorney. Taking those steps first could save you some good money before starting to pay an attorney.
This is true with most any product as well. Protect your ideas you may need to tell a few people to get some feedback and develop it further but tell it to only people you know you can trust. Having the best product in the world means nothing if your competitors can replicate your ideas. I remember a friend of mine had an idea for a product that we have never seen. We took the idea to one of these places that offered cheap patents and they say they could pitch the idea to different manufactures to make the product as well. We told them about the idea gave them specs and drawings we had made for the product. Then they told us their price just to do the research. The price they came back with was way out of our league. We had no way of coming up with the money at the time. So we gave up on the idea for the present. About a year later we saw a commercial for the very same product that we gave to the supposedly cheap patent office. It may have been a coincidence but we had a hard time believing that at the time.
Therefore you need to put some protection in place or barriers from your competition. Below is a list of different protections you can use for your ideas all these things are grants of exclusive rights from the government:
1. Patent: Are designed to protect utilitarian or functional concepts.
2. Design Patents: Protect the appearance of a product.
3. Copyrights protect the way things are express such as works of authorship.
4. Trademarks: Protect a company's reputation and goodwill.
5. Trade Secrets: Protect anything that you can keep secret such as the recipe for diet soda.
Your idea may require just one or a combination of the above to properly protect your idea. Probably the easiest way to go about getting a patent would be to talk to a patent attorney. Make sure you find a reputable one so you can avoid the same mistake we made. Also discuss price to make sure it is reasonable for you before describing the product in detail you can also download a confidentiality agreement and have him (and everyone else who you talk to) sign it. Patent attorneys can research existing patents and tell you if there is one in existence that is similar to your product. If you're lucky enough to find that you have an original idea then you can use your patent attorney to create a patent for you. Admittedly the patent process can be very complicated and an attorney may be the best bet. It can also be very expensive. So in this article I will describe some things you can do before hiring an attorney if you have more time than money.
1. Write down your idea in detail and date it. Have a friend witness and date it as well This can give you a little protection against possible idea thieves.
2. Do your own search to see if anyone else has your idea patented already.
a. You can find information on doing your own search @ uspto.gov. Check out the inventors assistance section for information for new inventors.
b. Drive to the nearest patent depository libraries (find these on the website mention above) where librarians are there to help you.
c. Use Google Patent Search and do keyword searches for similar products to yours.
Doing this may save you a ton of money if you find that the product is already patented. If you found nothing on your search take heart but it doesn't mean that the patent doesn't exist. There are over 244,341 patents granted in 2010 alone. The next step would be to pay for a professional search. If this comes up empty it is time to talk to a patent attorney. Taking those steps first could save you some good money before starting to pay an attorney.
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