Patent Myths

Manufacturing Engineering, Jan 2009

Nothing in the law breeds more myths than patents, according to patent attorney Kirk Teska. He says the mere definitions of patents, copyrights, and trademarks are confusing. Separating fact from fiction is important, so he points out several widely held myths in his book, Patent Savvy for Managers. For example:

* There is no "poor-man's patent." That is, you can't be granted a patent by writing down an idea and mailing it to yourself. In fact, in February 2007, the US Patent Office eliminated its Disclosure Document Program. This happened because that program provided no benefit to inventors, and some erroneously believed, despite the Patent Office's warnings, they had achieved patent-pending status.

* You don't have to conduct a patent search and have a working prototype. Both might be helpful in certain circumstances, but they are not prerequisites for filing a patent application.

* There is no formal do-it-yourself patent application. An actual patent application is a hybrid requiring both legal and technical information, including drawings that depict the invention and a specification that describes the invention.

* The fact that you have never seen a product that incorporates your ideas does not guarantee your ideas are patentable. There are a lot of "wouldn't it be nice"-type products and ideas that never made it, for one reason or another. And it's quite possible, despite the fact they flopped, they were patented. So your idea will not be patentable if the same or a similar idea is the subject of a prior patent.