I'm just looking for a rough and ready idea of how much it would cost to take out a patent on a fairly simple electro-mechanical gadget.
The thing is someone seems to have stolen a design for a gadget which I published as open source several years ago. I didn't beleive at the time it was commercial and I still don't in its present form, which was why I published it. The guy is now selling it, in a form very similar to what I described and is suggested to be seeking a Patent. I don't beleive it will sell enough to make his patent costs back, nor do I beleive his adaption will work nearly so well as my original.
The absolute minimum, for a DIY application using electronic filing is £230 - £20 application fee, £130 search fee and £80 substantive examination fee. That gives cover for five years, after which there are annual renewal fees, starting at £70 and rising to £600 for year 20.
However, it takes a lot of experience to create an application that won't be full of holes and a Patent Agent's fees have to be added to that if you want to be reasonable sure that the patent is sound. This site gives typical fees, for the initial application:
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There will be ongoing fees after that and letters from Patent Agents must be printed on sheets of gold for the amount they charge.
The real cost though, possibly a couple of hundred thousand pounds for a simple dispute, comes if you have to defend the patent against infringement and if you don't, there is not much point in having the patent in the first place. That will require IP protection insurance, which can run into a few thousand pounds more, depending upon the level of cover required.
Thanks, much cheaper than expected on a DIY basis. When I looked at taking out such a DIY application 20 years ago, it was about the same cost. I'm not sure whether a patent lawyer would be involved or not.
I'm just wondering whether I ought to advise the Patent Office that it is so similar to my own widely published design (which is by default my copyright), as to make his application a nonsense?
It would be remarkably stupid for anybody without a lot of experience in filing patents not to use one.
It doesn't really matter whether you own the copyright or not. What is relevant is whether it is prior art - the same idea published earlier, whether by the patent applicant or by somebody else.
I would certainly contact the Intellectual Property Office and tell them that you believe that somebody intends to seek a patent based upon work that you have published.
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They will probably ask you to supply details of when and where you published the work and may ask for a copy, if it is not readily available. If he does make a patent application, the IPO will then decide whether his work contains sufficient innovation to justify granting a patent or whether it is simply a derivative of previously published work (i.e. yours).
It is not uncommon for patent applications to fail at the search stage because they are not sufficiently innovative.
The IPO has a search facility, but I am not sure what you can find there.
IMO for an amateur to get into the patent business is an expensive waste of money. One of my wife's relatives is an inventor in a small way, and spent thousands on a particular patent, mostly on patent agent's fees, and hasn't seen a penny in return. Amateur patents come under the heading of vanity publications, IMO, and are done more for the self satisfaction of the author rather than for any commercial benefit.
As has been said elsewhere in this thread, drawing up a patent so that it's reasonably water-tight and can't easily be circumvented by minor design changes is best done by patent agents, who don't come cheap. Then there's the problem of where to patent it. If you just patent it in the UK, or Europe, say, there's nothing to stop someone copying and manufacturing it in America or China. You have to patent it in all the countries where you think it might be manufactured, and that costs money. Patents also have to be regularly renewed, by paying fees in all those countries. But then you have to police the patent. Having a patent on something doesn't automatically stop others copying it; the Patent Office don't police it for you. If you think someone is infringing your patent, then you have to fund the legal steps necessary to stop them. More expense.
If you think the design of this person's gadget is very close to yours, and if you published that design in a magazine or journal that's reasonably accessible to the general public, then it's in the public domain and comes under the heading of 'prior art', and should not now be patentable. If the Patent Office discover that publication in their search for prior art, and in their judgement his gadget doesn't differ significantly from yours, they won't grant a patent. Quite how you bring that publication to their attention if they don't find it, I'm not sure. Contact them, giving all relevant details perhaps, including any details you have of his patent so they can refer to it. I think it's easier to stop a patent application before it's granted, rather than have one rescinded or cancelled. If he's selling the gadget without having patented his design, then AIUI he's too late to patent it anyway. Needless to say, if you've already described the gadget, you can't now patent it either.
But why worry? If you don't think he'll recoup his costs, that's his problem. It's no skin off your nose. There's nothing you can do to stop him making an identical item to the one you described, whether he patents it or not, because you didn't patent it. All _his_ patent will do, if he's granted it, will be to stop other people making the same thing. If it's as similar to yours as you suggest, it wouldn't be too difficult to challenge his patent, although it might be expensive so only worth doing if there was money in it for the challenger.
I don't think you can patent anything you have put in the public domain. I have just invented a device that allows electronic bathroom scales to work on carpeted floors, should I patent it. Chuckle, I don't think I can as its just a sheet of hardboard.
If there is money in it, you could let him get his patent then ask for 50% of the 5% its worth, otherwise you'll provide evidence of prior art to his competitors and the patent office. That's assuming the application was made before he showed his device to the world.
Its not really that simple. I and I'm sure numerous other kids made clockwork generators years ago, yet some time later Mr Bayliss was granted a patent for his clockwork generator. a) A court would enforce his patent unless sufficient proof were found that it had been done before - and for something you made at age 9 that's hard to do b) Mr Bayliss can enforce his patent, even if its found to be invalid in court, simply by initiating legal proceedings which would cost you or I a lot of money - that in itself is a form of enforcement.
Applying for a patent without disclosing prior art that you know about is illegal. The best thing to do would be to inform the Patent Office about the prior publication.
If, of course, it can be proved that the person applying for the patent did indeed know. And "illegal" wouldn't be a private financial claim, it'd be a criminal case, so it'd need the CPS to decide it was viable and in the public interest.
Although you might still be able to patent an improvement. But unless you have deep enough pockets to enforce that patent against a likely adversary then it is essentially worthless. See the US case of Meade vs the poor sod who invented the Goto telescope as an example. They basically ground him into the dust with legal fees. Our fat slimy expensive lawyers are better than yours so we can do what we like...
It may be sufficient to contest the thing by drawing the attention of the patent examiner to the location and datestamp of prior art before it is granted. In UK patent law you cannot patent something that has already been disclosed to the public either by you or a third party.
USPTO are notorious for having a policy of granting patents for anything if your dollars are green and in sufficient quantity. They have for example given Xerox a patent on the mathematical identity:
X + (-X) = 0
(as applied to JPEG decoding)
There is nothing in it that isn't blindingly obvious to the mythical anyone skilled in the art. The prior art exists in the astronomical literature and is good for the general case NxM rather than just 8x8.
This is true but there is another side to the coin. You take out a Patent and then charge a licence fee to the great queue of honest companies wanting to use your idea in their product.
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