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[townskeeper]

My lawyer filed my Utility Patent Application almost a year ago so I am still in Patent Pending status. My invention is a condiment container which every person I have talked to said its awesome. I have gotten everyone to sign NDA's so far but I need to market my container to the general public and I am afraid of it being reproduced by the competition because it will be me versus King Kong. My questions are:

1) How afraid should I be of getting it out in the general public
2) If the competition produces it what recourse will I have since I am in the Patent Pending stage
3) Is there a chance of me not getting my patent approved, and
4) Should I buy Patent Insurance to protect myself?

[MYK]

1. What is it that you are afraid of?

2. You can wait until your patent issues -- if one ever does -- and then see if their containers infringe your patent;  if so, then you can sue to get them to stop, and there is a very slim chance that you might be able to collect "reasonable royalties" for the period from when your application published until your patent issued.  If no patent ever issues, then you are out of luck;  you can just keep marketing your product and hope to beat them out in the marketplace.

3. Yes, of course.

4. Never heard of it.  Got a link to a provider?

[OMG IP]

There's nothing wrong with being first to the market.  Being the first and the best at doing something, in addition to some aspect of patent protection, are a competitive advantage.

Risk is part of the game.

Copying, near-copying, infringement, and willful infringement happen all the time, especially when the economics justify doing so.

At the corp of capitalism is competition.  If you start making money, it is inevitable that you will have competition.  Expect it.  Deal with it.  Move on.

There's always a chance of not getting a patent issued.  If nothing else, statistics show it's twice as hard to get a patent now as compared to just 5-6 years ago.  So what.  Coke doesn't have a patent for coca cola.  Snuggie isn't patented.

[JustAnotherExaminer]

Is it those new Heinz packages that are opened either as Squeezable or Dippable?

Cause those things are amazing.

[bleedingpen]

Is it those new Heinz packages that are opened either as Squeezable or Dippable?

Cause those things are amazing.

Yes they are.  I have only seen these packets in Chik-Fil-As.