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[The Big Idea]

My message is simple.
I want to develop a way for people with ideas to be able to protect them from theft or unauthorized use without the hassles and expenses of a patent. I feel if enough people petition the government for such a thing it is possible. You could start here -->(http://www.house.gov/writerep/)
Why must an inventor who has payed for equipment and supplies to invent a new design ext. (Not to mention time to invent.) have to pay such an incredible fee to secure an idea that is already his. This seems like a way of robbing the little man and keeping big corps on top. There should be a website were you can go with your idea(s) and you pay a resonable yearly membership, in turn the website secures a patent for you. To make it cost efficient the website would take all ideas for the month and put them under one patent or something to that effect. Is this possible? I would like anyone and everyones opinion on this and any ideas. If we can come up with a good enough plan I would devote my time to make such a website but I would need legal opinions as well.
One voice is hard to hear but an audience makes an incredible roar that can not go unheard!

[Isaac]

I see a lot of problems with this idea, but the main problem is that it would not save any money.

That monster patent would be a bear to writer and thus expensive.  Undoubtably it would also include a huge number of claims thus incurring filing fees that smaller single patents would not incur.

You might think you would save money by only having to pay one filing fee, but as soon as an examiner gets the application, the examiner is going to see that it includes more than one invention and he is going to ask you which one you want to pursue.  To pursue the other inventions you will have to then file divisional applications for each invention of course accompanied by the filing fee.

So where is the saving???

[The Big Idea]

Thank you for your response, That was only one idea and I posted in hopes that I will see other ideas as well. Tho it is rather unfortunate! I just figure that there has to be something we can do to make it cheaper for the little guy you know. I am just coming from spending 4 years on developing software and the last year on developing hardware that is supported by my software in wich I have incured a few thousand dollars in expenses plus at a minimum of 6000(Understatement) man hours invested I have paid more than enough already and for me to sit here after the fact and see that I still have to pay thousands of dollars in cash to make sure that no one can take my idea, I find that this is unexeptable and it seems to me that it is the largest scam I have heard of. Regardless I won't let up on the congressmen ext. untill a change is made and I have hopes that I will not be the only one. Untill then I guess only I will use my invention and the rest of the world will just have to do without it

[Eliz]

Are you aware there are reduced filing fees for "small entities"?  Many of the other patent office fees are reduced for small entities as well.  I am not an attorney or agent, but if you are an individual inventor you would probably qualify for the reduced fees.  

I would also add that the other problem that Isaac didn't mention is that the real expense is in paying your attorney to draft and file your application...this would likely far exceed the PTO fees.  Yes, inventors are allowed to file their own applications, but my understanding is that VERY few are successful in doing so, because patent law is a very complicated area.  Even if you were to be successful in obtaining a patent by yourself, the patent would likely be much more susceptible to attack by would-be infringers than if you had an experienced attorney draft and file the application for you.  

The expense can be daunting for sure, but if your invention really has commercial potential, it is well worth hiring an experienced patent attorney.  

Also, I have heard that some attorneys will take cases on a contingency...i.e. draft and file your applicaton in return for a share of the profits you make from your invention.  I personally don't know anyone who does that, but it might be worth looking into for you.

Good luck.

[The Big Idea]

  Hey I did not know that. This is why I started this string. I have learned more from the two ppl that have responded than I did from weeks of reading from google. This is great and Eliz I am going to look into a lawyer to work on contingency. That is something I had not thought about.

[JimIvey]

The expense in US patents doesn't come from the requirement that you prove you had the idea first.  So making that the sole requirement would significantly reduce costs to file patent applications.  

As it stands now, the disclosure requirement of US patent serves a different purpose -- to provide understanding of the idea to the public, a sufficient level of understanding that people of ordinary skill can make and use the invention.  That's a lot of writing, and writing is hard.  That's why it's expensive.

Off the top of my head, I'd say major components of expense come from two areas: (i) the best mode requirement and (ii) the harsh penalty for failing to disclose enough.

I'm not aware of any country other than the US having a "best mode" requirement -- a requirement that the inventor(s) disclosure any preferences in practicing the invention.  Patents in other countries seem to be very brief relative to US patents, so maybe re-thinking the best mode requirement might lead to savings.  Of course, it's there for a reason, but I have no problem having that reason reconsidered.

The penalty for disclosing too much is nothing, other than the superfluous effort in drafting the patent application.  The penalty for disclosing too little is invalidity of any claim for which disclosure is inadequate.  The result is that many practitioners don't try to cut it too close to the bare minimum required disclosure but rather over-disclose by a safe margin (at least one hopes).  That added security isn't free, and many practitioners won't compromise that safety margin.  

Perhaps a softening of the penalty would provide comfort to practitioners (or applicants) to get by with briefer applications -- a prorated reasonable royalty -- 90% disclosure gets 90% of a reasonable royalty.

That's just a wild, off-the-top-of-my-head guess at what we might do to make patents more affordable here.  There are already all sorts of suggestions under consideration for improving the efficiency of the examination process, including separating out searching functions and heavy reliance on outside contractors in addition to the growing use of electronic information systems.

Regards.

[Isaac]

Another penalty for under disclosing is not having detail included
in the patent that turns out to be the patentable subject matter.
I'm of the opinion that best mode is actually very seldom a real
problem although it may be a handy tool to batter a patent holder
with during litigation.  I don't see specifications getting
much skimpier if the best mode requirement is done away with,
except in those cases where the patentee is deliberately keeping
the best mode to himself.

With some inventors, the problem is more one of getting them
to disclose or acknowledge embodiments other than their preferred
one.