I'll just echo the sentiments expressed so far. Patents aren't for everybody. If competitors aren't scared off by your patent(s), you have to resort to a court (or courts, considering appeals and such) to have your patents enforced. And, that's not cheap. Even if you think you can get triple damages for willful infringement, there's substantial risk that you won't get anything, and that you'll lose your patent (if invalidity is raised as a defense). On contingency, you may not be risking much loss, but your attorney is -- so either you'll have to assume the risk yourself or convince somebody else that the risk is well worth taking.
Of course, there's a less extreme way to extract value from a patent portfolio. Present enough risk to your competitors that they'll pay something to avoid the conflict -- a royalty. However, you should be aware that, like taxes, royalties often have emotional value attached to the dollar value. Like the way many will spend $1,000 to save $50 in taxes, many would rather litigate than pay a reasonable royalty -- even if reason and simple economics would dictate otherwise.
Lastly, I've heard others say that patents are useless based on their own experience in failing to enforce their patents. Each and every patent is a custom made "one-of" thing. Failure to enforce one doesn't show that all others are useless too. I've seen a very wide range of quality of work in patents. I've seen very experienced practitioners draft claims that were so clever in capturing a potential "design around" that they didn't even cover the prototype. And, even in the work of good practitioners, I've seen the occasional "unfortunate" word in the claims, allowing for valuable design arounds.
In addition, it's impractical to always prepare a patent application that's impervious to challenge as invalid. The universe of potential prior art is just too vast to consider in its entirety for every filing. And, the universe of potential pitfalls is also too vast and at least partially beyond the control of the patent practitioner to completely avoid in all circumstances.
Given all this, it should be appreciated that not all patents are created equal, and to a large extent, spending the resources up front on a patent you intend to enforce is a good idea. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Unfortunately, people often select the cheapest way to get a patent and then try an inexpensive manner of enforcement and then blame "the system" when it fails to work justice. Remember, in the US legal system, you're entitled to all the justice you can afford.
So, to answer the basic question as to whether patents are useful, I'd say the answer is certainly "Yes" if you create them properly and you use them properly. Whether patents are a good value for you in your particular circumstances is a different question entirely and depends on your circumstances.
As for your particular circumstances, I agree with the others -- you may have "in public use" problems. Private use isn't such a big problem in the US, but private use for too long raises the issue of laches (pronounced "latches" -- use it or lose it applied to your legal rights). The outer limit is 6 years and perhaps shorter. I have no idea to what extent private non-experimental use in the US has in other patent jurisdictions and to what degree laches applies outside the US in patent law.
I hope that helps.
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Topic: Patent usefulness ? (Read 1027 times)
