Patent agent recommendation?

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hybridprinter
Posts: 141
Joined: Sun Dec 21, 2014 8:04 pm

Re: Patent agent recommendation?

Post by hybridprinter » Fri Feb 20, 2015 5:37 pm

it's sounding like it might not be worth the expense. what made you do it John? are you displaying your product at the icast show?

MGuser
Posts: 16
Joined: Mon Mar 09, 2015 12:30 am

Re: Patent agent recommendation?

Post by MGuser » Mon Mar 09, 2015 1:03 am

The patent is only as good as your ability to fight it. It is not a magic document that automatically assures no one can or will compete with you, it just gives you a legal leg to stand on when you're suing the other company.
One thing that may help, is knowing that you don't have to be the one fighting. If you have a patent that is being infringed, there are law firms which will sue the infringer for you based on a percentage of the settlment from the outcome. Another thing you can do, is license or sell the infringed patent to a competitor of the infringer, who then can do the suing. Even a pending application is useful in these regards, because once the patent issues, the infringer can be also sued for provisional "back dated" infringment, back to the time they were first presented with the pending application.
The other problem is China could care less about patents unless you have international patents and really huge dollars to to sue.
A third thing you can do is get a patent or utility model in China, using your U.S. patent application as the priority document. This way, a potential Chinese infringer will face infringement for making, selling, and importing into the U.S.

Since there are so many companies in China competing, any advantage that one of them can get over the other is utilized. If you have a U.S. patent (or even a pending application that looks good to the Chinese), and especially if you have a Chinese patent, then you can work with a competitor of the Chinese infringer just like stated above.

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pyronaught
Posts: 684
Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2014 8:24 pm

Re: Patent agent recommendation?

Post by pyronaught » Sun Mar 22, 2015 4:35 pm

I didn't think China had any respect for patents and intellectual property whatsoever in their country. They have entire manufacturing towns dedicated to creating ripoff clones of other companies products. The China problem is what pretty much makes patents a waste of time and money. If you create a product that sells well enough, they will create a front company that comes in and sells a copy of your product at a fraction of your price and then just wait for you to sue them. If you just happen to be able to afford $500 an hour for a patent lawyer to fight them, they will fold, declare bankruptcy and then start up a new company doing the exact same thing and start the process over again and again.

For the types of relatively low-tech products most individuals come up with, a patent just isn't worth it. For something radically new, profitable and clearly unique then yeah a patent is a good idea. Otherwise I'd have to agree with chad that the thousands you spend on a patent are better spent on getting your production up and running ASAP.
Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.

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