What is so important about obtaining patent pending status? Simply, that as you enter the entrepreneurial venture market place with a new product, you need to own the legal rights to it, otherwise manufacturers, financial backers, and others will not take your position seriously, and may tend to “borrow” your idea since you are not the legal owner.

What do you get for your $80 with the Provisional application?

• Patent Pending status on your idea.
• A reservation of your filing date for a standard patent application.
• Legal assurance that others cannot steal your idea.
• Preservation of your foreign patent rights.
• Protection on your concept without actual reduction to practice.

What does all this mean? The Provisional application allows you to offer for sale, or publicly show your idea without losing foreign patent rights. These rights are critically important to manufacturers (licensees) wishing to preserve a world-wide market. It also prevents idea theft by others. Further, it puts you into the drivers seat with respect to moving into the commercial market place with a new product.

The easiest and least costly way of applying for a patent is to file a Provisional Patent Application (PPA). Congress passed legislation allowing this type of application in 1995 in order to provide an easy and low cost way for individuals to obtain patent pending status on their new ideas. The filing fee is only $80 and writing the application yourself is straightforward since legal language is not necessary.

Since the PPA affords patent pending status for only one year from the date of filing, it is desirable to immediately start to seek-out possible licensees for your new product. This is accomplished by contacting appropriate manufacturers, that is, those who manufacture and sell goods or use processes similar to the subject of your patent application. They are listed in the Thomas Register, found in any public library in the reference section.

A preliminary patent search is recommended prior to any patent application, however, if you are on a budget, you may wish to forego a professional search with its patentability opinion which may cost from $350 to $1000. A free internet search or Patent Depository Library search will give you some idea about how novel your idea is, but please remember that the results of this kind of search are often misleading since proper searches are executed by searching class codes not titles or key words. It should be remembered that an issued foreign patent may eliminate the possibility of obtaining a U. S. patent.

A search of foreign literature is not generally possible on the internet or at the Patent Depository Library. The licensing deal itself generally includes an up-front licensing fee, a royalty percentage against sales, minimum royalty guarantees, and other issues including exclusivity, product marking, status of product improvements, defaults, termination, sub-licensees, accounting, infringement, cancelation, disagreements, and a host of legal issues. This is not a job for the do-it-yourselfer. More inventors are cheated through the mechanism of the inadequatly drafted license agreement, by far, than by the dreaded idea-stealing goblin.

VENTURE

If you are considering a venture approach on your new idea, then the PPA is recommendable to those strapped for ready cash. The PPA will give you immediate patent pending status and as long as a regular patent application (Utility Patent) is applied for within one year of the PPA filing date, the regular application can claim the filing date of the PPA.

However, if you wish to get feedback from the United States Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) as soon as possible, you should file a regular patent application instead of a PPA since the PPA is not examined by the PTO and no report is ever issued. Remember the PPA is designed to prevent the loss of foreign filing rights, and as a means to get patent pending status cheaply and quickly.

A professional preliminary patentability search is always recommendable to those considering the venture route. Once having obtained patent pending status through the use of the PPA or a regular patent application, the next step is to find a venture partner. Such a partner may be an individual, a group of entrepreneurs, or an existing company. Venture partners generally have an understanding of the appropriate industry your invention would be sold into, its market potential, manufacturability, and the general economic picture. But the first questions asked by such potential venture partners is, “is it patentable,” and “is it protected under the law.”

The answers to the first of these two important questions should be “Yes, I completed a professional patent search and have the opinion of a professional searcher and a registered patent agent or attorney that the idea is most probably strongly patent protectable.” The answer to the second should be, “Yes, I have filed a Provisional patent application with the United States Patent & Trademark Office, and in that application I have described my invention in accordance with Title 35 section 112, which states, in part, “The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art … to make and use (it) …”.