As you may imagine, The Inventor’s Planet is a place with zero gravity. The inhabitants are free to jump about and do things that would be restrictive on any other planet.

On the inventor planet creativity is a raging river irrigating the creative needs of those around it. The sky is Blue, or Red, or Purple…or whatever your mind’s eye may see, and the air is filled with tenacity and hope. While the people spend their days harvesting the crop of invention planted months before from seeds of innovation.

All in all, the inventor planet is a happy creative place where anything goes and the limits are all in your mind – But don’t look for any money on the inventor planet, there is none. For that you have to go over to the Business planet.

The Business Planet is a much different place. It’s a happy place as well, but for different reasons. On the business planet there is a strong gravitational force that governs a set of rules ensuring everything runs efficiently. The gravitational pull of manufacturing, the gravitational pull of consumer wants, the gravitational pull of money, and even a gravitational force of luck. All work in synergy to ensure it all functions correctly.

On the business planet the mighty river of commerce flows swiftly as people constantly throw new things in and fish others out. The sky is a constant, but beautiful, emerald green, the air is full of hope and tenacity. While most nights you can stare into a star filled sky of profit waiting for the next day to arrive and offer a new opportunity.

Sure, there’s often a lack of creativity, and the sky is always the same color, but on the business planet it all works well to make sure everything functions within the gravitational limitations of the planet itself. It’s not a bad place at all – just a different place than the inventor planet.

So – how does one move between the Inventor Planet and the Business Planet? – On a bridge of course.

Inventors always seem to think the problem in our industry is the business planet. Envisioning gangs of thugs running around just waiting to jump out and mug the first inventor that happens by – Wild gangs, intent on stealing the inventor’s money, their ideas, and their dreams.

Yet people on the business planet look across the bridge and conger up visions of these creative trolls locked in their basements toiling away on ideas that most people don’t really want or need – A greedy bunch that puts far more value on their invention than the rest of us do, demanding to be treated better than others when they grace the business planet with their presence.

Are either really correct? Maybe in some cases both are correct, but how do we fix this overall mischaracterization people on both planets have of each other?

The key is education, and that’s where the bridge between the planets becomes so important – it represents the ability to educate ourselves.

The bridge is a span between two known worlds. Each planet having its own environment, its own risks, customs, even personality. By educating yourself about what you will find when you arrive, you dramatically increase your chances of fitting in when it comes time to make that trip.

That entire educational process happens on the bridge.

You see, the bridge is constructed of knowledge – built from planks of information dried in the kiln of experience. Google, Books, CD’s, DVD’s… Blogs, Forums, Radio shows, Magazines, even simple Conversations are all planks on the bridge of knowledge.

Some inventors take years to cross the bridge, soaking up the knowledge on every plank. When they arrive at the other planet they are truly prepared and the result is that they are generally successful.  Other inventors want to run across the bridge, they bypass all the really important planks and in record time they have reached the other planet. The result is predictable – they normally fail, walking back angry and dismayed ready to tell all of us about the roaming gangs of thieves, and lack of appreciation and understanding the other planet has for inventors.

The bridge is built of education and best traveled slowly and with persistence. It is in fact, an exercise in personal responsibility and the success you have when you reach the other side is directly relevant to the amount of time you took to cross it.

When you do get to the end of the bridge – some people take a cab to get around.

We know there are two planets, the Inventor Planet and the Business Planet. We know there is a bridge between them designed to get you ready for what to experience when you get to the other side. But what about navigating the many roads and being able to get from place to place once you are there?

When that time comes many inventors charge off with little more than desire and a sense of what they think they know is correct. Others – well they take a Cab.

Not a Cab in the sense of a bright yellow car, but a Cab in the sense of using someone more familiar with the area to do the navigation for you. In the inventing industry those “Cabs” are the group of service providers waiting at the foot of the bridge as you step off onto this planet you know little about.

Picture this – you are on a cruise and you walk down the gang plank into a beautiful little island port. Waiting for you are 3 Taxi drivers.

You don’t know it at the time, but one will take you directly to your destination and charge you a fair price to do it. The second will take you to your destination but in a rather long rout that racks up your bill a bit. He’s not directly stealing from you, but he knows you don’t have a good sense of where you are or where you are going so he bumps it a bit for his own advantage.  The third Taxi, well he’s fully aware you are clueless about where you are and how to get where you’re going. So he promptly drives you around the island twelve times only to drop you off very close to where you started.

How do we keep this from happening? It’s simple – we get a map of the island before we get off the boat and use it to understand where we are and where we are going. If you had a map in the third Taxi you would have seen very quickly what the driver was doing.  The same could be said for Taxi number one. A map would have shown you very quickly that you could trust this driver and each time you needed a ride from that point on you would have looked for him.

Working with service providers in the inventing industry is really no different. There are all three types of “Taxies” ready to greet you when you walk off that bridge onto the business planet – and with little effort and a few conversations they will know if you are holding a “map” of the process.

Don’t get me wrong, its fine to use service providers. Just understand while many are like Cab number one, there are some like Cabs two and three. You don’t know when you get in what Cab you have, but if you have done your homework and figured out where you need to be going and what the stops are along the way, you will quickly be able to tell which Cab you stepped into and if you should take the ride, or get out before you spend all your money.

Planets, Cabs and Bridges are all just metaphors of course for a process that many inventors make much more difficult than it really is. The lesson is easy – do your homework, take responsibility for your own inventor journey and be humble enough to learn. Remember those simple things and you should not only have a great experience, you should become successful.

Mark Reyland is Executive Director of the United Inventors Association.

His blog can be found at http://inventoropinion.blogspot.com/

Ron Reardon, Patents & More, Inc.

The Aunt that raised me from age 3 on is 91 years old and, for all practical purposes, is my Mother. While she is in great health and her mind is still sharp, she gets shorter every year and is light as a feather.

On Mothers’ Day weekend we visited her and took her out to eat. Upon exiting the car a very light breeze hit her and caused her to take a few steps backward to regain her balance. All of us, her included, laughed, since a puff of air threatened to blow her away. She commented that a friend of hers said that she was “going to put a brick in your pocket”.

What has this to do with patents, you ask?

Well, some patents are light weight and can be “blown away” by the slightest breeze. In other words, the claims in the patent have miniscule value.

Among some patent practitioners, the joke is that if a patent claim can be covered with two fingers, the probability of the Patent Examiner allowing it is close to zero (however, if it is allowed, it could be very commercially valuable). On the contrary, if a patent claim requires two hands to cover, the probability of allowance is very high (but the enforcement value of that claim is probably zero).

That being said, a “picture claim” that describes in tremendous detail the elements of the claimed invention and requires three or more hands to cover, can be very useful in your patent strategy.

Not all claims are created equal, their utility depends on your patent strategy.

If you don’t have a patent strategy your allowed claims might be so lightweight that investors or licensees might run, not walk, away from the negotiating table.

To learn more, just contact us.

Ron Reardon, Patents & More, Inc.

Design Patents got a bad rap years ago when companies who would “guarantee” getting a patent for an inventor would file a design patent application instead of a utility patent application.  If the structure, functionality, process of making/using, etc. was what was potentially licensable, then the inventor’s initial elation for receiving a patent was short lived.

While inventors need to be wary of recommendations to file ONLY a design patent application to “protect” their invention, design patents can be very useful in your patent strategy arsenal, especially when paired with the filing of one or more of a utility patent application.

While the leveraging of “patent pending” as part of your commercialization efforts can have multiple benefits (creating a positive perception in the marketplace that allows one to charge premium prices, etc.), “patented” can supercharge those efforts.

Design patent applications generally issue as a patent much faster than corresponding utility patent applications.  The primary driver for this is that a design patent is limited to only one claim, and that claim language is standardized: (in layman’s terms the claim says: “Hey!, it looks like this! See the drawings.”)

This means that, in many cases, in about one year (or so)  from filing a design patent application an inventor will be able to state “patented”, while the corresponding utility patent application slogs its way up to the top of the list to be examined.

As you can see at the top of this post, the Statute of Liberty is a famous example of a design patent.  Other examples include: Oakley sunglasses, Bulgari jewelry, Crocs shoes, Sketcher Tennis Shoes, Maserati car, Maxtor exterior hard drive case, a printed circuit board, as well as classics such as the Coca-Cola bottle, Barbie, a Mickey Mouse doll, Transformers, and the Dumbo ride at Disney World.

The timing of the filing of a Design patent application is very important and is very fact dependent.  Contact us and we can explain the nuances of when to file and when to wait.

Ron Reardon, Patents & More, Inc.

Johnny Carson hosted The Tonight Show for 30 years. A little known fact is that Johnny had a pillow that had “It’s all in the timing.” embroidered on it.

After an inventor’s invention has had a professional prior art search conducted with a patentability opinion that is positive, the question that I often get is “Which do I file, a Provisional Patent Application, or a Non-Provisional Patent Application?” and “When should I file?”

There are pro’s and con’s to each, and the timing of filing either is very fact dependent, so these can be difficult decisions. As with most topics, there are opinions that are all over the map when it comes to Provisional/Non-Provisional from “file early, file often” to “wait as long as possible to file”.

There are some that believe that Provisional applications are the best thing since sliced bread. Others believe that Provisional applications are totally worthless. Still others believe that Provisional applications are useful, IF… (and there is a long list of “if’s” to be considered).

The short answer that I give is that if you have an idea on a napkin, a Non-Provisional application is not appropriate. However, if your product is “shelf-ready” (manufactured, packaged and ready to ship to stores), then a Provisional application is not appropriate.

To give some background for those of you not familiar with the differences between the two, a Provisional application gives one year of patent pending and then expires. It never becomes an issued patent. During the year of patent pending, an inventor can further develop the invention, get market feedback, search out investors/licensees, and other commercialization activities, and make a go/no-go decision on further investment of resources.

A Non-Provisional application is searched and examined in the Patent Office and potentially can become an issued patent, with all the rights to exclude others that come with an issued patent.

A Non-Provisional application can be filed initially, or it can be filed prior to the expiration of a Provisional application.  Once a Non-Provisional is filed “new matter” cannot be added to the application.  (if the “new matter” is really important from a protection perspective, an additional application will need to be filed; more on this in a later post).

An advantage of a Provisional application is lower initial cost, plus the option to not incur the expense of further filings and go-to-market costs if there is no interest in the marketplace.

Disadvantages of a Provisional application are higher costs in total (the filing of the Non-Provisional), plus delaying the start of the process of getting a patent by up to one year.

One important aspect for a Provisional application is that it be well written. For example does it contain support for the claims that will be in the Non-Provisional? Also, is the specification “enabled”, that is, can a person of average skill in the art “make and use the claimed invention without undue experimentation”?

There are other questions that need to be answered in making the decision of which to file and when to file.

If you have questions in this area contact us and we will guide you through that process.

Ron Reardon
Patents & More, Inc.