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Written by : Dulce Choudhary |
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what's up guys so today I'm going to be talking about how I got my first patent at 17 and also I'll be explaining how you can apply for your patent and get a patent on your product so this is what we're talking about a United States utility patent and I'm gonna be talking about the way I did it and I'll be only talking about what I know so I'll show it to you here this is the patent that was issued you could see there's a barbell there and this is the product that it was issued on the snap flips barbell collars so I'm gonna tell you about how I got my patent so the process that I follow - then I'll explain step by step what you would do to do the same thing so I started off with not a lot of money had like two hundred bucks and I was in high school and had this idea of a barbell collar that you could use to hold your weights in place so I had made some prototypes this is one of the prototypes here and I thought it was a good idea so wanted to file a patent on it and I wanted to file a provisional patent because a provisional patent is basically a time holder and it says hey I'm here I have this idea and I want to file a patent for it but I'm not quite ready yet so filing a provisional patent sets your spot in line and then you have 12 months from that date to actually file a real patent that can protect your product or idea so the way that I did it was I got some software online it was 150 bucks at the time now it's only 99 dollars for a year so it's called patent wizard put it up right here and you go on patent wizard you download the software and you basically it asks you a bunch of questions like extended response questions about your idea how you make it what it looks like how it works you fill in all that stuff and then I don't know after a couple hours of doing it it prints out your patent for you and at the time I printed it out I mailed it into the USPTO the United States patent trademark office and my spot was saved in line now what you'd actually do is you would make an account online download it to your computer from the software and submit it online if you send it in through the mail now they actually charge you an extra two hundred bucks so it's not worth it so now you would just do it online anyway after I filed my provisional patent I started developing the product more making sure that there was a need for this type of product making sure that people wanted to buy it and I did find that people wanted to buy it so at that point I said okay we need to file an actual utility patent on this product I found some lawyers that were really nice and wanted to work with me and we went through a whole I mean it was a couple months turning our provisional patent that I wrote which I wouldn't necessarily recommend writing your own patent your own provisional patent but I didn't have another option at the time so that's what I did so we took my provisional patent and then we turned it into a utility patent filed it in the office and we actually got it it usually takes between one and three years to get your utility patent issued we filed for expediting the whole patent process it was we paid $6,000 for it looks like it's only a thousand to two thousand dollars now so must have gotten cheaper and what that does is instead of waiting between one and three years it gets done in one year so provisional patents one year and then you file your utility patent after that and in one year you have either an answer yes we have a pet we'll give you a patent on this or no we're not going to give you a patent on this because someone's already made something like this before so after I think it was like eight months or something we had heard back they said we think that you could get a patent on this but you there's some stuff that you would need to change in order to get your patent so we made a couple tweaks to the patent and then it finally got issued we paid some more fees and then we were finally issued a United States utility patent which protected the product and we were basically ready to launch and start selling the product on the market so that's how I did it super quick little you know story about it there's a lot more to it but now I'm going to talk about how you can actually do it so the first step in the process when you're trying to file your patent and the way that I'm going to do this is I'm gonna tell you to file a provisional patent first if you want to go directly in the utility patent more power to you you do that but this is how I did it so first you do a patent search you could go on uspto.gov and you search patent search and then you basically type in descriptive words about what your product your idea or whatever you're trying to patent what it is and you look it up you you look at there you see if anyone has made something or gotten a patent on something similar look on Google see if there's anything similar to what you're doing if you find something similar to what you're trying to patent you're not gonna be able to patent it because someone's already thought of it before in order to get a patent you have to think of something completely new that no one has created before it's never been publicly posted anywhere and no one knows how to do it you're you're the first one that's making this thing so that's the big thing you need to do a patent search and if that checks out and you don't find anyone that's made anything similar then you can go on to the next step you need to figure out what kind of patent you're gonna file you file your provisional first then 12 months past now you're getting ready to actually file your real patent what you need to decide is is it going to be utility is it going to be a design is it going to be a plant patent if it's a product or a new way to do something it's most likely going to be a utility patent so we're gonna be talking about utility patents then what where do you want to file a patent is there just gonna be in the US or is it going to be globally I don't know about filing patents globally so I'm not going to talk about it I'm just going to talk about filing a patent in the US it's gonna be a non provisional patent because you've already filed your provisional patent and the twelve months has passed and it's come time you know maybe like 11 months is passed and it's now it's time to file your actual patent your non provisional utility patent so then you need to decide are you going to expedite it or are you not going to expedite it if you expedite it it's going to get done in one year if you don't expedite it it can still get done in one year but it could take up to three years so that's a choice that you're gonna have to make which comes with a fee the fee is between 1,000 and 2,000 dollars - depends on if you're considered a micro entity or a small entity then who should file it so for the provisional patent I filed that by myself if you have the cash it's probably better to have an actual lawyer file your provisional - but if you don't have the cash and you don't have another option file the provisional yourself but once you get to the actual non provisional once you get to your u
Thanks for your comment Antonio Hulick, have a nice day.
- Dulce Choudhary, Staff Member
did you know that a little innocent post on social media could get you in a whole host of trouble and in fact invalidate your ability to get a patent hey and welcome to how to get a patent on your idea i'm jd hoovener and i'm the ceo and principal here at bold patton's law firm i'm going to be here today talking about what it means to get a patent on an idea and some of the nuances all the way along the track got to know right out of the gate that when i say idea it kind of pangs me a little bit because i know that ideas well certainly valuable and i mean i talk about bold ideas right in my book ideas are by nature dying a dozen okay everybody's got ideas fun cool big small but what does it mean to actually bring an idea to an invention okay so the major difference is that invention is something you've really thought about you've thought through well enough to where you could describe it right how to make it and how to bring it about just in paper right on paper through drawings someone else could take what you wrote and go build okay that's an invention we work with inventors at bold patents we want you to move from idea to invention with us and with our help one thing i got to mention upfront too is that ideas sometimes can get carried away right these are big ideas right you think about what how could i improve and it oftentimes comes with some barriers right cost issues maybe government's got regulations blocking the situation something you have to know is that there's no requirement to build a prototype okay don't think you have to spend you know ten or even a hundred thousand dollars building your prototype if it's if the idea is that big you've simply got to be able to articulate it through words and drawings to move your idea from that phase to an invention is your patent eligible do you fit into one of the four patent areas is it patentable do you have a machine do you have a process do you have an assembly or do you have a composition of matter if you fit into one of those categories you're patent eligible and you can move forward if you have any questions about what it means and what those categories mean and want more information about whether your specific invention is eligible i encourage you to visit our website boldip.com we've got lots of free resources there for you someone who's just getting started or someone who's maybe inventing their second project who wants a little more advanced information we've got that for you too and i want to show you really quickly in the book i wrote just a year and a half ago bold ideas the inventor's guide to patents this has got all the essentials that you need to help understand what's the difference between a patent and a trade secret patent and a trademark this is it grab your free copy downloadable pdf version on our website at boldip.com today after you figure out whether your invention is eligible or not the next step is okay which inventors should i indicate okay um this sort of can be sort of coming out of left field but if you're not the only inventor you're actually obligated to include all the inventors in the application so when does someone actually become an inventor great question generally an inventor is someone that's added to the conceptual idea right there's a foundational principle some people get confused and think that someone who manufactures a product or helps with the prototype is part of the it should be listed as an inventor and that's not true right someone can be the architect the designer known as the inventor um and says please make this per this plan the person that makes it sure while they're well in their craft and good at their skill they didn't actually invent and come up with any aspects of it so if you have any more questions about inventorship again please give us a contact and if you're getting good value on this video we'd love to get this out to as many inventors as possible so please give us a like or thumbs up share this video with someone you know that could really use this information we want to help all inventors reach their visionary dreams all right so once you've kind of identified who the inventors are it's next important to understand the ownership so sometimes employees are also inventors right you've got day jobs and so something to really make sure you're clear about is that if you want to own this invention on your own you've got to do so on your own time and that includes using your own resources so if you're using a computer using a you know a 3d printer if you're using some sort of cad system you've got to understand your own resources need to be used and it can't be related to the job you have so another deep dive inquiry if there's sort of a gray area maybe you were on the clock maybe you're even assigned to a project and it's related to what you're trying to seek patent protection for get with us right away we need to make sure it's clear who's going to own this thing the last thing we want to do is end up taking your money and have the patent owned by your by your business okay all right so after inventorship and ownership is cleared the way to get a patent is to make sure you're going to be clear about what your goals are your goals business goals to you know own this thing long term and to have a business created around it and to make this a really long lasting business or is it your goal to really just license and sell it get it done if it's the latter you'll want to work directly with us as patent attorneys and just get your your patent packaged up so that it's most lucrative most valuable to someone looking to license and sell it if your goal is to start a new business i mean good on you right that's how this this country was founded that is what entrepreneurs are all about we love serving them but know that we are just a part of the professional sphere of the people you need to get a hold of to make this dream happen so we do our best to refer you to the people that we have trusted over the years to help our clients out succeed in business so let us know up front work with an attorney to make sure they're clear about what your goals are so you can get referrals to the people that you need to get help with down the road so the next thing to take a look at and this goes back to my social media question right at the beginning is okay if you've if you've talked about your invention and shared your invention there is a one-year statutory rule right one year that's 12 months if you have disclosed your invention online right talked about what your invention is showed a video about what your invention does to get feedback put it up on kickstarter or even sold your invention which includes even making an offer for sale more than a year ago you were ineligible for patent protection okay i know that's tough to hear so there are some workarounds okay so if you are under that category where you've actually disclosed your invention more than a year ago it could be right it could be that you've invented you made some improvements on your invention since you posted that so you could get protection over just those improvements and
Thanks sackolicous33k your participation is very much appreciated
- Dulce Choudhary
About the author
I've studied string theory at Minnesota State University Moorhead in Moorhead and I am an expert in procedural law. I usually feel indescribable. My previous job was tool & machine designer I held this position for 8 years, I love talking about roller derby and caving. Huge fan of Sara Evans I practice fly-fishing and collect trading cards.
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