coLAB

Why shouldn’t i patent my idea?

2008-09-12T12:09:46+00:00

This might be slightly controversial but i thought i would put down some of my own thoughts on whether to patent an idea or not.

Putting this into perspective, having designed hundreds of bits of outdoor kit. There have only been two occasions where i felt that a patent may have been an good option. On both occasions the cost of obtaining a patent, would of been higher than the profit generated by the product. Patents are not always a good idea.

My first reservation about patents is the cost. Although there not that expensive to start with, the bills can soon to start to tot up. A UK patent will cost around £1500, and you can easy add an extra zero to this the more countries you want to protect. So when you start the ball rolling, you need to be sure where it will stop.

My second reservation is that they are not totally ironclad, lets say you invent a new type of waterproof zip like Barny in last years colab competition. You could bet your bottom dollar that the likes of YKK and RiRi would find some way to get round the patent. If you dont have the money to defend the patent robustly then you could spend even more money and still be no better off.

By biggest reservation with them is that when you trawl though the millions of patents many of them are just rubbish ideas. Why go to the hassle a patenting a rubbish idea, that someone is never going to buy it. Just because it has a patent doesn’t mean that it is good design or concept. The Ikea Kipplin sofa doesn’t have patent yet Ikea probably make buckets full of cash from it. If the best product is presented to the consumer at the right price and the right place and promoted well then it’s got a good chance of selling. If you burden the product with a load of patent costs you might have to charge more for the product and then have no chance of selling it.

I’m not saying patents dont have there place, just that you need to be sure what the patent is doing for you.

Cheers

Nick

Who can i go to advice?

2008-09-24T07:50:32+00:00

If you pick up the yellow pages, or google “patent attorney” and they will be sure to help you all the way to the cash machine.

There are alternatives, many practices offer a free session which is worth taking them up on. Be sure to prepare well for this as there is no point starting the whole protection process without knowing where you are going to end up, and how much it will cost.

Recently there has been a number of agencies which are giving sound advice on intellectual property, such as.

http://www.creativeinsightuk.com/

http://www.own-it.org/

Although there is a plethora of information on the web, this isnt going to a substitute to sitting in front of someone and getting worldly wise advice from someone that has seen it all before.

Cheers

Nick

Why should i patent my idea?

2008-09-12T14:35:38+00:00

Despite my last post, i do actually have my name on a patent GB2399003, it came from a sort of eureka moment with Jim, me and Paul, when we used to work for Equip.

We had made a waterproof bag for a tent, and the bottom just happened to be made from air permeable gore-tex. We squeezed the air out of it and there was a collective…...but what if. In this case we knew the idea was novel as we were one of the few companies that had air permeable waterproof fabric. I also felt that it solved a problem that actually existed, and didn’t just make up a problem.

In the end the application has lapsed and other companies have since copied the idea.

Some ideas are worth patenting, in this case it was done more for the kudos rather than any commercial benefit. I think where there is a clear commercial argument for protecting the idea, then it is worth it.

In most cases a patent is worth obtaining if you yourself are not able to exploit the benefits. In many cases patent protection become part of the commerciality of the product. Without it is more difficult to obtain funding as investors seek to protect there investment.

There are no hard and fast rules, but ask yourself the question and answer it honestly.

Cheers

nick