I am looking for Patent drawing advice

[Mark Hennebury]

Yes, it's so unusual that they made a movie out of it.

Mike

Yeah, having had claims against a few big businesses over the years, I understand how they play; Deny, Delay, Delay, Delay...settle out of court.

[Anuj Prateek]

Does anyone have any experience with turning 3D CAD models into drawings acceptable for a patent application?

I have been part of 2-3 software related patents. Based on that limited experience, I would suggest hiring a lawyer.
We would not have been able to write the application the way lawyer did - specially claims part (which is important).
They converted all our architecture design/diagrams into drawings using there own software.

[Mark Hennebury]

Agreed. The ones I filed - years ago - were for another's inventions and in their names (I just adjusted the design slightly to improve manufacturability), and to the best of my knowledge never earned a dime. I guess the upside is that no one had to attempt enforcement?

Often inventions that seem to be the PERFECT solution to your problem, are just that. Your problem. No one else knows or cares.

Aside: I wonder what percentage of patents issued - forget those not issued - ever earn any money? ...I've never seen statistics.

Obviously there are no guarantees that you will make a penny. But what are the options? If you come up with an idea for a new/ improved gadget and start making it in your shop to sell, if it's any good at all, everyone else will just copy it; at least if you have a patent it shows who invented it and gives you a chance of protection. You can always sell the patents or license a larger company to use them, they would be better able to defend them, than an individual.

[John K Jordan]

Obviously there are no guarantees that you will make a penny. But what are the options? If you come up with an idea for a new/ improved gadget and start making it in your shop to sell, if it's any good at all, everyone else will just copy it; at least if you have a patent it shows who invented it and gives you a chance of protection. You can always sell the patents or license a larger company to use them, they would be better able to defend them, than an individual.

I know someone who invented something that was very useful to the woodturning world. She built a business out of making and selling them but never patented the design. Then someone copied/stole her design and is now in competition. She continues to develop new variations of the design and now patents every one before they are marketed!

The biggest problem with patenting is what the patent attorneys get paid to to eliminate - some other patent may exist that covers even a small part of your design and prevent it from being awarded a patent. Some of these can be obscure. We spent years on one patent refining and reducing the scope of the claims before getting approval from the patent office, and that was with the team of lawyers researching what was already out there. I met friend of the family who works as a patent examiner - he has some fascinating stories!

JKJ

[Mike Henderson]

Agreed. The ones I filed - years ago - were for another's inventions and in their names (I just adjusted the design slightly to improve manufacturability), and to the best of my knowledge never earned a dime. I guess the upside is that no one had to attempt enforcement?

Often inventions that seem to be the PERFECT solution to your problem, are just that. Your problem. No one else knows or cares.

Aside: I wonder what percentage of patents issued - forget those not issued - ever earn any money? ...I've never seen statistics.

In the communications industry (which I was a part of) it was important to have a lot of patents. When you entered negotiations with another company for a cross license agreement if you didn't have many patents, you would have to pay a fair amount of money to equalize the deal. If both of you have about the same number of active patents you're more likely to get a no-money deal. Some of the patents we had were about things that would probably never be used but we patented them anyway just to build up our patent portfolio.

It's not as simple as just counting patents but that was part of the negotiations.

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

I know someone who invented something that was very useful to the woodturning world. She built a business out of making and selling them but never patented the design. Then someone copied/stole her design and is now in competition. She continues to develop new variations of the design and now patents every one before they are marketed! JKJ

There are ways to protect your inventions but if you don't use any of them, you're essentially giving your design away to anyone who wants to use it. Without some legal protection, the law considers that you put your design into the public domain.

Mike

[Ole Anderson]

I filed for and got a patent in 1991, U.S. Patent 5,000,109 ( just missed that magic number). While I could have done the sketch, I let the attorney handle it. A patent is like a padlock, it keeps the honest people honest. But if you want to challenge someone who is ripping you off, you may spend more in attorney fees than you will ever recover. For me a simple letter from my attorney to a competitor resulted in an informal licensing agreement and small royalties for over 10 years. BTW I revised the clamp from the patent sketch to use a cam/lever closing mechanism. All custom aluminum extrusions. Sold the company ten years later, new owner let it die. Sad for me.

Patent 5,000,109.jpg

[Jay Rasmussen]

Obviously there are no guarantees that you will make a penny. But what are the options? If you come up with an idea for a new/ improved gadget and start making it in your shop to sell, if it's any good at all, everyone else will just copy it; at least if you have a patent it shows who invented it and gives you a chance of protection. You can always sell the patents or license a larger company to use them, they would be better able to defend them, than an individual.

Hi Mark,
I’ll share my story. I came up with a device that is an accessory for another product. Went through the prototype process, polled several folks I know that use the same device and asked what their solution was to solve this problem. None were very good in my opinion so I went forward. Spent about $12K investing in some metal working equipment to put in my garage. I built an injection mold and ran some parts at a local molder. That was 16 years ago, today I’ve sold 40,000 of them. No big money but fun.

I was awarded a Provisional patent (Pat Pending). Thought I would go for a design patent but after lots of research, like the other folks have stated – you need a lot of cash to defend one. When I did mine a provisional patent will protect you for 1 year, don’t know if that still true. A good way to start, I think it was less than $500.00. No one has tried to knock it off yet.

My wife thought I was a little crazy but my little investment has paid for itself many times over with no patent.

I can probably help you on the drawing side, send me an email if you are interested.
Jay

[Mark Hennebury]

I filed for and got a patent in 1991, U.S. Patent 5,000,109 ( just missed that magic number). While I could have done the sketch, I let the attorney handle it. A patent is like a padlock, it keeps the honest people honest. But if you want to challenge someone who is ripping you off, you may spend more in attorney fees than you will ever recover. For me a simple letter from my attorney to a competitor resulted in an informal licensing agreement and small royalties for over 10 years. BTW I revised the clamp from the patent sketch to use a cam/lever closing mechanism. All custom aluminum extrusions. Sold the company ten years later, new owner let it die. Sad for me.

Patent 5,000,109.jpg

Thanks Ole, that's all good info.

[Mark Hennebury]

Hi Mark,
I’ll share my story. I came up with a device that is an accessory for another product. Went through the prototype process, polled several folks I know that use the same device and asked what their solution was to solve this problem. None were very good in my opinion so I went forward. Spent about $12K investing in some metal working equipment to put in my garage. I built an injection mold and ran some parts at a local molder. That was 16 years ago, today I’ve sold 40,000 of them. No big money but fun.

I was awarded a Provisional patent (Pat Pending). Thought I would go for a design patent but after lots of research, like the other folks have stated – you need a lot of cash to defend one. When I did mine a provisional patent will protect you for 1 year, don’t know if that still true. A good way to start, I think it was less than $500.00. No one has tried to knock it off yet.

My wife thought I was a little crazy but my little investment has paid for itself many times over with no patent.

I can probably help you on the drawing side, send me an email if you are interested.
Jay

Thanks Jay, I will look into the provisional patent. Sounds like it worked out well for you. And thanks for the offer, I may take you up on it.

[Mel Fulks]

Ole, Yes it’s sad they let go of it. But maybe LEGO wil pick it up...might be easier than getting kids to pick up LEGOS !

[Bradley Gray]

No information about filing for a patent but I have read about the Creative Commons alternative.

here is a short video by creator Lawrence Lessig:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMdsLGmmVkU

[George Wall]

Thanks Jay, I will look into the provisional patent. Sounds like it worked out well for you. And thanks for the offer, I may take you up on it.

A provisional patent application is simply a placeholder; it is not even examined by the patent office. You could file a provisional for a perpetual motion machine or a peanut butter sandwich and nobody would notice. By itself, it has no ability to exclude copycat inventions unless you turn it into a full patent. You have one year to convert the provisional to a full patent application, or the provisional simply expires.

The benefit of the provisional is that it gives you a filing date, which is critical for establishing the date of invention. While the US is still technically "first to invent" rather than "first to file", the filing date is often used as the invention date unless you have really solid evidence to establish an earlier invention date, which is not easy.

[Mark Hennebury]

No information about filing for a patent but I have read about the Creative Commons alternative.

here is a short video by creator Lawrence Lessig:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMdsLGmmVkU

I watched the video, seems like an interesting variation; mostly geared towards the music industry, although that video was from 2010 ( i think) might be interesting to see where it is today. Thanks for posting it.

[Mark Hennebury]

A provisional patent application is simply a placeholder; it is not even examined by the patent office. You could file a provisional for a perpetual motion machine or a peanut butter sandwich and nobody would notice. By itself, it has no ability to exclude copycat inventions unless you turn it into a full patent. You have one year to convert the provisional to a full patent application, or the provisional simply expires.

The benefit of the provisional is that it gives you a filing date, which is critical for establishing the date of invention. While the US is still technically "first to invent" rather than "first to file", the filing date is often used as the invention date unless you have really solid evidence to establish an earlier invention date, which is not easy.

A provisional patent might help in securing your filing date and give you the time to prepare a patent application without letting someone jump ahead of you. Lot's to consider. thanks.