North Carolina

[Mat H. Physics]

Hello, my screen name represents personal interest. Having no faith in the US patent system, I'm hoping to publish Whitlock configurations. One of these is a shaft-less, positive displacement, ICE/motor. Though these configurations are more likely to be exploited as ICE, motor configurations should be easier to develop.
Motivation, human harm to wildlife caused by electrically driven irrigation pivots. Hydraulically driven pivots are a more viable option, and simpler to boot.

Formal education: Over a decade of science accreditation. Tool&Die, Automation robotics (AAS), Mech, Manf, Industrial engineering on AAS level, BS Industrial Tech

Still need to hammer down the technicalities on publishing, to avoid a patent pirate. (Input would be appreciated.)

 

[johnmcc69]

Welcome!

What have you been working on?

John

 

[GreenTwin]

Welcome and good luck in your endeavors.

Pat J

 

[HMEL]

Hello, my screen name represents personal interest. Having no faith in the US patent system, I'm hoping to publish Whitlock configurations. One of these is a shaft-less, positive displacement, ICE/motor. Though these configurations are more likely to be exploited as ICE, motor configurations should be easier to develop.
Motivation, human harm to wildlife caused by electrically driven irrigation pivots. Hydraulically driven pivots are a more viable option, and simpler to boot.

Formal education: Over a decade of science accreditation. Tool&Die, Automation robotics (AAS), Mech, Manf, Industrial engineering on AAS level, BS Industrial Tech

Still need to hammer down the technicalities on publishing, to avoid a patent pirate. (Input would be appreciated.)

If you publish your patent idea without the patent it will be considered open source and anyone can copy it.
If you publish a book you can only get a copyright to the material you publish. You need to find a patent attorney. This will cost money. You can do the work yourself but there are exceptions after exceptions. At the very least buy an hour of a lawyers time it will be worth it. You need a legal road map before you do anything.

Having some experience with irrigation pivots you will find those that own electrically driven center pivots will disagree with your premise. Hydraulic systems are not necessarily simpler and I know farmers who prefer electric drives. I dont think I have ever heard the claim that either system is harmful to wildlife. Most manufactures offer the electric systems. However personally I prefer hydraulic system for various reasons. On that point we agree.

HMEL

 

[minh-thanh]

Welcome to the forum !
About your copyright..., I don't know...so I have no opinion
About wildlife , Let's focus on the purpose of this forum .

 

[L98fiero]

If you publish your patent idea without the patent it will be considered open source and anyone can copy it.
If you publish a book you can only get a copyright to the material you publish. You need to find a patent attorney. This will cost money. You can do the work yourself but there are exceptions after exceptions. At the very least buy an hour of a lawyers time it will be worth it. You need a legal road map before you do anything.

Having some experience with irrigation pivots you will find those that own electrically driven center pivots will disagree with your premise. Hydraulic systems are not necessarily simpler and I know farmers who prefer electric drives. I dont think I have ever heard the claim that either system is harmful to wildlife. Most manufactures offer the electric systems. However personally I prefer hydraulic system for various reasons. On that point we agree.

HMEL

I considered a patent but after investigating it found that unless you have at least $1.5M to defend the patent, you're better off finding someone you can work with that has the money to produce your product and defend it or just produce the product with enough manufacturing capability that it makes trying to infringe on the patent not worthwhile, and that was about 15 years ago.

 

[Zeb]

Per some good friends of mine who were patent gurus, getting a patent for your IP will require about $10k each and an average of $100k per lawsuit to maintain it. That was over ten years ago. Patents are for the wealthy. What engine projects are you working on or would like to work on?

 

[HMEL]

I considered a patent but after investigating it found that unless you have at least $1.5M to defend the patent, you're better off finding someone you can work with that has the money to produce your product and defend it or just produce the product with enough manufacturing capability that it makes trying to infringe on the patent not worthwhile, and that was about 15 years ago.

My experience has been that the patent is the only protection you have. It depends upon the potential value of what you have. You or anybody else can not defend the intellectual property if a patent does not exist get that first and then go talk to investors. But here is the rub- I have seen the cost of a patent be anywhere from 10,000 dollars to 100,000 depending on the lawyers rates and the complexity of the design. But its a personal decision and it depends on the finances you have. Or you can find a partner and have him sign a nondisclosure agreement which is a document saying they are not allowed to talk about it and if they like the idea they may invest in it. But a hours worth of a lawyers time may cost you 500 dollars and you will have options of how to proceed. You would normally start with a patent search followed by a provisional patent followed by the final patent. But you need a lawyer who knows the law and how to proceed. You may have to defend the patent and I have seen some unethical games played but the patent comes first but if you do have to do that ,you know the patent has value. But I can tell you I know of two products started in garages that do not have patents making money for the inventors. They basically said if they want to copy they can try. These are alternate choices but from what you indicated I think you might want a patent

 

[william_b_noble]

FWIW, I have about a dozen patents (some listed on my website, some not) - I usually do my own patent search first, www.uspto.gov. I don't pay for, nor do I get paid much for, these patents, but I do get a cool plaque certifying that the US government agrees that I once had an original idea. don't let the cost deter you at least looking into it if you think you have a good idea - but there is a lot of stuff patented, you may be surprised.

 

[awake]

Welcome to the forum from a fellow North Carolinian.

An important question before we can have any further conversation: light blue or dark blue?

 

[L98fiero]

FWIW, I have about a dozen patents (some listed on my website, some not) - I usually do my own patent search first, www.uspto.gov. I don't pay for, nor do I get paid much for, these patents, but I do get a cool plaque certifying that the US government agrees that I once had an original idea. don't let the cost deter you at least looking into it if you think you have a good idea - but there is a lot of stuff patented, you may be surprised.

FWIW, I think you can patent pretty much anything, even something that has been patented before, the patent office is a commercial entity that has taken over keeping the record of the patents and, if it does a search, it's very cursory, the issue comes in defending the patent. Not to denigrate your patents in any way, I don't know what they are, but it all comes down to what you and others think that plaque is worth.

 

[Mat H. Physics]

What have you been working on?

A system of epitrochoidal envelopes, which may antiquate the modern automobile drive train.

I know farmers who prefer electric drives. I dont think I have ever heard the claim that either system is harmful to wildlife

If the 'coyotes' don't get them, the farm equipment will. Maybe some use the irrigation pivots as a form of elective fence, humm? Keep the coyotes out and what not.
https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OSHA3817.pdf

You would normally start with a patent search followed by a provisional patent followed by the final patent

My 3K of exp (10hr X $300). Patent searches are discouraged, and even though; was charged an additional 20% for one and didn't get to review the information I was being charged for. ie 'I paid for it, why can't I see how other patents are structured?'
Provisional patents last a year, yet are not released to the public
Non-provisional patents can be extended to 17yrs w/ a max of 20 (about five 'renewal fees over time')

light blue or dark blue?

ARGHH! purple ye matee, though I'm surrounded by the Wolfpack.

Dear admin,
I don't much appreciate your censorship of original material, that took time to produce. Its like you only accept contributions you want posted, what gives?

Spent a half hour our more expounding on the virtues of the BAR profession. Such a low threshold of trust, doubt posting here would be worth the lost time.

 

[minh-thanh]

Mat H. Physics​

It's not the forum or the admin
Because you. Rules and regulations of the forum are there and you should follow them. And I think all forums, groups... have similar rules and regulations.
I have only been mod the forum for a few days, what I say has happened to me that has thousands and tens of thousands of members know, I have argued with other members including admin in a topic. , an idea ...but on principle : Homemade hobby . Maybe I'm wrong and they're right and vice versa
I join a few forums including both my country and international, but really rarely comment, there are a few forums I never comment on and so far I have deleted my account on many forums.
There are 2 story , Someone on the internet said to me : " you don't know anything about computers and the internet " , and my answer was : " yes , I don't know anything about it " and another person said : " you don't know anything about mechanics " and I said nothing.
With this forum with more than 1400 comments and that is a record of mine , and believe me , in real life or on the internet I hate arguing and I speak very little .
I like the forum because the admin and most of the members try to keep it around the same topic and purpose : Homemade hobby , and trying to be a place for people to have fun , and I usually say the forum is " games". Do something yourself and be happy with the result , it may not look good , it doesn't run well ... but the end goal is Fun !

It's true that , when I was debating, I made some comments that offended some members and when I re-read it I feel embarrassed about it and I'm sorry about it !

Please leave other problems outside when joining this forum , Because we're here to have fun
Leave irrelevant things behind AND Come here with the spirit of fun !

 

[awake]

Welcome to the forum from a fellow North Carolinian.

An important question before we can have any further conversation: light blue or dark blue?

ARGHH! purple ye matee, though I'm surrounded by the Wolfpack.

Hopefully this bit of conversation falls under the "have fun" part of what Minh Thanh said above. I freely confess that it is totally OT!

For those who may be wondering ... the reference is to certain schools in NC, typically in connection with football and basketball. Light blue = UNC-Chapel Hill; dark blue = Duke; purple = East Carolina University.

The more that I think about it, I am realizing that I really should NOT have introduced a religious discussion like this ... since in North Carolina, the school you root for is a topic that elicits religious zeal!

 

[minh-thanh]

Hi Andy !
I know you

 

[TSutrina]

FWIW, I have about a dozen patents (some listed on my website, some not) - I usually do my own patent search first, www.uspto.gov. I don't pay for, nor do I get paid much for, these patents, but I do get a cool plaque certifying that the US government agrees that I once had an original idea. don't let the cost deter you at least looking into it if you think you have a good idea - but there is a lot of stuff patented, you may be surprised.

Retired engineer with about 3 dozen patents for the various companies I worked for. Basically an inventor for hire after I left my employer with about 2 dozen patents in 20 years. About one per dozen makes money. As an individual applying for a patent the cost is reduced significantly, however; if it is a good patent it will be infringed and the cost to defend in is way beyond what 99% are worth.
You actually have to have a product being sold to afford defending and even then unless you have a big company name involved on your side your going to loose. Another problem is that if you try to defend it and remove them from a store that is selling yours. Well if they make more money or do more business with the company stealing your patent your going to get pulled from the shelfs not them.
So in 3 dozen patents I can tell you that you need to find patent similar enough so that you can find the hidden gems that are basically miss filed and are the prime tools use to reject claims.
Can not believe in your wildest dreams what has been patented. So any patent is a crap shot. I have had patents rejected because the patent department was sitting on a patent application for a top secrete component of something. Would not be field but they blocked patents. And as you may guess I generally created patents which were out of the box and the patents I was asked to review were so different that the images were sufficient to not read a line of text. Yet, within a dozen a few did have similar patents.
The disclosure is one of the first thing filed and one of the most important. Leave out something and you can not add it without changing the filing date and likely costing money. So go wild and include the likely and even unlikely ideas and expansions of the patent. Be creative.
If your going to write your own patent then basically find similar patents and steal the language and anything else you can use. The newer the better. You will see there is a vocabulary for patents that you need to learn. Reading lots of patents is needed to learn it and how the words are used.
Each claim is one sentence. You need to think of this sentence as a series like any other list of book you like, trips taken etc. To understand a claim break it into sentences so you can understand them. You need to have a plan to write the claims. Use the example patents. Diagram them on a branching chart. Then create a similar chart for your claims all of them and their relationships. Once that is done then redo the chart into the actual claims. Typically as you see in the examples there are three primary claims going from the most wide and general as the first to more limited starting claim for each that follow or different directions or emphasis. Then the rest of the claims associate with the first of each set go into more detail.
The reason you do this in the end have at least one group remaining. Sometime they will break a patent application into two patents. This is another reason to have multiple groups of claims.
Good luck!
You may want to get a patent attorney involved to do two things. One critique your patent application and even the initial disclosure. Your goal is to not waste a second of his time, the $ clock is ticking. You will need his advice to deal with the replay you get back from the patent department. Again your goal is to do as much as you can to keep the amount he must do down. As an individual inventor you may have to do some hunting to find an attorney. Try retired but still want to be active. Ask for references from those that need to be more involved. They know your likely not going to make a penny and understand that your wanting the piece of paper.

 

[william_b_noble]

FWIW, I think you can patent pretty much anything, even something that has been patented before, the patent office is a commercial entity that has taken over keeping the record of the patents and, if it does a search, it's very cursory, the issue comes in defending the patent.

you are welcome to think what you will about patentability. your thoughts to not align with my personal experience. However you are correct that the $$ is related to defending the patent. Big companies collect patents in part to defend themselves as much as to use the patent.