patent repository search

[tHEPERFESSEr]

What is the name of your state? missouri

Several years ago, I visited the Patent Repository at the University of Michigan in order to do a patent search. It came to my attention that, as I was new, "to the patent world", and was requesting help in my search, that the great majority of "helpers" at the library were, in fact, attending the law school at university with the intention of getting degrees in IP Law.

So, I said to myself...what's to stop these people from stealing my idea, before I even had a chance to do a patent search. Obviously, I felt myself at an immediate dis-advantage. Nuf said. What's stopping these "helpers" from taking advantage?

tHEPERFESSEr

 

[divgradcurl]

What's stopping these "helpers" from taking advantage?

Well, I can think of a couple of things:

1. If these students were in law school to learn IP law, they probably can earn a lot more in their careers as IP lawyers than they could by misappropriating your idea. Not every invention makes people rich. Why risk their law licenses (before they even get them) for an unknown quantity?

2. When you submit a patent application to the USPTO, you have to also submit a sworn declaration that everything in the application is the truth and you stand behind it. Again, why risk your license before you even get it by lying to the government to try and get a patent that may or may not ever issue and may or may not ever be worth anything?

3. The U.S. has a first to invent system, not a first to file system (like the rest of the world) -- even if someone stole your invention and filed their own application, you could still file your own application -- the USPTO would see two apps for the same invention, declare an interference, and more than likely the truth would come out -- and you would still get your patent (presumabely) and the law student would still be out his license (hard to pass character and moral fitness when you lie to the government like that).

4. Finally, in order to get a patent, you have to have both conception -- the idea -- and reduction to practice. Just knowing the idea alone without having any of the reduction to practice details is not going to make it easy to provide sufficient disclosure to the patent office to get a patent anyway.

Why are inventors so paranoid anyway?

 

[tHEPERFESSEr]

"The paranoid Perfesser"

Divgradcurl... thank you for your instruction. I laugh in that you may consider paranoia my "driving motive" for asking this. I'm not necessarily paranoid, just being careful and it never hurts to ask! Don't ask don't get syndrom; I guess. Anyway, thank you for the reply, I'll digress and not worry about it now! Thanks for your time and effort.

The Perfesser