What am I supposed to do about this?

[GCD]

Dear All,

I am from Europe, not from US, but I would appreciate if you could help me understand this general problem:

I have designed a board game and have contacted various agencies to help me protect it, so it can not be stolen, etc. One of the first questions was how much is the cost of a design protection (more applicable for such things from what I was told) and the answer I was given is in average 500-1000 per country. (similar price for patents)

Am I supposed to protect my "product" in only one or few countries? If yes, then the global companies can simply produce/sell it in another part of the world. Herego, I should protect worldwide, but this seems to be calculated either by country or is a huge amount to pay for something that COULD MAYBE bring me some money.

So the questions is:
What is the practice in the business? What am I supposed to do?

Thanks in advance for any help/advice you could give me.

 

[divgradcurl]

Dear All,

I am from Europe, not from US, but I would appreciate if you could help me understand this general problem:

I have designed a board game and have contacted various agencies to help me protect it, so it can not be stolen, etc. One of the first questions was how much is the cost of a design protection (more applicable for such things from what I was told) and the answer I was given is in average 500-1000 per country. (similar price for patents)

Am I supposed to protect my "product" in only one or few countries? If yes, then the global companies can simply produce/sell it in another part of the world. Herego, I should protect worldwide, but this seems to be calculated either by country or is a huge amount to pay for something that COULD MAYBE bring me some money.

So the questions is:
What is the practice in the business? What am I supposed to do?

Thanks in advance for any help/advice you could give me.

The general rule is that you seek protection in the countries in which you plan to eventually market and sell the product. Yes, someone in another country could potentially steal your product, but they could not import it into any country in which you do have a patent without infringing.

If I am ONLY going to sell my product in the U.S., then I can get a U.S. patent. If I don't ever plan to sell in the UK, then what do I care if a UK company decides to "steal" and sell the product in the UK? Since I never planned to sell there anyway, my market isn't hurt. The UK people cannot import into the U.S., because as soon as they do, they are infringing, and I can use my patent to stop them.

So, the point is, you don't obtain a patent in every country, only those countries in which you eventually plan to sell and market your product. Besides, even if you did have a patent in every country, patents are only enforceable in the countries in which they are granted, so you would likely spend a lot of time on planes flying to different countries to hire lawyers to enforce your patents...