Wow! Your Dad sounds like me! I have notebooks filled with invention ideas from the past 30 years, some of which I sought patents on, but found that the US Patent office is pretty well rigged to make it VERY difficult for "small entity" inventors (their term for inventors who submit their own patent applications) to progress through to issue of a patent. Getting a patent is almost the easiest step in ever making money from an invention. There are 10s of thousands of patents that never result in a viable, marketable product, and even then, it is soooooo easy for a "big gun" to slightly modify your patent and then submit their own version. You almost need to have an invention that can make a lot of money in a short amount of time in order for it to be worth going through the patent process. It is not that difficult to prepare and submit a patent application (there are books to learn how to do it), and by reviewing other patents related to your application, you can see how they are generally written. The "patent search" is probably the most critical step, to find out what prior patents are similar to yours. The thing is, it costs about the same to pay for a search as it does to file a patent application, and the patent office will do their own search when you submit, so I have found that if you do your own search and find a few priors that are similar to yours, you go ahead and submit your application referring to those, and inevitably, the patent office will reject your submission on the first round, because they WILL find at least one patent that they will claim yours infringes on, but then you can do a response where you explain how your invention is different enough to be patented. The worst case scenario is that you learn your invention really wasn't worthy of a patent, so you get the experience of preparing and submitting the application, and a thorough patent search conducted by the patent office, all for the cost of the "small entity" application fee :)
Yeah, we had the same scenario when we started our own business and are again for our homestead in order to sell products and canned goods.
I did get one of my prototypes into patent pending but what everyone around here wanted to charge me for making my products was outrageous and I didn’t want to send to China for manufacturing so I did nothing else.
Yes, there are several unscrupulous companies that advertise how they will help you get a patent. A friend of mine tried one, and there was the initial fee, then another fee, and then when they said they needed additional funding to do something else along the way, he decided it was a ripoff. And the "made in China" aspect of most things that involve making some product is another issue! I've heard that unless you can be reasonably assured of making at least $50,000 from an invention, it's not worth getting a patent. If I ever submit another application, I'll make sure it meets the following, 1) reasonable chance of getting a patent, 2) can be made in the U.S., and 3) would likely earn more than $50,000. And maybe a 4th, have a good chance of being able to sell the patent to one of the "big guys" (but big corporations are notorious for ripping off inventors).
Wow! Your Dad sounds like me! I have notebooks filled with invention ideas from the past 30 years, some of which I sought patents on, but found that the US Patent office is pretty well rigged to make it VERY difficult for "small entity" inventors (their term for inventors who submit their own patent applications) to progress through to issue of a patent. Getting a patent is almost the easiest step in ever making money from an invention. There are 10s of thousands of patents that never result in a viable, marketable product, and even then, it is soooooo easy for a "big gun" to slightly modify your patent and then submit their own version. You almost need to have an invention that can make a lot of money in a short amount of time in order for it to be worth going through the patent process. It is not that difficult to prepare and submit a patent application (there are books to learn how to do it), and by reviewing other patents related to your application, you can see how they are generally written. The "patent search" is probably the most critical step, to find out what prior patents are similar to yours. The thing is, it costs about the same to pay for a search as it does to file a patent application, and the patent office will do their own search when you submit, so I have found that if you do your own search and find a few priors that are similar to yours, you go ahead and submit your application referring to those, and inevitably, the patent office will reject your submission on the first round, because they WILL find at least one patent that they will claim yours infringes on, but then you can do a response where you explain how your invention is different enough to be patented. The worst case scenario is that you learn your invention really wasn't worthy of a patent, so you get the experience of preparing and submitting the application, and a thorough patent search conducted by the patent office, all for the cost of the "small entity" application fee :)
Yeah, we had the same scenario when we started our own business and are again for our homestead in order to sell products and canned goods. I did get one of my prototypes into patent pending but what everyone around here wanted to charge me for making my products was outrageous and I didn’t want to send to China for manufacturing so I did nothing else.
Yes, there are several unscrupulous companies that advertise how they will help you get a patent. A friend of mine tried one, and there was the initial fee, then another fee, and then when they said they needed additional funding to do something else along the way, he decided it was a ripoff. And the "made in China" aspect of most things that involve making some product is another issue! I've heard that unless you can be reasonably assured of making at least $50,000 from an invention, it's not worth getting a patent. If I ever submit another application, I'll make sure it meets the following, 1) reasonable chance of getting a patent, 2) can be made in the U.S., and 3) would likely earn more than $50,000. And maybe a 4th, have a good chance of being able to sell the patent to one of the "big guys" (but big corporations are notorious for ripping off inventors).