Protecting Your Invention with a Patent Can Be Good and Bad

Does a patent on your invention prevent a scoundrel from infringing on your idea and the rights you have to it? Yes and no. Yes, if you have filed a patent you are granted some exclusionary rights on your creation. You must mark your invention patent pending as a fair warning to all potential knockoff artist and you can serve any violators with a cease and desist order, but you do not have any actual legal rights to stop someone from infringing on your design until the patent has been granted. But once the patent has been issued you have all legal rights.

The "No" part of the answer is because there is no such thing as a worldwide patent. The United States and a number of other countries do have some type of bilateral agreement to protect the patented and copyright property rights of the individual creator in their respective country; however, these agreements are not universal. An individual in China for instance, could see your invention, like it, rip it off and sell it with little to no consequences, patented or not.

Obtaining a patent is expensive and time-consuming. Before proceeding down that path be aware of the cost involved, and the time in research that will have to be extended before the patent office will grant you an official U.S. Patent on your invention. On average, you will have to pay the patent office around $5,000 dollars to secure and maintain the rights to a patent. You will also invest another $3,000 to $15,000 in attorney's fees.

The bulk of the attorney's fees will be allotted to research time. They must first establish that no one else has received a patent or is currently traversing the patent process for the same or similar invention. You can reduce some of the attorney's fee expense by doing some of the research and providing needed sketch and specification information. Also know that patent attorney's in large metropolitan areas tend to be more expensive than small town patent attorney's. It is possible to handle the legal portion of the patent process remotely without violating any state of federal statutes. You could possibly reduce your cost by a couple of thousand dollars by perusing that avenue.

I know it sounds as if obtaining a patent is more trouble than it is worth. My purpose here was not to conclude that a U.S. patent is worthless. There are risk involved and some hazards. Until the patent is granted, there is limited protection available to you and your invention. That's the facts. An approved patent is an extremely valuable right to have on your invention. It grants you a mini monopoly throughout the U.S. and within the aforementioned agreement countries for 20 years. Unfortunately, once it expires you cannot renew it.