ill look into that,
it definitly look different that a normal fin, lots smaller and different shape. “its a outside of the box design”
maybe the appearance would be a good start…
Thanks
Don’t let me lead you too far astray from utility patents. If you can get both (utility and design), great. But, if I had to personally choose between one or the other and cost didn’t matter, utility patent protection will almost always provide you with a better scope of protection.
I recently got a provisional patent on my design, its pretty cheap to take that first step- about $115 I think it was. Getting the full patent will take a few years and cost a couple thousand dollars. Look for ‘volunteer lawyers for the arts’ type organizations that have patent lawyers that can give you pro-bono legal services if you qualify. Good luck
**yea & were does the mony come from defending it if its any good go mass produce it flood the market **
**take the mony & run
**
first person with a couple hundreds grands PM for possible partnership… 
Most indepenent inventors can’t afford to mass produce their own inventions. Therefore, one of the best options is often to apply for patent protection and then license the invention to someone who can afford it (and can afford to enforce the patent, if necessary, as well).
As for the costs mentioned for a provisional application listed above, those are roughly akin to the government filing fees for the application but certainly do not include what an attorney would charge for drafting the application. And, like I alluded to above - if you want a provisional application which is worth more than the paper it’s printed on (one that a fin manufacturer will take seriously) - you’d better not wing it. As for free patent application drafting, I’ve literally never heard of this, and I’ve been a patent attorney for quite some time. Not saying it’s not out there - I’ve just never heard of it.
Huie, your comments are right on the money, so to speak.
i think my design might be too close from the future suspention system…i might have a hard time getting the patent.
i think the mass production will be a better idea, thanks for all your post.
experience being the best and most costly instruction, let me pass this along to you.
do market research first.
after u obtain a provisional patent...my apologies to the lawyers for using the wrong word.
do some market research.
it can save you tens of thousands of dollars.
when i talked about my product on here and other surf forums, and got nothing but negative responses, i should have known it would not sell.
unfortunately, the horse was already out of the barn at that point.
experience is a great teacher.
on the other hand, if you have a big bucket of $$$$ what the hell. let er rip.
Also, US patents only protect you from other people stealing your idea in the US. For something like a fin design you should also get a some international protection.
I use my provisional patent as a means to scare off potential idea stealers. I can legally say “patent pending” and feel OK about showing images of it.
Hi, I’ve been through this mill a few times as a industrial designer/entrepreneur.
Aside from what has already been said, Consider coming up with a catchy tradename like Thermos or Band-Aid and following the steps to get a “TM” and them a registered trademark “R”. This is also a great form of protection. Creating brand equity is a powerful weapon in defending your business… Kleenex is a classic case study. If it ever came to licensing your patent, and patent examinations are over a 2 year wait right now, you would also be able to use the tradename as a negotiating tool. In some cases, the tradename is worth more the the IP itself. Not to mention, you may not get the patent. However, that doesn’t mean your can’t produce product. Good luck
Good luck with this new fin.
As others have said Even if you havea patent on your fin does not mean it won't get ripped off.
There is an interesting story about a guy named Dalebout. He is the guy who invented the first plastic ski boot His company is Daleboot in Salt Lake City, UT. Lang Boots used his idea. And started making Plastic ski boots without paying Dale any Royalties. Took Dale years to perivale in his lawsuit.
A closer example in the ski industry is the shaped ski. A guy in Washington state had the first patent on shaped skis.In the mid 1990's the shaped ski revolutionized skiing. The way that the short board revolutionized Surfing. So far only one company K2 has paid any Royalties on his revolutionary design.
I am not trying to discourage you. I hope your fin is all that you think it is.
It sounds as if - even though you appear to have intended otherwise - you are writing about two success stories. Although it took a couple of years (noting that most true success does not come quickly), the Daleboots company succeeded according to you (Artz). The second person obtained a license from a literal giant in the ski industry. That doesn’t sound so bad to me (even though it’s apparently only one giant that signed up for the license).
All the stories above aside (and there are always stories - usually both good and bad), the simple truth is, if you don’t try in the right ways, you’ll never succeed. You can let people scare you out of the game with stories of failure, or you can take the right chances if you have confidence in your ideas. Does this guarantee success? Absolutely not. The one thing I can guarantee, though, is that if you don’t protect yourself and you do have a good idea, people will “steal” it from you and there will be nothing you can do about it (of course, with no legal protection, it’s really mere copying and absolutely lawful, however distasteful).
One more thing - a trademark/tradename, although potentially valuable in the long term, will be almost useless to anyone prior to actually building a reputation associated with the trademark/tradename.
I just want to add to add this perspective:
Most of my work relates to generic pharmaceuticals - which means that I spend almost all my waking hours thinking about how patents might be invalidated or worked around.
The bottom line is that, if the purchasing masses want your product, someone is going to look at whether they can copy it. If your protection is weak for some reason, the copier may just go ahead and copy your product and make you fight for it. On the other hand, if you have strong enough patent protection the potential copier will move along and find something else to copy, or will try to negotiate a licence from you.
If your product turns out to be a big success, people may devote huge resources to investigating the strength and validity of your patent protection. (I spend a lot of time trawling the internet for clues of early publications and going through documents submitted to patent offices all around the world - all to find a chink in someone’s patent protection.)
So, if you file your own patent application, you’ll probably get your money’s worth. (You can do your own dentistry for free too, but would you?) I have very rarely seen a “homemade” provisional patent application that supports any rights. In this regard, 95% of patent litigation is about bad patents - mainly either because the invention itself is questionable, or because the patent specification is poorly drafted. A “cheap” patent may turn out very expensive.
I agree with mattp that the stories described by Artz are success stories. Once the inventors have been successful in one court battle, anyone else will think long and hard about fighting, and the chances of negotiating favourable settlements with other infringers will be good.
The risk for an infringer is huge, especially in the USA, where damages awards for willful infringement can vastly exceed normal royalty payments. For all the hard work and expense of filing patent applications, there are people (so-called “patent trolls”) whose sole business model is to file patent applications (normally broad and somewhat vague, and of questionable inventive merit), and sit back and wait for products incorporating their “inventions” to become entrenched in the market, and then send “cease and desist” letters to all and sundry, in the hope of settling for exhorbitant amounts of money. This business model can only succeed if patent infringement has severe consequences - and the perceived risk is therefore high.
Anyone who sees the patent system as useless to inventors hasn’t considered it from the side of a potential infringer.
mattp,
Creating a brand is never a bad idea.
Louis’ patent attorney should be able to conclude 2 things.
-
Is his fin design patentable?
-
If it isn’t patentable due to prior art, he can still produce the fin if there is no risk of infringement on other designs patented past 17 years as they will have expired. In this case, he would be able to produce the fin but so would anyone else. Hence, the advantage of developing brand equity. Obviously, if say, FCS has a patent on a similar design, louis will have to make a call whether to develop the fin anyway and roll the dice or waive off and spend his time/money doing something else…
If louis’ attorney cannot generate a strong application due to prior art when doing his search but still wants to produce a product, he can still submit a provisional which would allow him protection while refining the design or ramping up production. He can choose to refile another provisional the following year, but within the period of these years, establish his brand which would be easy to “TM” and/or “R”. A company cannot prosecute a provisional because they wouldn’t be able to read the application.That would be a balsy move.
Furthermore, even if he gets rejected, he can still refile. From start to finish, Louis will have 3 years to create a brand and generate revenue with a potentially unpatentable product. During this time, Louis may develop new ideas for the fin or ways around whatever road blocks he encounters and yet again, refile. In this case, Louis can take advantage of what is called “design obselessence”. If he alters the fin design year to year, he can stay ahead with true adjustments to his provisional and make the fin. If I were louis and I wanted to get into business, I would surround myself with supporting items associated with surfing an push the “the brand”. The fin design may evaporate but will have served it’s purpose of putting louis in business if that is one of his goals. Once the brand is known, the fin is hopefully just a SKU next to louis’ other items.The patent office is currently jammed up with overseas applications (china, etc) which is atleast a 2 year wait so why not just go for it while being protected by the system? It is low-tech time anyway. Carpe Diem!
ok…
how about…
Take the cheap 'patent pending" idea = little cost
Brand the fin with a name “R” or “tm” = little cost
Then spend the rest of your money on STOCK
Stock, Stock, Stock, Stock, Stock … Is what sells … and … makes money for you … NOW !
If its truely good - people will copy it - regardless off all the law abiding shit in the world.
They will make the fin 10% different and can void all the protection.
How hard is it to make soemthing 10% different ?
sjyardan -
I am not suggesting that creating a brand is a bad idea. In fact, part of what I do for a living is help people obtain federal trademark registrations (among other things including actually enforceing trademark/“brand” rights). I am just saying that - among the several types of intellectual property protection that someone could seek related to a new fin design - trademark protection is probably the least valuable (by far) for prevention or deterrence of copying.
And, no offense, but a lot of the rest of what you have written above is wrong or at least confusing enough to a non-patent attorney, that if someone follows this advice (without actually consulting an attorney), there is a good chance they might lose their rights to patent protection forever.
As to the suggestion (also above) that changing something 10% will allow you to “get around” a patent, such a general statement (outside of the context of actual facts) is just flat wrong. First of all, if a patent has broad enough scope, you won’t be able to make 10% worth of change and avoid infringement of the patent. Although it’s somewhat odd to talk about percentages in the case of fins (this might be more appropriate in the chemical arts), even changing something 50% might not successfully design around a particular patent (particuarly if you are making changes relative to the commericialized product, not the actual patent itself). In any event, these types of things are different on a case by case basis (and, in some cases, a 1% might be sufficient to avoid infringement of a particular hypothetical patent). Some people obtain broad, strong patent protection (the best of both worlds), others obtain the opposite or some mix in between.
Note as well - evenutally if you do enough designing around (in an attempt to avoid patent infringement), eventually you’re going to end up with something (e.g., a fin) which doesn’t perform in the same way as the patented fin. Thus, the patent will have done its job. It will have “forced” someone to design a product which isn’t as commercially desirable as the patented product because enough design changes were required (in order to avoid infringing the patent) that the benefits of the patented product were lost. Then, you just outcompete them in the marketplace because you have a better product.
Hey, don’t get me wrong: without being too officious, my advice to louis is the get a patent attorney as my posting assumes in the beginning. Preferable and crafty, old timer who knows how to work the system a bit if need be. Not to mention, louis will need not only a patent attorney but also a transaction attorney to get the deal done wisely if it comes to licensing. One thing I can attest to is that my transaction attorney is no engineer and vice versa.
Being the owner of several patents both medical and recreational and being someone who has gone through this process with all its pitfalls as well as daily industry experience in the R&D and business strategy world, what I have explained is a regular occurence. There is nothing incorrect about it. It just is and this is what people often do. The amount of time it takes to get a patent can be used as a temporary advantage for louis. Hopefully, he won’t have to and it will all work out. That said, some patent attorneys believe that if you don’t get rejected the first time around, you didn’t reach for enough coverage. I hope it works out for him. Louis, Good Luck.
Actually sjyardan, some of it is wrong or at least misleading in possibly extremely detrimental ways. I won’t go through the whole post because I don’t have that much time right now, but take the following:
"He can choose to refile another provisional the following year, but
within the period of these years, establish his brand which would be
easy to “TM” and/or “R”. A company cannot prosecute a provisional
because they wouldn’t be able to read the application.That would be a
balsy move.
Furthermore, even if he gets rejected, he can still refile."
Here are at least of couple of issues with this passage: if you simply file a second provisional after a first as you suggest (and nothing more) and have been selling, advertising, etc. in the meantime, depending on certain facts and timelines, you might - quite literally - lose your right to pursue patent protection in the U.S. and almost the entire rest of the world permanently…irrevocably…or insert whatever other word you want to use (despite the second filing). As to the last part of the passage, a provisional application is never examined - period - therefore, it can never be rejected. But, again, even if you do “refile” as you suggest, given the right (or wrong, depending on your perspective) set of facts, once again you might lose your right to pursue patent protection forever.
There are other problems in the same passage (which I won’t go into), but that aside, I get that you have some experience with this, and you even have some of the concepts right. However, detail in patent law is EVERYTHING - get it wrong and you might be dead in the water for a particular invention (and, like it or not, sometimes patent protection can make or break the success of a start up or independent inventor).
Anyway - my recommendation is that no one here rely entirely on any written advice contained in these posts about patent protection (except the advice to contact a professional). It’s just too easy to misconstrue these sorts of things with possibly very bad results.