what a load of rubbish. They are a great thing and without patents we would not have even a fraction of the innovation. Anything that costs millions to invent, simply would not be pursed as you would not be able to pay of the R&D and investment. You could kiss good buy to loads of modern medicines.
How to patent an idea?
- Thread starter Oxide™
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what a load of rubbish. They are a great thing and without patents we would not have even a fraction of the innovation. Anything that costs millions to invent, simply would not be pursed as you would not be able to pay of the R&D and investment. You could kiss good buy to loads of modern medicines.
Soldato
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Errrm what? Patents actually encourage innovation. Whos going to spend time and money researching a new product/design if it can then be ripped off by Joe Bloggs within months of going to market.
edit: beaten to it lol.
Even products that have had loads of research and investment into developing them might not be patentable, take viagra for instance, it cost millions to develop but the patent was rejected because it was considered obvious.
Associate
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I invented an acid that would eat through anything but I couldn't find anything to keep it in
You could do a 'poor mans patent' just now to safeguard your idea. To do this, write down in as much detail as you can on a piece of paper and pop it into an envelope. Then pop a stamp on it and send it to yourself. Keep it this way and don't open it as it will have the post office stamp on the day it went through the post office system. Do this until you find out whether or not you should spend silly amounts of money on a proper patent for your product/idea.
Al
This doesn't work, as the would be nothing to stop me sending myself a few unsealed envelope with nothing in and then writing something and putting it in the envelope at a later date.
The 'poor man's patent' thing is a myth. If you don't apply for a patent before something gets in to the public domain you will never be granted a patent on it.
As someone who spends all day negotiating IP ownership, license terms etc I can absolutely confirm that patents encourage innovation. Universities, for example, get massive amounts of cash from private companies each year to pay for their research, paying or part-paying for most research that goes on in universities. There would be few reasons for private companies to do this if they didn't end up securing something that their competitor could not - usually an exclusive license to the patent in the field.
As someone who spends all day negotiating IP ownership, license terms etc I can absolutely confirm that patents encourage innovation. Universities, for example, get massive amounts of cash from private companies each year to pay for their research, paying or part-paying for most research that goes on in universities. There would be few reasons for private companies to do this if they didn't end up securing something that their competitor could not - usually an exclusive license to the patent in the field.