Patent Your Invention

We've all heard the horror stories about tinkerers who've come up with million-dollar ideas, only to have the brainstorms stolen. Here's how to keep that from happening to you!

There are several ways to protect a potentially profitable invention. The first and easily the least expensive-is simple ...just don't tell anyone about it. Such "trade secrets" have been kept by some businesses for hundreds of years ...but their usefulness is limited-for the most part to inventions that require specific, measured ingredients coupled with a special process by which those components are rendered into a usable product.

Copyrighting, another method of protecting your work, also has its limitations. After all, it's not possible to copyright an idea ...only the written words, melodies, pictures, or other forms through which the idea is expressed. Such protection is also given for a limited period of time, and involves payment of a fee. (Free information and forms are available from the Register of Copyrights, Library of Congress, Dept. TMEN, Washington, D.C. 20540.)

A third, but usually both time-consuming and expensive, way of guarding your brainchild against theft is by patent. The U.S. government publishes a 23-page booklet entitled Patents and Inventions: An Information Guide for Inventors, which is available for $1.75, goes into considerable detail, and lists other informative publications on the same subject (write the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Dept. TMEN, Washington, D.C. 20402, and ask for Stock No. 003-004-00545-9).

In short, a patent is a grant to an inventor, given by the United States, which allows him or her-for a limited time to exclude others from making, using, or selling the patent-holder's product in this country. The actual grant is a printed document in which the invention is fully described and the rights of the inventor are defined. Once a person gets a patent, he or she has the opportunity to profit by making, using, or selling the invention in a protected market ...or by charging other people for that privilege.

There are two main types of patents. The first, which is given for "new and useful processes, machines, manufactures, and compositions of matter or plants", lasts for 17 years from the time that it's granted. The second sort is granted for "new, original, and ornamental designs" (those that affect the shape of an item without reference to its inner mechanism or to the process by which the item was made), and can run for 3112, 7, or 14 years, the time being decided by the inventor.

However, it may take several year sand thousands of dollars-just to obtain a patent ...and not every good invention is patentable or even worth patenting. Most, in fact, aren't ...either because somebody has already patented a similar-or identical design, or because the invention cannot be successfully commercialized. Since the point of patenting is to allow the originator of an invention to get a financial return on it, the potential profits must outstrip the considerable costs involved if a patent is to represent a worthwhile "investment".