[sdiy] Patents

[Rainer Buchty]

>Has anyone here ever patented anything? Was it worth the money/effort?

Yes, but I didn't had to do much besides writing up the technical
documentation for my invention which then got reviewed by the company's
patent lawyers and later got transformed into lawyerese by an external
patent lawyer who happily took $300/h.

So I also only got a gratification after it got filed and will
eventually get one if the patent finally got accepted. More I can't
expect :)

Patenting itself, i.e. the patent office fees, are rather neglectible
(like $80 per claim) compared to the costs of eventually involved patent
lawyers to get it into proper lawyerspeak.

>I was thinking the next best thing is to publish (as in on this list), so
>that no-one else can patent an idea you have. That way you don't get sued
>for using your own ideas.
>
>What do you think?

It wouldn't help you avoiding to get sued. It only helps in defense so
that you (or someone else like the FFII) can prove prior art... Assuming
that you have a lawyer which can compete with the sueing company's
lawyer(s).

Especially USPTO seems to patent anything just to get royalties and
leave proving the patent to the courts -- and its European counterpart
is on the best way to copy that behavior.

Rainer