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About intellectual property protection

Does your idea or venture include intellectual property which is novel and inventive? If so you may wish to protect it before broadcasting it to the world.

What is Intellectual Property (IP) protection ?

There are many different forms of IP protection depending upon what you are trying to protect. Here is a quick introduction:

Patents
 These protect apparatus, methods, processes, business plans (in some cases), etc. More discussion is given on patent below.
Trademarks
 These protect names under which you trade under and may include slogans. There are two types of trademarks: trademarks (™) and registered trademarks (®). Trademarks are protected under common law - they are simple too - you just write ™ after the text you wish to trademark. However the protection is not as good as registered trademarks which you file for at you patent office.
Designs
 These protect things such as the way product look, such as their shape. You must file a registered design at your patent office to obtain this protection.
Copyright
 Any original works can be protected with copyright (©). This applies to things like paintings, software source code, text, poetry, etc. Copyright is obtained simply by writing ©, followed by the year of the creation of the works and the owner of the works.

About patents

Some facts about patents:

  • Granted patents give you a monopoly. However you still must spend money to enforce their protection if someone infringes your patent.
  • Patents take several years to be accepted.
  • There is no such thing as a world wide patent. You must file patents in each country you wish to gain a monopoly. There are however intermediate processes to allow you to be in effect granted a patent and then decide on which countries patents should be filed.
  • Filing full patents is expensive. Patent office fees vary from country to country with most of the costs in filing going into attorneys fees.
  • Most countries in the world belong to a patent cooperation treaty (PCT). This fact has some very useful implications.
  • In fact any country that belongs to the PCT allows patents to be filed in their country from a provisional patent filed in another PCT country.
  • Provisional patents have enormous benefit in terms of publishing your ideas to find investors and partners while giving you protection.
  • Provisional patents last for 1 year, are very cheap to file, require no detailed claims, and you can do it yourself!

The provisional patent approach

There are two approaches for protecting ideas. You can file immediately for a full patent or you can file a provisional patent. However filing full patents straight off are expensive (US$10,000 more or less), time consuming and provide no guarantees that you will be granted a patent in the many years that it takes before they are granted. Furthermore, you may need to research the idea more before submitting a full patent.

The provisional patent approach offers many benefits for Entrepreneurs who have an idea and are seeking investment. These benefits include:

  • From the filing date, you have 12 months in which to file full patents in countries of your choice or alternative to file a PCT patent (which allows you to defer the decision to file on specific countries). This allows you to flesh out the idea a lot more.
  • You can abandon a provisional patent
  • They are never reviewed (that is they just get received by the patent office and sit in a cabinet) unless you file a subsequent full patent.
  • They are very inexpensive to file, especially if you do it yourself. In fact the New Zealand patent office charges NZ$50, the US patent office charges US$50. and the Australian patent office charges AU$80 for filing of a provisional patents.
  • Since there are no complicated claims, or particular format that you need to follow then it is within most peoples grasp to file them themselves.
  • You can file in your country's native language - no need for translations.

Patents, registered trademarks and Non-disclosure agreements can help protect your ideas. However IP (Intellectual Property) protection such as patents can be very expensive (US$5,000 and up), and take years before they are granted. For early stage ventures spending a large amount of time and money is not an option especially if seeking investment.

Provisional patents are a excellent alternative to full patents, especially if you are testing the idea out, searching for prior are or looking for investment or other partners.

IMPORTANT NOTE - Although it is possible to file provisional patents without the assistance of an patent attorney, UpStartGo is not responsible (see our legal section) for events arising from insufficient protection. If in doubt seek advice from a patent attorney.

How to submit a provisional patent

Three simple steps - 1) Draft your provisional patents, 2) Fill out the supporting forms (available from your countries patent office), 3) File the patent with the required fee.

The hardest part of course if working out how to format your document and the content. There are many possible formats and the following is a list of sections that you could include

Suggested approach

Got a new idea? Then consider the following approach:

  • Quickly research the idea to see if it is viable and makes business sense.
  • If the idea contains some what you consider, novel and inventive step, then consider IP protection.
  • If so, perform a quick prior art search (record all results from a prior art search) on the various patent archives and offices. Also use the Google patent search.
  • If the prior art search turns up negative , then draft a provisional patent (get your family and friends to review - if they can understand what you are getting it, its probably good enough to submit).
  • Create supporting documentation such as a business plan that describes how this idea will make money and what you need to make it happen.
  • Publish your venture by Broadcasting it on UpStartGo. Remember that you don't have to disclose everything - just say enough to grab peoples interest.
  • Research any parties who show interest. Be selective. You can then establish contact with who ever you choose.
  • You can now freely discuss the idea and/or venture. If you require further protection before disclosing further details, you can request that the interested party sign a NDA (non-disclosure agreement). This can provide legal means to stop them from pursuing the idea themselves or disclosing the idea to other parties.

More about Intellectual Property

There are a lot of useful resources on the web about patent protection. Below are some links, but also use your local patent office for additional information.

Also check out the very useful Google patent search.

Patent Offices

Search tools, forms and fees can be found at the patent office for your country. Some offices can be found at the links below: