by Jim J Jones

Created on: June 16, 2010   Last Updated: June 27, 2010

To shield inventors and innovators from the risk of having their ideas stolen (or "borrowed") by those unwilling to make the effort necessary to develop new ideas, patents exist to provide them with the exclusive rights to the manufacture, production and sale of their idea and any obvious derivation thereof. 

The hardest part of getting a patent does not involve jumping through legal hoops, dealing with governmental patent offices, or finding a lawyer. The hardest part of getting a patent is coming up with a patentable idea that costs less to develop than the profits you will earn from having developed it. Generally, the most lucrative areas to hold a patent in are fields like nanotechnology, computer science (Intel's X86 chip is a prime example), and statistics (yes, you can patent a complex mathematical process in many jurisdictions). If you have already achieved this, if you already have something patentable, then the worst is behind you. The next bit will be a cakewalk.

The first thing to do is contact a patent attorney in your home country and discuss the best strategy for patenting your product. Generally, this will consist of drawing up blueprints and putting together a legal argument for why your product meets the requirements for a patent. You must demonstrate that your idea is new, that it is not obvious, that it is useful (or that it is industrially applicable). Making the investment in a good patent attorney is absolutely worthwhile. Talk to your fellow inventors and be sure to get someone who gets results. If your patent is rejected, or if it does not hold up in the face of a law suit, you will be out every penny that you invested in your research.

Next, file the patent with your country's patent office. If it is accepted (which it ought to be, if you have a competent attorney), begin filing for patents in every other country that could conceivably want the product you patented, or which could conceivably be used as a site for factories making your product in an effort to duck around your patent. This includes all of Europe, most of the Middle East, all of the African countries with stable governments, China, India, Pakistan, etc. You should file your patent in every one of them as a safeguard against future infringements on your patent. Although some of these countries do not enforce patent law as well as others (China is particularly infamous for this), it is still worth having the patent as a deterrent to thieves.

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