...is to buy the shoes.

Funny, though.

Fantastic!

I guess I should just start there, but I already have a company that wants to market my product, so time is of the essence.

Then, at a minimum, there are worse things you could do than write an exhaustive detailed description of the thing, along with drawings, and file it as a provisional.

Do not worry about variations and alternatives at this point, but do nail down the thing in words and pictures.

For $45, it preserves your filing date, so long as you follow up with a regular utility by the anniversary date of the provisional.

Part of the "secret" is in how I made it. Should that info be included? Or is process proprietary?

Really appreciate the advice.

jberryhill told you.

But there is one more thing you need to be aware of. Since you already have a marketing company, you may have already shot yourself in the foot. Public disclosure + time will kill the opportunity to obtain a patent. It might be worth your time to spend an hour with a patent attorney to help you sort out whether you can still obtain a patent based on who you told, what you told them, and the circumstances under which you told them, and how long ago it was. It is also much more complex under the new AIA than it used to be.

The firm I used to work with charged a nominal fee for an initial consultation - and that kind of question would be routine during an initial consultation. Other firms charged more - or did them for free (although that is less likely with an IP firm than others). You'll need to ask - but it would be well worth an hour of a patent attorney's time. Try an small-ish IP firm in a less urban area (less overhead so the fees tend to be lower).

Even if you want to write your own patent application, you may also be able to retain them to tweak your description and drawings for the conversion from a provisional application to a regular application (a year after you file). If you have money to invest, it would be worth it to pay a real IP firm (not the ones you've mentioned) to do at least this much (if they are willing). The description has to clearly describe your invention, and the claims are a peculiar form of writing - and how they need to be written is constantly changing because of court cases. People who write their own without any prior background (and these invention firms) often do this very poorly and then all the money spent on the patent might as well have been thrown in the trash can. I have had very competent amateur writers who have saved a considerable amount of money this way - and I have had others who ended up increasing the cost this way because I attempted to preserve as much of their writing as I could (partly because the ultimate application needed to stay within the description in the provisional.

A final option - the AIA includes funding for pro bono assistance in writing applications. Check with a local law school or business incubator to see if they have started (or plan to start) a clinic for patent prosecution - you might be able to have it written for free or on some sort of sliding scale.

I recently attended a trade show and visited all of the vendors who deal in the sort of product I made. I asked each one if 1) they sell anything like what I've made (only telling them the purpose of the thing but not describing it in detail) and 2) what their customers currently use for the purpose.

It was in one of those conversations that one company asked if they could market my idea. They've been asking for details and I've been delaying showing them or telling them details until I figure out the IP angle.

So, they know the idea in general but the specifics are still unknown to them. Even so, they are interested.

I just want to protect myself as much as possible before doing anything further.

As long as the invention isn't obvious from what you've told them (and that is a legal analysis), you should be ok in the US. The US does have a first to file rule now, so if the concept wasn't obvious but now that they know about it they could develop it on their own it may be a race to the patent office.

If you ever do decide to share the details, make sure you have them execute a non-disclosure agreement. It both keeps your disclosure out of the public and gives you a cheaper way to protect your IP than patent litigation (breach of contract is orders of magnitude less costly to fight in court than a patent infringement case).

You should be able to find a patent attorney to do an initial consultation with for a couple hundred bucks or so - it would be well worth the investment. I can't tell you how many people are sure that what they want is a patent - but it turns out that what they have is not even eligible to be patented.

See (.pdf): http://www.tinaja.com/glib/casagpat.pdf

Do you have enough money to sue companies violating your patent?

I typically discourage small inventors from filing patent applications. The costs are enormous, and the returns typically small to non-existent. My average is better than 1 in 100 for making money; perhaps 1 in 25 made some money - and 1 in 50 made enough money to pay for the costs of patenting the invention.

There are really only two solid reasons I can think of for a small inventor to patent something - they just want to say they have a patent, and they have a company lined up to market which insists on already having a patent application filed. The biggest reason against it is the one you point out. Even if you have a patent, it takes millions to effectively defend it.

Companies are a different matter - if for no reason other than to use offensively against competitors who threaten to sue. Sort of a mutually assured destruction.

The point is to prevent patent litigation, because each side knows that some of their product is covered by patents which the other party owns, and if party A sues party B, party B has similar claims it can assert against party A - not to actually have mutual infringement litigation.

The simple answer is NO. The more complex answer is NO, bring LOTS of Do-Re-Mi, hire an expensive attorney and wait a couple of years.

Family has been through this, twice.

...like this Patent Process Overview.

I searched on "filing a patent yourself" and there are lots of hits.

This site claims that most people file out the form for a provisional patent (ie. so you can say "patent pending") in 15 minutes to an hour; they say it's free.

Actually completing a full patent application with the USPTO is more complicated, time consuming, and requires payment of fees. It can be done with a lawyer, but depending on the complexity of your invention and the claims of novelty, you may want to get legal advice....$ to $$$$$$$$$$$$$$'s.

Good luck!

No, actually, my first step is always to ask on DU. But now that I'm at that site, it's like a huge black hole.

Either this will be fun or exhausting. In either case, thanks for the link. I know it was obvious but I didn't even do that yet.

There is a filing fee for filing a provisional application. ($45) So it isn't free.

The provisional patent cover form might take 15 minutes to an hour, but if writing and filing the provisional application (which is what allows you to say patent pending) takes you 15 minutes to an hour you are a genius - or you've completely wasted your time in terms of protecting your invention. I doubt I've written one (other than a design application) in fewer than 10 hours - and I do it for a living.

Your provisional application needs to provide a complete description (in words and/or drawings) of every detail which is crucial to practicing your invention. If it doesn't, once you go to file the conversion (the full application) the new details you have to add will only be protected from the second filing date - not the first - meaning you may not be able to patent it at all (if someone has a filing date between your provisional date and your conversion date for the new features) or may only be entitled to a very limited patent (meaning you get a very lousy monopoly that it would be hard to enforce).

Yes - it can be done without a lawyer. It can even be done well without a lawyer. There isn't any particular magic to it. But doing it well when you have not written a patent application before is not easy or quick, and if you want a decent patent you will need to spend some time reading lots of recently drafted patents in the field of your invention to get a feel for how the parts fit together. You should also read recent Supreme Court and Federal Circuit Court decisions about claim interpretation/construction. Claims are the most important part of your application. If you know who your competitors are, it would be a good idea to review their patents - and any cases in which they either sued (or were sued) for infringement.

you should estimate the cost of having your IP ripped off and being unable to do anything about it.

Reminds me of the old adage - "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance". Same logic applies.

I agree. It is worth paying to have it done right.

I am less certain about whether it is (generally) worth it for small inventors to have patents. Primarily because being able to do anything effective to remedy your IP being ripped off requires cash in the 6 digit range, and more likely 7 digit - even if you win and keep the other guy away from the market.

of time and money. Apple had a patent that Samsung needed...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._v._Samsung_Electronics_Co.,_Ltd.

The Windows operating system used 65,000 lines of code from the original Apple operating system. Apple spent millions over a ten year period to try and enforce its copyright. It eventually "won." When Apple was ripped off by MS, they would done far better to just introduce their own operating system that would run on IBM based machines. Someone else has a patent for website shopping carts (it is not enforceable).

Likely the place to spend your time and money is marketing your product. A patent won't stop someone from copying a great idea unless you already have millions of dollars to litigate.

Deliver vision and value to the marketplace and you will be in a far better position than any patent would put you in. Good luck!

my thought is more to protect myself against someone preventing *me* from making this item, not to necessarily prevent others from doing so.

You may hear from 'patent trolls' depending on what type of product it is. They will threaten you and want money. They are BS. The big guys won't mess with you until you are successful.

Execution counts far more than any one idea and is the best use of your money at this point. A mediocre idea executed very well is better than a very good idea executed poorly, or not at all.

before someone else files a patent application. Prior publication will prevent a third party from obtaining a patent.

Thanks for your help and input

There was a lot of talk early on about using publication to avoid being beaten out in the race to the patent office - I don't find any quickly at the moment.

Generally, any publicly accessible location - but if it is deliberately hidden in an obscure location it may backfire. I've been in cases where there was debate about whether a description that could be found by archiving and making searchable the contents of a trade website was sufficiently public. So a generic website which no one relevant would likely find is not necessarily sufficient. Posting it there and linking to it from discussions on an online trade discussion board probably would be.

I've used their books in the past to help set up a nonprofit and to write a trust. They write for laymen, not lawyers.

your designed patent...

You need to contact a patent attorney and get the most absolute in minutia details for your design and your broad sweeping design variations so that some asshole doesn't lease your patent once to copy it and do a slight variation and screw you out of royalties...

A patent attorney is worth their weight in gold...

Do it right the first time and don't loose that design to copy cats...

is to get an attorney. There is quite a bit to the process. A good attorney will write the patent from the perspective of someone trying to break it. Drawings also have to be done in a specific format.
Or, you simply apply for the patent. That will buy you time to really evaluate what you have designed. People can copy it up until the time you are awarded the patent.
Can you do it yourself…sure, you get what you pay for.
The patent help businesses are pretty much scams.

but I also don't want someone else to prevent me from marketing my idea

Once a patent expires, anyone can practice the invention.

Anyone who represents themselves has incompetent counsel and a fool for a client.

very few ideas are truly new, and even new ideas result in dissimilar products producing the same result. The days of a guy in his garage inventing some object that singly launches them into wealth are about over..the occasional truly ingenious vast improvement of a product or process notwithstanding..even the provisional application requires a lot of documentation..