Dave's Patenting advice - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: easilyconfused
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 25, 2010, 02:27:22 am
content: Dave is so right-on regarding patenting and marketing. I'm 64 y/o. All my life I've been a tinkerer and people are constantly telling me I need to get something patented. But I've already been down that road and learned exactly what Dave said. So one might wonder why big companies do it (patents). IF you have enough market presence (profits) to retain lawyers, they will get "some" level of protection for you. How much protection depends on a lot of things. Drug companies are probably the most successful at it because they've been doing it so long and spend so much on doing it. So patents are for real. They're just not what the average Joe thinks they are. One of the biggest myths about patents is that you start receiving money from some mysterious source as soon as it's granted. Lots of patented inventions have never made a nickel. It's simply been recognized as unique. That doesn't mean anyone wants it. Here's some tips from this old man: Most people simply don't have the drive to go into, or maintain a business. If you sent them the raw materials and some blueprints they wouldn't make it or put out the effort to peddle it. So your best protection is human nature. Stick it right out there. How can you sell it if no one can see it? Take it apart and show 'em the guts. Show 'em the quality you put into it. Be tickled shitless that you've been copied to death but still get 10% of the sales. And try like hell to gain a reputation by giving quality customer service and using better materials. Make them like you personally by doing the Dave thing. Then make something else.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 25, 2010, 03:26:22 am
content: Quote from: easilyconfused on August 25, 2010, 02:27:22 amCare to revise your estimate upwards there?Let's run some quick back of the envelope numbers for fun! (USA only):http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/us_stat.htmThat shows about 450,000 patent applications a year, of which around say 180,000 are granted (pipeline based of course).That's less than a 50% chance of your patent being granted and actually being worth the paper it's written on.Now:http://www.marylandiplaw.com/2009/01/articles/patents/number-of-patent-lawsuits-initiated-in-maryland-increases/That shows about 2350 patent law suits across 22 states. let's throw on say 15 per state for all the other states. That gives us say 2800 law suits each year.So that means roughly 0.6% of patent holders are trying to protect their patents, and hence get a return on their investment in the patent.I'm going to rule out people who say buy rights to patents, start-ups etc, because that's going to be small, and basically never going to happen to the garage engineer anyway. So that means the only real way the garage engineer is going to make money off their patent is by suing someone.I'll also rule out those designers and companies who are scared out of a niche market by seeing "patent pending" on someones else's product. Because it is of course almost always trivial to do the same or similar thing a different way.Let's be very generous and assume that most of those people who go to court win their patent case. Round down to 0.5% of patent holder now.Let's also be very generous and say there are the same number of people with patents who succeed in bluffing people by legal threats with their patent (without going to court). Another 0.5%What have we got here?99% of patents don't give any return on investment to the patent holder, and that's being VERY generous and would be a massive "best case" scenario.Any garage engineers still want to spend $10K+ on a patent with a 1% chance at best of a return on your investment AND a better than 50% chance of your patent actually getting rejected?Oh boy, I feel another blog coming on!Dave.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 25, 2010, 04:22:41 am
content: Here's an example of what evil people can attempt to do with patents:http://jmri.sourceforge.net/k/History.shtmlDave.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 25, 2010, 04:58:03 am
content: Your comparison is just like comparing the number of nukes fired with the number of nukes, would you say that the USSR's nukes were meaningless because they never fired them in a military conflict? Patents are often used as a form of MAD by large companies, to prevent patent lawsuits. If you sue me for patent infringement, I'll sue you for infringing on my patents. This is probably a significant part of those 450k applications. The joke used to be that IBM was single handedly responsible for the continued existence of the USPTO, and they're still number 1 with almost 5k granted patents in 2009. These cases don't tend to end up in court. Lawsuits are for when things break down, I think your estimate of 50% of threats resulting in lawsuits is very high, I'd guess more like 1-10%, or even less. I think completely disregarding voluntary income is also wrong, especially for well-known patents (eg. MPEG LA or MS VFAT). Your stats might be close for garage engineers, but there's no way that they're responsible for anywhere near 450k applications/year, and no easy way to get statistics about them.I don't disagree with your conclusions or think that patents are a good idea (especially the US patent system), but this argument is flawed.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 25, 2010, 06:36:57 am
content: There is also this :https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=1108.0discussion on that blog post although it takes a different aspect of it.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 25, 2010, 06:40:10 am
content: Quote from: alm on August 25, 2010, 04:58:03 amI'm just trying to put into perspective what the odds are that the typical garage engineer can expect to get on a return on invest in a patent. As always, YMMV, greatly.QuoteANY argument to do with the usefulness of patents is fundamentally flawed. At least I'm having a go at putting it into perspective. If you have a better way then please do so.Dave.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 25, 2010, 07:00:56 am
content: Quote from: alm on August 25, 2010, 04:58:03 amWell, how about we try?http://smallbiztrends.com/2010/07/how-smart-is-the-average-entrepreneur.htmlThat shows about 30% of all patents are small entities. That should knock out the big players from our numbers.Ok, now we are getting somewhere.All we need no is how many patent law suits are from the same group and our numbers get a bit more realistic...WOW!, some great stats:http://www.inventionstatistics.com/Innovation_Risk_Taking_Inventors.html"Patentees lose 75.6% of the time against accused infringers.""According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, approximately 2 percent of patents earn significant dollars for their inventors.”Damn, I was out by 1% on my flawed ballpark calculations.Some world raw data for future reference perhaps:http://www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/statistics/patents/Dave.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 25, 2010, 07:37:11 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on August 25, 2010, 07:00:56 amFrom my quick scan, it appeared to be around 30% in 1995 and 20% in 2009.Quote from: EEVblog on August 25, 2010, 07:00:56 amThose stats seem more relevant. This appears to be for all patents, not just small inventors. Not sure if they earn more or less than large companies. Large companies have more means to extract money (eg. lawyers), but are probably more likely to file trivial or defensive patents. Assuming that small inventors are around that 2% mark, you were only 50% low. Not bad for a flawed argument, I admit.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 25, 2010, 11:10:29 am
content: Quote from: alm on August 25, 2010, 07:37:11 amThat's because even flawed analysis and estimation (ballpark stuff) is better than no analysis! There is method in my madnessIn this case it gives you a good baseline figure for the general market that includes everyone (1%-2% tops).From that you can then reason that the hobbyist market isn't likely to suddenly jump up by an order of magnitude by the shear cost of patent suits, so it's more likely to be either the same or maybe even an order of magnitude lower (general industry experience seem to back that up IME).Ergo, it can be fairly confidently said that the garage engineer can expect general odds of under 1% for a return on their patent investment.Dave.

author: Excavatoree
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 25, 2010, 01:08:48 pm
content: My apologies in advance, but I'll add this anecdote:I was working at a school bus manufacturer when I received a visit from two guys from some no name company. They had obtained a patent for a "daytime running lights circuit." They actually were able to patent the idea of using relays to switch between a series headlight connection (DRL mode) and the usual parallel connection. ("regular" headlights.)I thought "how in the world can they patent such a simple idea of using relays to switch loads?" I listened to their presentation, which included a "licensing fee" that would enable us to continue using their method. The only problem was, we didn't do that - we simply switched the headlights on (in parallel) when the engine was running.They announced they were going after General Motors, because GM was using their patented method. I figure they were practicing on us.I asked our VP of engineering about it and he said that with enough money and a good patent attorney, you could patent air - but it would do you no good, as the patent would be indefensible.GM did go bankrupt, but I don't think it was from paying these guys.

author: Rhythmtech
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 25, 2010, 03:54:11 pm
content: Remix Manifestois a cool little documentary that sums up a lot of the problems with patents and copyright in the US.Patent agreements are hideous in that they are used as tools that basically allow corporate trade agreements that would otherwise be considered and an antitrust infringement - eg two companies agree not to sue each other over bogus patent X but then sue the crap out of every start up and small company that develops anything remotely similar with or without a patent.

author: JohnS_AZ
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 25, 2010, 04:00:42 pm
content: It seems to me you could turn all of this around and make a decent argument for open source hardware (in some cases).Imagine you invent a widget and you're going to sell it. You decide not to patent it and instead consider the whole thing a trade secret. A Big Mean Company buys one, reverse engineers it, and then THEY patent it. They then turn around an sue YOU for patent infringement. It has happened.I believe that if you make your device "open", and publish the details, you have created public prior art which would preclude anyone else from getting a patent, or being able to defend a patent on your device. In some cases it might even make your innovation unattractive to Big Mean Companies -because- they can't patent it.

author: JohnS_AZ
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 25, 2010, 04:07:08 pm
content: And in case anyone thinks this is a new debate ...Anyone else here old enough to remember Don Lancaster?He was one ofTHEhardware hackers from the mid-70's on.He published his arguments against patents 20 years ago, and I think they're still appropriate today.http://www.tinaja.com/patnt01.asp