To sell idea for patent

eric st...

Senor Conde,

This is a very good question.

Large corporations such as Intel do not generally receive unsolicited "ideas." At my former employer, when I received such letters - about once or twice a month - I would not read them and send them back to where they came from along with a note encouraging the person who sent it to file an application for patent.

The problem is this... I did not want to risk that my employer be accused of stealing the idea. If, per chance, our research department was independently  working on a similar idea and it showed up later in a product, the person who sent the idea would naturally assume it was stolen from her. It happens all the time.

A company like Intel has hundreds of researchers and developers who are working continuously on developing new ideas. The risk that someone outside the company would have an idea similar to something under development is generally greater than the chance that this person would come up with something not already known inside the company.

Maybe some good ideas are lost this way, but the risk of being accused of stealing an idea is greatly diminished.

My rule was that a published patent application was the only thing I would accept. With a published application no non-disclosure agreements are necessary.

In this way the risk was no greater than the ordinary risk to which my employer was exposed every day. A patent application also shows a certain amount of seriousness on the part of the outside developer. Anytime I received a patent offered for license or sale, I would distribute it to the appropriate people and we would carefully consider it. In several cases, we either agreed to a license, or bought the patent outright.

I do not know what Intel's policy is, but I would assume it is similar. I know this is probably frustrating for outside inventors, but it is simply a matter of necessary caution on the part of Intel's patent department.

What I would do is this. Look into the USPTO's register for attorneys and agents and search on Intel.

http://www.uspto.gov/cgi-bin/attorney/atty.cgi?intel&select=1000&submit=SEARCH

Pick up the phone and call one of their patent attorneys and see if they are willing to offer any suggestion to you. (Generally, lower registration numbers reflect more senior level attorneys.)

I hope this helps. Good luck!

Kind Regards,

Eric Stasik

M. Arth...

It is not easy to get a patent that is good enough to be bought. It is not easy to do anything until you have a patent, and then the claims of the patent have to be broad enough not to be avoidable.

It is not easy to find a patent lawyer that will handle a matter on a contingency. Many good inventions are lost because of these truths.

If you do disclose to a company, it has to be in inconfidence. Very few companies will take a disclosure. NIH, is not the National Institure of Health, it is the corporate answer to outside inventors, "Not Invented Here"

This may seen cynical but unfortuately it is the way things are.

eric st...

Auslander,

You also make a very good point. When the risk is infringing another's patent, "Not Invented Here" is - ironically - absolutely the best policy.

As you have explained many times in this forum - there is a difference between what is good business and what is a good idea. What is technically best, is not always economically best. The trick for companies is to balance the two.

For me, it's what makes this job fun.

Regards,

Eric Stasik

Carlos ...

br>
I understand now a little better the situation. The case is that this idea to be able to patent it, with the width that Mr. Auslander comments, she would need an entire family of patents covering the different possibilities.

Overalls for that when an idea is basic (at elementary level), it implies that all those that later on lean on in this they are also beneficiaries. The range that covers my idea overcomes twenty patents starting from the basic one (and there will be others that I have not still considered).  

It is of imagining that if I cannot cover at world level economically a patent, I less still can to cover 25 patents.... that it would be the real benefit of the corporation that bought it.  
 
On the other hand I was commenting with my wife the answer of Mr. Stasik and he/she explained to her (with respect to that the company to which I seek to contact can develop a similar idea parallelly) that is very difficult in this case, so much that almost it would be impossible, and I explained to her with an example:  
 
If we consider the invention like a land full with trees, where to invent is equal to cut a tree, then we have that to date of today's technology the land is of cut trees (gotten inventions) and trees in the horizon without cutting drawing a line that we can call, current. Then the inventors toil in cutting the following trees for the line that he/she reflects to the horizon (behind all cut one is already = invented in the past), because well the investigators of the corporations have like goal to cut those trees that are before their view. My situation on the other hand is to already look for in the land cut the roots of those trees that they ignore that they believe that it can no longer improve more that is already accepted as completely on to the overdraft, as something impossible and where to work there is to lose the time...  
 
The cows eat the grass on the grassland, the bear looks for the same hidden grass under the snow....

eric st...

Conde,

That is an analogy worthy of Marquez.

Products, especially complex products like computers, and telecommunications systems cover vast areas of land (and incorporate many inventions.)

It is probably true that companies focus on pushing back the edges of the forest, but they are still dependent on the land which is behind them. This is the nature of development.

While Mr. Auslander does indeed have a point, do not let his caution discourage you.

Even in a forest, a single tree can have value.

Regards,

Eric Stasik

JimIvey

I'm sorry but I'm a bit confused.  I understand that you have a circuit, but do you have any patent applications?  When you say you don't have money to patent it at the world level, I assume you mean to cover most of the industrialized world -- but do you have local patent applications?

The reason I ask is that I'm somewhat connected to a market for patents and patent applications.  If you have a substantial portfolio, I might be able to find a buyer.  And, in particular, I can get an audience with Intel.  However, this is only for Intellectual Property -- not for circuit designs.  Although, I haven't asked about that yet.

Regards.

Carlos ...

There are several interesting points of view, I will try to reflect them all:  
 
1? I am civic Spanish and I live in Spain  

2? I have not published anything in any place. Everything is in my papers. I have not used the invention openly in any place. Plus still, I don't have a circuit (physical), but a design of the circuit.

3? I am not still selling anything, but informing me the patents work on how to who one would should to go arrived the case, the costs that originate and with everything it to consider if I should look for a capitalist partner for me to patent it and then me to be able to license or to sell the patent, or I to sell the idea from my papers so that the possible buyer patent the invention.  

4? I have expressed in some case (privately) which they are the qualities that the invention offers. And also in that other inventions are working or I have in mind to work in the future.  
 
5? Maybe are for the translating program that I use or not, but I have just understood correctly the sentence: "...  you have any patent applications? ." Do you refer to have defined the field where the invention object of the patent is applied? . (ok.... I think what application traduce it for solicitude ,  requeste and not for link ). No,  i do not have solicitude of patent ....  
 
6? If the patent concept is: " To U.S. Patent is to grant to an inventor by the United States government of the right to.... "... then I consider that one cannot speak of patent until the moment in that at least somebody has carried out the patent application (maybe legally should be when this it is accepted). Said otherwise, if patent right has not still been requested, any government still is not able to accept neither to reject anything, in consequence, it cannot still be considered as patent. The invention has not still even come out beyond the paper. Is this correct or am I mistaken in something? .  
 
7? I have not patented here in Spain the invention, I have been trying to contact with appropriate people to inform me of the different aspects that surround to an invention and their setting to point more than for one month." On the other hand, the reason for which I have not begun the patent here in Spain is the same one that to seek to sell cubes of ice in the North Pole or heaters in the desert. Worse still, with the laws of here and supposing that it is correctly informed if I patent the invention here, I would have of term one year for me to be able to patent it at world level, in another case I lose those rights, and consequently the invention is lost outside of Spain. Such that the nature that it is (since it is committed in the industry of the big multinationals) he/she doesn't interest to make a local patent, it is a high risk of losing.  
 
8? This invention is part of a chain (in my desire) for re - to invent the microprocessor invented the basic keys of the microprocessor again. I have another invention in development so important as this..... With all them a giant jump so much would be given qualitative as quantitative in the industry of the calculation, equivalent to the jump that the same Intel Corp. he/she announces for next years when he/she speaks of the terachips in their infinitely small integration scale. If these inventions fell in other companies there would be a technological development of 10 and 10 (10 Intel and 10 the other companies) if they fell in hands of Intel the technology it would jump 100 that is to say 10 * 10. The technological benefit contributed the humanity in so scarce period of time would bear time to know how to take advantage of it fully until being conscious...  
 
9? Having in all that the fact of patenting something bears thousands of dollars (often hundred of thousands), and that the inventors don't usually have that money, if not alone the big corporations, from a legal point of view you could consider that the patent laws contribute to that a monopoly exercised by the big corporations exists? . Or at least a disloyal competition? .  
 
I thank your expositions..
 
_______________Carlos_______________  
                     ................

M. Arth...

Senor Conde,

Es difficil. Buena suerte.

Arturo

Mi espanol es de escuela secondario y de trata de pratcia. Entiendo mas anos pasado en Brasil, escucho (?) en Portugues, ?habla, espanol.

Carlos ...

Si, el portugu?s y el espa?ol se parecen bastante Mr. Auslander .

Podr?a usted comentar el punto 6? de mi anterior mensaje. ?

I will pay attention to Mr. Ivey and I will put on hands to the work to gather the papers and the documentation just as it is demanded to request the patent.... Does somebody have 1 million dollars to invest?...

That you spend a nice day....