Pat, why, how, how much, and strength?

[Philippe Schutt]

Yes, I confirm that the Soleau envelope only protects you from a later patent. I used it to protect the designs of the products I made.
If you are attacked in France and that you demonstrate the anteriority of your creation, the patent or deposit of model of the applicant is obsolete and anyone can manufacture the contraption in all peace of mind.

For real inventions, France is not the place, should be able to file in China and the USA. But at what cost ???

[chatelot16]

no the soleau envelope does not prevent another from patenting the same thing! the envelope envelope just gives you the right to make your thing without being banned by the new patent

the soleau envelope is not transferable: only the company which deposited it can continue to manufacture despite another patent: if the envelope was deposited by an individual it is not even sellable to a company which l will exploit this possibility of manufacturing

the soleau envelope is really not used for much ... except to save money at the inpi

[chatelot16]

to make any patent of what you do impossible impossible, it's very simple: just disclose it

a patent must absolutely be filed before any disclosure: the day after the patent filing at the inpi, you can show your invention to everyone ... even if there is a problem of form which makes the patent inadmissible without modification , it's still the date of the first deposit that counts

disclosure does not necessarily mean publishing in a newspaper: the meaning of disclosure is well specified by the inpi: for example the sale of what you have done is a sufficient trace of disclosure, just take out the invoice, to prove a a competitor who files a patent that you sold a realization of your idea before he files a patent

a disclosure is more powerful than the soleau envelope because it renders all other patents invalid: they only had to do a more complete search for prior art to find you

another way of seeing things: a patent is never perfectly secure: there is always the possibility that someone has already done the thing elsewhere in the world, you pay the annuity of your patent, and when you start selling believing they are protected by a patent, a competitor finds proof of anteriority and your patent is worth nothing and you have to pay the fees and the annuity for nothing

in the case of your cart, have invoices made with fairly detailed descriptions

beware the invoice of the ironworker who does part of the work is not an invoice for the sale of the realization of the invention ... you must sell the entire prototype to someone

this way of using a sale as proof of the existence of an invention does not charge the inpi anything, but requires having a real company that can make invoices, so sell at a realistic price, and pay the costs of any business: the sale is proof only if it is in the accounts!

and there is an even simpler way of disclosing and banning any other patent: describing the invention on a forum : it's public! the date is saved and there are witnesses

if the invention were important, the one who would like to patent for you could try to pay christophe to make him delete the message, but that would not even be enough if it was also put in other forums

if the idea seems too simple and you don't want to make money with it, talk about it on the forum is good enough

for an invention to be considered as disclosed there is no need to publish detailed plans: a sufficiently clear description is sufficient for a "person skilled in the art" to be able to make it: he does not is therefore not even necessary to give the tips of focusing

there is a century many scientists preferred to describe their invention as quickly as possible in a book or a newspaper to have the authorship and avoid patents

[dede2002]

Even if Christophe allows himself to be bribed, or if a hacker destroys the forum..., there are web archiving sites.

wikipedia quote:
"The United States Patent Office and, subject to additional requirements being met (eg providing an official statement from the archivist), the European Patent Office will accept a dating from the Internet Archive as proof of publication of a web page. These dates are used to determine whether a web page is available before, for example, the filing date of a patent application. "

...
Finally, an idea can not in any case be subject to a patent!

Is it not an idea until a prototype is made?
I am thinking of the Beau patent from Rochas which won against that of Otto?

A+

[Ahmed]

It is not necessary that a prototype is made for it to be more than an idea, it is enough of a drawing or a textual explanation of an application of the idea, it must be concretized in a descriptible device, formula, recipe, etc ...

[Grelinette]

Your remarks are interesting and clearly show that the principle of protection is a very sensitive and uncertain subject, and an area that is not easy, nor within the reach of the first comer. Especially if the creator is an individual, who is more a creative, so often someone who has more the head in the clouds than the feet on the ground (I exaggerate a little, but hardly!).

The more I learn, the more I am convinced that it is first of all a big money story:

- in summary, filing a patent is spending a lot of money to earn even more, and as soon as there is a financial stake, there are sharks.

- only large companies that have the services of lawyers and lawyers can really protect their creations, and even embark on the invalidation of a competing patent.

I come back to the comment of Chatelot16 which joins what I thought as a means for the creator, to protect himself a minimum as soon as investors are interested in his creation.

Faced with specialists in investment, speculation and the business world, an inventor has, in my opinion, no more weight than a little 3-week-old rabbit that fell from the last rain.
In short, to weigh up with businessmen who we do not know if they will be reliable and honest, it is in his best interest to consolidate his position by keeping a secret boot!

In this case, as Chatelot evokes, the creator can sell to a trusted third party a version of his creation or a simple description (transaction kept private), which, in case of difficulty with unscrupulous investors who would tend to want to dismiss it from subsequent financial returns from its creation, to be able to say:

"Be careful, you have invested to allow the production and marketing of my creation, but if you try to overtake me, I have the possibility of rendering your investments null and void and invalidate the patent".

If necessary, he can issue an invoice confirming that the invention has been disseminated. I imagine that it is not so simple because informed investors must shield a contract with the creator in which he declares on the honor that he has not already broadcast his creation under penalty of penalties!

More judiciously, the creator can describe his invention on a web page, a pdf file for example put online just the time to make note by a bailiff or a notary that the creation has been made public: the page is displayed for a few minutes of the observation then immediately withdrawn!

It is a bit olé olé as a method and still carries a risk: the risk that chance that a typical internet user falls on it and downloads the page, or that a search engine captures the page ...

I do not know if a publication on the net, even a few minutes, leaves traces and a history accessible later.

[chatelot16]

when you have an idea that can become an invention, to make something that works it does not only contain this invention, but a multitude of other details not necessarily patentable

to make the filing of the patent impossible it is useless to describe in detail the whole of the realization, but only what constitutes the invention

it's the same thing when you write a patent to deposit it at the inpi: you only have to describe the bare minimum for the patent to be valid, which makes patents difficult to understand, that sometimes even the competitors don't don't understand it

when we find patent texts that explain everything in detail, these are patents that have been filed by amateurs who have understood nothing about the system!

for example if your invention relates to a power metering system to adapt to the horse, the patent becomes more powerful if it is described to use in a more general case, the electric wheelbarrow pushed by a man to the trailer with auxiliary engine pulled by truck

a patent is especially effective when the realization is clearly visible: like putting a chip in a bank card ... for more complicated things it is difficult or even impossible to detect if a competitor uses the same invention without paying


practically you can write the main part of the invention on a forum , but without giving practical details so as not to give your work to the competition, the main thing will be done: invention disclosed no patent risk

publish on the internet and delete quickly enough may be saved by some system, but it will also be recorded that you deleted it so it is not really published ....

you really have to publish, but publish only the bare minimum for the invention to be disclosed, with the minimum of useful information for the competitors

there is a method used by big companies to patent seriously without clearly informing the competitors: they file a multitude of patents more wacky one than the other, of which only a few are useful, and it takes several to patent the idea whole: the company owning these patents is therefore capable of prohibiting the manufacture of the thing, and nobody can understand the idea by monitoring the patents published

when I worked at telemecanique we monitored the competitors' patents: it is an abominable gibberish: it takes a cuckold chance to find something there ... the patents already sorted by patent specialists were distributed in the different office study in case someone finds something there

[dede2002]

I think (this is only my opinion) that the "open source" principle used here among others is good for everyone.
If the invention is useful, it can be manufactured and sold everywhere.
If there are a lot of customers, because it is useful, there will be something for everyone. And everyone can improve the invention.
The patent is in a way wanting to keep all potential customers for yourself, or wanting to earn money without making and selling the product yourself ...

[Grelinette]

I think (this is only my opinion) that the principle "open source" used here among others is good for everyone. If the invention is useful, it can be manufactured and sold everywhere. If there are a lot of customers, because it is useful, there will be something for everyone. And everyone can improve the invention.
The patent is in a way wanting to keep all potential customers for yourself, or wanting to earn money without making and selling the product yourself ...

Sharing in "Open source" is also an approach that I also like a lot but which is not simple because it closes a lot of funding possibilities. It creates a situation of "fragility" because opposite there are always clever people who recover information for their benefit and try to appropriate and sell it.

That said, for having lived the adventure with the prototype of the hybrid carriage, here is my perception of things concerning the results of a job that we choose to make public or not:

- on the one hand there are those who laugh at, denigrate and do nothing to help a project leader, in particular a lot of professionals who answered me "do it first, we'll see later ...",

- and on the other, there are those who encourage, help and are even ready to financially support a project that seems interesting to them, even if the project is far from their field or their competence.

As such, I thank again all those who helped me technically and encouraged when the idea of ​​the hybrid horse-drawn car was born on Econology!
To come back to the financial aspect, which remains the sinews of war, when it was necessary to buy equipment, no bank responded to my loan requests: "project too atypical, too original and offbeat". However, I had a great engineering school behind me and a lot of press articles ... (but a bank only lends to the rich! ...).

I ended up launching a subscription on the internet with a presentation of the project on a crowdfunding site (www.ulule.com, crowdfunding) which made it possible to gather a budget of € 3250.

Today, I admit hesitating to make public certain techniques developed within the framework of the project and which would surely be exploited quickly by the same professionals who did nothing to help. Besides, I have fun when some people contact me to ask me how this or that point has been resolved!
On the other hand, I gladly help all those who contact me and embark on the same type of project by explaining to them why this solution was chosen to resolve such a mechanical point.

In short, Open-Source requires having a financially solid situation, and requires great moral strength to remain insensitive to the grudge! ("I am not resentful, but I like to be accountable until the end").

Nevertheless, and this is an original point that I am currently studying in the case of a possible patent: the "participatory patent" !

If things go in the right direction, I will be very proud to get back to donors to let them know that they are "co-owners" (if they wish) of a part of a patent.

The principle of the "participatory patent" would be a nice nod to the system, because it straddles a fundamentally capitalist and selfish approach (the patent), and a more generous one based on aid and cooperation. ... But hey, I'm not there yet.

I still hope that the concept of the "participatory patent" will see the light of day ... one day!

[chatelot16]

the "free" works well in software because the reproduction of a software costs nothing

the programmer who participates in the creation of a software has no expense to do to share what he has done nor any expense to benefit from what we do other programmer: it is easier to share when we do don't need to count

everyone easily takes advantage of the multiple free software already available, so when you start by taking advantage there is no need to count to share what you do

in mechanics it is completely different: the realization of the mechanics is always expensive, even if a free plan is distributed, you need the right means of realization to use it

the development of mechanics is more expensive than software: the software the more we distribute a new software the more we benefit from the feedback of the users who participate in the development ... in mechanics distributing a plan gives very little feedback because nobody has the means to carry out exactly the plan ... each one is content to take the idea and no return

for an inventor isolated in mechanics, spreading his idea too much is only a loss

the patent system is bad because it leads to secrecy

I think there is a system to invent: a bit like copyright with SACEM which has a much more positive role than the INPI, when a singer or a musician puts something on the sacem costs nothing, and then he touches only if his work is disseminated, he does not have to defend himself with lawsuits against those who would use his work without paying anything ... but he does not define the rights himself pay to broadcast your music! he cannot sell at an excessive price because he has a big head: SACEM finances his legal actions by keeping part of the money collected, not by making the inventor pay like the INPI

there would be something like this to invent, SACEM is something that has managed to be respected without any role of the state

there will be something like this to invent, which would work on a principle completely different from the INPI: the inpi gives a monopoly of manufacturing to the inventor, and lets the inventor ask himself to sell this right to other builder

the thing to invent would be rather we disseminate all the information so that it benefits everyone, and the end users give money to the inventors to thank them for allowing everyone to use a good invention. Finally, whether the invention is made in China or in France, the French customer benefits in the same way: therefore an association only French could aim to encourage the inventor without notion of secrecy

crowdfunding successes show that there is something to do in this direction ... but it will be hard