Patent Schemes, Trolls, And Your Great Ideas

Woo Hoo! Just ordered a t-shirt! I had given up because I always seem to miss the cut-off date (almost did this time too).

Fran Blanche

You have to prove and maintain copyrights and trademarks just the same, but yes they do not have to be registered.

Fran Blanche

You mean Comcast. They seriously do own the city you know.

Jasper

Looking a the youtube thread, surprised people aren't rolling over each other objecting to the term "intellectual property". It's a fairly new term basically replacing the term "temporary monopoly" you can guess why.. It's about making copyright, trademark and patents stronger, pushed by parties that benefit from that. (I am not necessarily against, but they are kids of temporary monopoly..) Also, you always get copyright, without any sort of registration. People slap a GPL and various licenses by just adding a notice. I mean people aren't allowed to just take your videos either. Sounds right otherwise.

Rocco Rizzo

Just so you know. Philadelphia is changing its name to DirectTV, PA, because the cream cheese manufacturer lost its naming rights! https://bit.ly/2kwTzcb Yeah, those copyrights and stuff can lead to some strange things.

Rocco Rizzo

If this trolling stuff is not illegal, I do not believe that it will be with the current capitalist crop of legislators. The only solution I see is the guillotine.

BobC

Provisional patents are far easier, and are a great way to test the waters. If it's not needed as a Trade Secret, the alternative is to "poison" patentability by publishing your work so it becomes "prior art". Simply sharing it may not be enough (too obscure for others or Google to find): Getting an article published on, say, Hackaday, describing both the idea and the fabrication, is a better way to go.

Chris M

I've done a lot of intellectual property work for startups to F100s. My view on patents is that they are expensive to get and even more expensive to defend. The real value is when you go to sell either the idea or a company built around it, but even then, customer base, traction, execution and other things are worth more. That said, I think provisional patents are worth filling as it will prevent others from filling patents on your idea, esp. since the US has moved to 'first to patent' from 'first to invent'. Provisionals are relatively cheap to file and you can DIY - might make for a good set of how to videos on filing provisional patents....

veritanuda

Patents are a thorny issue and are pretty outdated in many ways You just have to look at software patents to see how ridiculous it can get. A good talk on that was by Johanna Blakely highlights the issues rather well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL2FOrx41N0 BTW Thanks Fran. I may not comment on every post but that does not mean I don't enjoy them all.

Roy Skinner

I have a friend that ran an electronics company. He gave up on patenting and began potting his original designs so they would be destroyed when someone attempted to reverse engineering them.

As an individual you have no chance to enforce a patent - better options are licencing your designs

SpringRat

IMHO patents are too much trouble. Your ideas likely do have value. There may be a way to leverage your great ideas for the benefit of your YouTube channel. I'm still thinking about how...

Howard Higgins

So many technical ideas get stolen, and so many other patents are totally nonsense (e.g. Elk Industries). Others get claimed by the purchasing company, and no credit is ever given to the originator (e.g. Delco). In engineering, I've seen so many managers get their name onto patents that they had absolutely NOTHING to do with the idea ( e.g. one of my employers).