Messages

1

Patent Questions and Advice / Re: Beverage - patent needed? Pay someone to develop?

« on: February 07, 2015, 01:18:23 PM »

Thanks ZDesign to raise a good question. I have similar question, for example, I have a recipe to make wine from a kind of fruit that never been used to make wine. It has a unique flavor from the fruit or some specification like that. Can I file a patent for this and what kind of patent I can apply?

2

Patent Questions and Advice / Re: Citing References in Provisional Patent Application

« on: February 02, 2015, 11:32:18 AM »

Hi,

There is no rule or requirement that you have to cite or reference other patents (even in the non-provisional its not mandatory).   With that being said, you should not be copying/pasting text or images from other patents.  You can use them as a guide but you should try to re-word it into your own language. 

Many of the "old school" patent attorneys like to list and talk about other patents in the Background section of their patent but in all of the more recent training events I have been to this practice now seems to be frowned upon and is not done by many attorneys because:

1. Its not needed so why waste time/money doing it, and
2. It may be used against you either by the patent office or later in litigation

Its basically all risk and no reward. 

The only time I would cite a reference is if there was some well known technique that was too complex to explain I would simply cite the patent that teaches that technique instead of writing it all out myself. 

Thanks
Brad

OH NOOO...

I wasted my time in citing writing about other patents in my area, I wish I had read this before

3

Patent Questions and Advice / Re: What we can update the provisional patent in the non-provisional?

« on: January 27, 2015, 12:26:01 PM »

Thank you very much, very clear answer

4

Patent Questions and Advice / What we can update the provisional patent in the non-provisional?

« on: January 27, 2015, 01:01:58 AM »

Hi Brad,

I think this question was raised many times but I didn't have a clear answer, could you please clear it again.

I'm doing last things to apply my provisional patent, I know it's still not perfect and I can make the updates in the non-provisional later, but what kind of update that we can do apart of the claims? Can we update figures, background of the invention, its best mode, name of the invention.. everything? And if we cannot revise everything, the USPTO agents will contact us to inform what we can revise, what can not, is it right? And which part of the ppa we need to focus that it cannot be changed in the non-provisional application?

Please help me on this issue, thank you very much
Hieu

5

Patent Questions and Advice / Re: Online provisional patent price

« on: January 03, 2015, 01:45:26 PM »

Hi Brad,

How about non-American inventors? How can I get the micro entity if I live in another country?

6

Patent Questions and Advice / Will I be sued if I file a PPA with text copied from another patent

« on: January 03, 2015, 01:31:46 PM »

Hi everyone,
I'm from Vietnam and I always use Vinglish rather than English. My question is, if I cannot write my own application, I try to copy text from many similar patents to complete mine, of course I will modify it to meet my invention, but the sentences are apparently copied from many sources. Is there any risk of being sued by the authors (they are lawyers!).
An ironic situation, a man tries to violate IP to seek for IP protection.