

When do you need a patent and when not? - pskittle

Hey guys,
I was reading up on patent trolls and wanted to know if there are certain situations that patents do more good than harm.
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nina_bhatti
Remember that a patent requires you to disclose a method. Companies can also
keep a technique as a trade secret. Depends on how easy it is to discover. 18
months after you file a patent the patent is public and you will often have no
patent issued for several years, so you are telling the world and have no
protection. When you do get the patent you need deep pockets if you are going
to assert that someone is infringing. Hard for a startup to take money out of
product development. That's all my ration comments.

Now to irrational -- VCs want you to check the box that you have patents. But
they don't really understand what is protectable and not. So you need to be
able to claim you have protection even when everyone hardly knows what you
mean. This means in practical terms you need to file something.

Back to rational -- from my experience writing a lot of patents and having 22
patents issued. It's not just one patent but a collection of patents to create
a "picket fence" around your primary invention to keep people away from the
general area.

