Since we have some patent people on here, does anyone have any great resources (that aren't the usual google search spam) to show you examples and how to go about filing your patent without having to dish out big bucks for a patent lawyer and someone to help you write it?
well quite frankly, you will need to hire someone, or else your patent will probably be worthless. A lot depends on the writing and if you get it wrong, you will lose in court.
I second the parent. The typical inventor thinks the description and drawings are important, while they are really secondary to the claims which are what is legally protected. Unfortunately, writing a good set of claims is an art that can only be mastered through a lot of experience and research into what has been effective with the USPTO in addition to what has been upheld in court. While this is not out of reach of the HN audience, your time would be better served by innovating and letting a good IP law firm handle the patent. This will be expensive -- costs are at least $10K, and software patents typically will cost more because prosecution (arguing with the USPTO why your invention is patentable) will be longer. IMHO, the whole process is soul-sucking and why I no longer practice patent law.
However, if you do wish to proceed the best play to start would be with the official Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP):
One of the curious things about the system is how infrequently large companies actually own the patents that make up the core of their business. PageRank is owned by Stanford, not by Google. The original Lisp Machine patents were owned by MIT, not by Symbolics. Same with Akamai's core patents. The original ideas behind EBay and online auctions were never patented, because Pierre Omidyar had a day job and his employer probably would've owned it anyway.
I guess the takeaway for new entrepreneurs is to focus on making money, not patents. Because once you have money, you can hire good people, and then you'll own the patents that they produce. It's kinda odd that giant corporations own huge patent portfolios, but almost never the patents on the inventions that spawned the companies. I guess it makes sense when you consider employment law and the need to earn a living, though. If it works for Google, E-bay, Akamai, etc, it ought to be good enough for us.
I do know that it will have to involve hiring someone, and thank you for validating that, but it would be fantastic if someone could help guide those of us looking to do this.
In light of this article and the fact that we are on the topic of patents, it would be priceless for someone to give us a rundown of what the process really looks like, resources on writing it as best you can to possibly lessen the impact of the cost of hiring someone, and knowing how much is reasonable when hiring someone.
That may be asking for a lot, and that information may be invaluable to the holder in such a competitive market, but that is precisely why those scams (which finally got busted) years ago flourished (you may remember the commercials on t.v. for patenting your idea).
That's the last I will comment on it, but I do thank you for basically saying that no matter how you do it, hiring someone is not an option if you want it to be defensible.
I'm pretty sure someone went to a playground and directly observed "skilled practitioners of the art" independently discovering the methods. I think there might have been some prior art on a few million 8mm film reels in people's attics as well...
It would seem immediately apparent to most 2 handed children. I do find it interesting that the patent missed out on the method of elevating one's ass by pressing outward on both chains. Now that's technology.
"If the court sides with these patent applicants it would open the door for all sorts of “processes.”"
Patents are already granted for software and if software is not the description of processes, I don't know what it is. So why say it "would open the door"?...
