legalThis is soft question. I think many of person here could be having one or more patents of their innovations.
I am from India and have one idea in my mind of making a small electronic hardware device which can be very useful for smartphones and audio devices. But I don’t have deep knowledge of electronic components required to make that hardware. Also,I don’t have economical and other resources to do production of the electronic hardware. But I am having just Idea about that device in my mind.
So my question is
Can I get a patent for just “idea” of making an electronic device ?
If it is possible how should I move forward to get the patent ? if otherwise can I get some money by selling my idea or patent to any related company ?
No, you can't just patent an idea. You have to be able to reduce it to a concrete form.
I currently have 22 patents, issued to myself either as a sole inventor or co-inventor, so I've been around the block a few times in this area.
For a hardware patent, you have to be able to describe in detail how the invention works, such that someone else could build it from your description. So if you don't know enough electronics to be able to draw either a schematic or a detailed block of the circuit, you are going to need to hire someone to help you. In any case you have to be able to describe exactly how the schematic or block diagram works.
The rules are different for software patents, but that doesn't seem to apply here.
The first step in getting a patent is to make a detailed patent search to see if anyone else has patented your invention already. You can start your search on the Internet, but you may also want to visit a Patent and Trademark Depository Library where you can get free assistance. Expect to spend a lot of time doing this. Or, you can hire a professional patent searcher to do this for you, at a cost of $1000 to $3000.
If you decide your invention is patentable, the next step is usually to get a Provisional Patent Application (PPA). Filing a PPA allows you to claim patent pending status for the invention for a fraction of the work and cost of a regular patent application, but is good for only one year (while you work on the real patent application).
Again, it's possible to do this yourself, the fee costs only $65. If you hire an attorney (highly recommended), it might cost $2000 or so.
The final step is to file for a regular or non-provisional patent. If you do this yourself, the fees will typically cost around $1000 for a hardware patent with several drawings (plus the cost of drafting the drawings).
However doing it yourself is a very bad idea since you won't know what you're doing, and will end up getting the patent rejected.
The cost for getting a moderately complex hardware patent through the system using a patent attorney starts at around $10,000. More if the examiner rejects all or most of your claims the first go-around and your attorney has to go back and forth with the patent office (I've been down that route).
If you want to try to sell your invention to someone else, you are going to have to at least go through the first couple of steps described above, i.e. getting your idea reduced to a set of procedures that allows someone else to builds it; and doing a provisional search to make sure someone else hasn't already patented your invention.
No one is going to give you money unless they know the invention might be patentable (there is no guarantee, even if no one else has come up with the idea before -- all depends on whether the patent office feels your claims are unique). Because there is no sure thing, trying to sell your invention before you get a regular patent isn't going to make you very much money.
If you talk to anyone else bout your invention, be sure to have them sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement).
A patent is an exchange of disclosure of an invention (a solution to a specific technological problem), which must be novel and non-obvious, in exchange for exclusive rights to the invention for a limited period of time.
If you can’t describe the solution in such a way that it can be duplicated by someone skilled in the art, then you’ve not really disclosed the invention.
If there is a genuine invention at the heart of your idea (say the novel part can be demonstrated in simulation without necessarily involving hardware) then you may have something. There are lawyers who will be happy to take your money in any case, and the patent office will take more money, and that’s just the start if you ever have to defend the patent. An acquaintance spent several million dollars defending a patent against a major company - he eventually won, but his health and life suffered for many years. If he didn’t have the resources to keep paying a multi-jurisdiction legal team he could have run out of money and lost by default.
It’s relatively easy to get started with a provisional patent, but you really have to see the future possibility of large amounts of money to make it worth pursuing to the end. If your idea is the heart of a start-up you can pursue the provisional for short-term protection, get your seed money, and see if you can get the venture off the runway in a matter of months. If things don’t go as well as you hoped and the series A, B etc. financing falls through, it can be abandoned (and many are).
Just have to say that it bugs me when people say you can’t patent an idea when inventions are made of an idea or ideas. It’s the “how” something is done and yes, being new and novel essentially means that it is made of ideas (a thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action). You can’t patent the idea of “photons shake lattice structure, releasing electrons for usable energy”, since that is an “abstract idea” … it doesn’t provide any of the how that is required for the idea to function. You can not patent an “abstract idea”. But if your idea is a specific new and novel mechanism that showing how to capture those solar-liberated electrons with a diode (assuming it’s never been patented) showing how the diode works and how it can be made then you can patent that idea. You do have to demonstrate, at least on paper very convincingly to those in the art that it would work … but that validation does not invalidate the concept of a diode being an idea. The very first diode was just an idea (whether you call it simple or not), as was the process by how that diode could be made. Ideas. Anywho … just a little clarification because the term “can’t patent an idea” is foolishly brandished around by those who do so for shock value and get kudos from others who say the same thing. It isn’t true. You can’t patent “abstract ideas”, but inventions are made of ideas, validated as reasonable and which are described in terms that will produce an actual product that performs the desired objective … but ideas nonetheless.
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