Three Pointers For Protecting Your Invention

1. Write IT DOWN!
   Keep a permanently bound notebook in which you record all ideas for new designs or design changes. This should be signed and dated regularly and can be used as a permanent record of your earliest date of conception of inventions. If you ever have to prove your date of conception, the notebook is extremely helpful.
   
   
2. Keep It secret!
   Educate your personnel (especially salespeople) about the importance of keeping inventions confidential while you consider obtaining patent protection. If you disclose your invention on a nonconfidential basis before filing a patent application, you immediately lose your right to obtain foreign patents. However, if you file a U.S. application before disclosing the invention, then you have a year within which to file foreign applications. Even if you are not interested in obtaining foreign patents, you must be very careful to file a U.S. patent application within one year of your first offer for sale, printed publication, or public (or commercial) use of your invention in order to prevent the loss of U.S. rights. You may find a provisional patent application to be a good way to file a patent application quickly before attending a trade show or before publishing an article in a trade journal.
   
   
3. Help your patent attorney!
   We can do much better work with the help of the inventor than without that help. While we know our business, nobody knows your business and your invention as well as you do. We need your cooperation in order to do the best possible job for you. If your patent rights are important to you, then they are too important to just drop at our doorstep. Stay informed, educate us about your product and your business, and ask questions. Working together, we will be much more likely to obtain the broadest possible protection for your invention, which we hope will be a valuable asset for your business.