Internet Idea - What to do? Where to go?

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Conshine

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I have what I think is a great idea for an internet product.
I have a good mental plan around the charging model etc, it would require a website and a tool development.
All I would need is to develop, market, sell it etc (hardly the easy bit).
I want to protect the idea though.

What should I do next?

Can you get a patent on an idea, something that does not exist yet?
I have done some web searching, but cannot find a similar product.
Also, who can I talk to about this idea?

I could do a search on the internet, but these would be random people, some possibly may try to steal the idea.

This could be a good idea, or it could come to nothing.. I could talk to somebody and it could turn out that the product is already out there.. I am just unsure what I should do next.
 
I had an idea for a product once so I wrote to a large company who made similar products - told them I had an idea (didnt say what it was), and would they be interested in buying it (I was a teenager, wasnt in a position to do the development, marketing etc...). Anyway, they wrote back to me telling me to patent the idea and once that was done they would look at buying the patent off me if they were interested in it. Alas, I found a similar product a while later and realised my idea wasnt that original.

So perhaps thats what you could do? Get it patented and then sell it to some company with the means to develop and market it?
 
truthseeker said:
Get it patented and then sell it to some company with the means to develop and market it?
Click to expand...

How would I go about getting an idea patented?
What do I need to do in advance, or prepare beforehand?
I take it, its not a matter of verbally explaining to somebody.

Thanks
 
You need to speak with someone who has being successful in this area or who will partner with you in developing it. Just to mention a few names - Ray Nolan or Jon Mulligan could be worth speaking to. If you google them you will get their contact details.

Or you could approach Enterprise Ireland and try to get onto one of their programs like the High Performace Start-up program. There you will meet mentors and similiar like minded individuals.
 
Phone the Patents Office - their contact details are on www.patentsoffice.ie - and you can arrange a free one-to-one IP clinic with a member of the Patents Office staff. There is some useful stuff to read on the website so it's worth having a look at it anyhow.

In the meantime, if you want to retain proof that you had your idea by a certain date, set the details down on paper and send it to yourself by registered post.
 
Some very sound advice so far, not a whole lot that can be added there.

As a note of caution, do try and arrange a chat with someone before you invest too much time/money/energy into the patent route. Depending on the idea/product/service/etc., there's a fair chance that it might not be patentable or, even if it is, it's of little value to you (e.g. it'd be possible to tweak the idea enough so as not to infringe on the patent while still achieving the same result - so it'll come down to your execution of the product and gaining the 'first to market' advantage more so than holding a patent). Also worth having a (ballpark) business plan done up for it, so you can see if the estimated returns warrant or justify the cost of patenting.

Note, I'm not suggesting you don't fully investigate it, just wanted to mention a few of the potential stumbling blocks you might find.

Ignoring the patent side of it slightly, it's worth baring in mind that the success/failure of the idea will really come down to the execution. Looking at two of the big net success stories of the recent past, google and facebook, neither were unique (remember alta vista? or bebo?) and achieved the success they did through better execution/better products/better marketing/etc. So patent or not, it's the hard work you put in (or the work put in by the team you can get working on it) that will make or break it.

If you find potential partners/team members/etc, you can also look at going down the route of NDA's (but it's a poor substitute for having a patent in place). It's worth remembering that many that would be in a position to help you will have come across thousands of ideas that people believe will be the 'next big thing' before (many with NDAs) and also worth considering that if you don't get the product to market asap you could end up missing the boat on it and being pipped to the post (so try not to let the 'fear' of someone stealing it stop you from speaking with EI/etc on how to bring the idea forward, including patents).

Best of luck with the idea... and when you're hanging out with Mark and Larry, be sure to pop back and update us.
 
Satanta said:
there's a fair chance that it might not be patentable or, even if it is, it's of little value to you (e.g. it'd be possible to tweak the idea enough so as not to infringe on the patent while still achieving the same result - so it'll come down to your execution of the product and gaining the 'first to market' advantage more so than holding a patent).
Click to expand...

This is the part I could never get around. If someone tweaks your idea, surely then it could not be patentable. What way could you prevent someone from tweaking it. Is it possible to cover your idea with several drawings showing tweaked versions of your original idea, if you know what I mean or do you combine all in the one drawing. Could never figure this out.
 
Pope John 11 said:
This is the part I could never get around. If someone tweaks your idea, surely then it could not be patentable. What way could you prevent someone from tweaking it. Is it possible to cover your idea with several drawings showing tweaked versions of your original idea, if you know what I mean or do you combine all in the one drawing. Could never figure this out.
Click to expand...


Some companies do this. A company with deep pockets and an aggressive patent policy will apply for 100 patents at a time, that ring fence the whole area that they are researching. Even if they leave any loop holes, its scares off anyone else who was thinking of patenting anything in that area.

Costs a lot of money though.
 
huskerdu said:
Some companies do this. A company with deep pockets and an aggressive patent policy will apply for 100 patents at a time, that ring fence the whole area that they are researching. Even if they leave any loop holes, its scares off anyone else who was thinking of patenting anything in that area.

Costs a lot of money though.
Click to expand...

Yes, I understand that now. But is it not possible within the one patent to cover all these routes. Say, for example you have a product. Is it not possible to say well the product could look like this in Fig 1, or this in Fig 2 etc
 
Pope John 11 said:
Yes, I understand that now. But is it not possible within the one patent to cover all these routes.
Click to expand...
It's a difficult one to discuss in 'general', as depending on the type of product/invention the ways to 'get around' the patent would be very different (that, and also the fact that I've only got a very basic knowledge of it :eek:, hopefully others can give a far more knowledgeable response).

In the case of the OP, where it's an internet product, it'd be near impossible to cover all routes imho.

Q. What is patentable?
A. In order to be eligible for a patent the invention must be new, involve an inventive step and be capable of industrial application.
Click to expand...
http://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/patents-frequently-asked-questions.aspx

The 'inventive step' is the problem. Once the basic 'idea' is out there and the original patent holder has done the hard work of showing a need and a market demand, there's a fair chance that whatever the inventive step is it can be done in various different (potentially even better) ways.

Depending on what the idea is, it could be the case that the inventive step is fundamental to the product/idea (in which case they're in a good position), or it could be relatively unimportant and the same product replicated without much effort without ever coming close to infringing on the patent.

(The one that always sticks in my mind for patents is Dyson. They can't patent 'vacuum cleaning', but have a huge number of patents on specific technology they've developed to improve the performance/etc.)
 
Great thread. Was wondering if anyone can throw some light on to how complex the patent application process is. Is it necessary(or highly recommended) that a patent agent is used and what are the associated costs? I have a very simple product/idea for which I have created a sample and that I am using with a test group and it is working a treat... Next step pls anyone?
 
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