Another patent question

Neonjack

I'm wondering if it's possible to patent a product that uses existing technology in a different way. The technology in question is widely used but isn't presented or marketed in the format I'm thinking about. Would my idea be considered a design patent? The patent office website isn't much help on this.

antoinolachtnai

The answer is maybe. There has to be an innovative step and some novelty. It is really a question for a patent attorney.

It is worth remembering too that a patent doesn't give you any right to do anything. It only gives you the right to stop other people from doing things.

The design registration is pretty limited and don't protect processes very much. You can get a design registered for a great many things, but it may not do you much good in practice. It certainly won't stop a competitor from coming in and doing almost the same thing.

bogwalrus

If you are using existing technology then you can do a licencing deal to use these technologys for your new product. There are roughly 140 different patent technologys in a very basic vhs player held by numerous different patent owners. If these patent owners did not agree to license then there would be no vhs player. This is common with most electronic products.

The thing is you must make sure your final product is not just another product upside down. It would have to include an arrangement of different technologies not just the one you are using in a different way.


finally regarding patenting your better off just releasing your product on the market and then if you find you might make a couple of million then do the very long and expensive patenting process.

There are a lot of chinese company's that could put a few prototypes of your products together for a certain fee.

antoinolachtnai

You cannot really patent a product after you have put it into the marketplace. There are some exceptions to this (principally in the US), however they are much narrower than they used to be.

Neonjack

Thanks guys. I'm going to ring a patent agent today.