Three Common Patent Myths

Patent myths. Hi, I’m Rich Beem. I’m a patent attorney in Chicago and I would like to talk with you about 3 patent myths. First, there is the myth of mailing your invention to yourself in a certified letter. People think that somehow that gives them some rights. I’ve heard it many times, but I’ve never actually seen anyone benefit from having mailed anything to themselves by certified mail. The thing to do instead is to file a patent application. That’s how you start your patent rights. The second patent myth that I would like to mention to you is there seems to be this sense among inventors that you have to do something complicated before you can do business - that you have to incorporate, for example. Now, there may be many benefits of incorporation but it’s certainly is not required or necessarily even helpful in terms of you filing a patent application. You can do that as an individual, you don’t have to be a corporation. Third, this is a more complicated myth. It is that you can map the patents of a company onto that company’s products. It is not always so. Sometimes companies have products that are not patented and sometimes they have patents that don’t apply to any products that they are actually making. In fact, it becomes pretty challenging – pretty quickly – for companies with any size patent portfolio to even figure out what their patents are and what they cover. In other words, to be able to map them at all, the patents onto the products. So those are three patent myths. Number one: you don’t have to mail anything to yourself certified mail. Instead, file a patent application – that’s the way to protect your rights, that’s the best way. Number two: you don’t have to incorporate to file a patent application. You don’t have to map out any complicated tax strategies. You can file a patent application now – yourself, as the inventor, as an individual. You can do it yourself or you can do it through a patent attorney. Third: You can’t necessarily map patents of any given company onto their products and you can’t be sure that all of their products are covered by patents. And the way to sort that out – again, ideally – is through the advice of a patent attorney. So those are 3 patent myths. You may have other questions about patents. You have questions, I have answers. When you want to know about patents, call me. I’m at 312-201-0011. Thank you!