If you are a newbie when it comes to innovating stuff you are prone to making mistakes more than experienced innovators. Do you know why is that? Because they already made the mistakes that you are about to do, but, if you learn from their mistakes, you can become more successful and lose less in your first years. Before you do something, you will need to learn about that sphere. Getting knowledge will help you not only with this innovation but with others as well.
Moving from an idea to a patent can be really hard because as we all know you can’t patent the idea, you have to develop it well to apply for it. The idea is the base of the innovation, without an idea you can’t proceed forward. Sometimes, it can be hard to proceed from the idea forward, there can be mental blocks, or just don’t know how to go further and this is the time that most people make the mistakes that might cost them the innovation.
We made this article to help you move further with the idea and avoid the mistakes that might happen if you don’t have enough knowledge.
Missing out on the benefits of patenting your innovation
Patenting your innovation can be really important if you plan on making your whole business around that product. Let’s say you come up with a product that you want to produce and sell, you start, and you see some of the competitors are copying it and making it as their own. That will hurt you a lot. We know how hard it is to move from an idea to a whole product but only that, competitors trying to copy your product will hurt your business the most.
With a simple patent, you can hold your product just for you but you can also make a license to sell to other companies and get money from them. If you plan on holding it, you are sure that nobody will produce that product and sell that product. If you already have a patent, InventHelp recommends you sell it to some company willing to buy it from you.
Keep in mind, that there are fewer companies that will approve your idea and buy it. In case they do, read the documents before you sign them because you may be left without permission to use your own idea, and you will lose more money that way.
Missing the time marks for application
What does this mean? Well, when you come up with an idea of selling a completely different product from the others, you should make the first batch and see how well is it going. If you are doing well, get a lot of customers, and start earning some money, don’t forget that you have only twelve months to apply for a patent. Just because you are selling it and earning money, it doesn’t mean that your product is safe from the competition. If you manage to miss that time mark, you are about to lose all rights for licensing that product.
Not working in silence
Going out and publicly speaking about your innovation without having a patent for that is a thing that you must not do. When you first talk about that outside, either on social media or in front of people that understand that business you are on a straight way of losing your innovation. Why is that? Let’s say you talk about it on social media, you post about it without knowing that when you first announce it, that is when the time marks start counting from the paragraph above. If you miss them, you miss your royalty.
If you talk about it to people that understand this kind of business or people that are just interested, you are taking a risk of losing your item to them. They can work the whole project faster than you and will apply for the patent before you do. That kind of betrayal will hurt you the most not because of them, but because of your lack of knowledge and talking about things that you shouldn’t right now.
Incorrect application filling
When you have a period of one year to apply for a patent, it is unforgivable to mess this thing up. Filing for an application wrongly can cause serious damage to your business not because its irreversible but because you think that everything is okay and you talk about it outside when one of a sudden you see someone with your patent and you ask yourself how is that possible when you have filed for it before. Well, you do it wrong and you miss the time marks, someone else comes and patents the same product as his own.
When filing a patent application, let your attorney look through it and confirm that is done properly, tell your patent center to inform you if something is not right so you can fix it in time. With a correct application, you are a step closer to the license and a safe product.
Not checking if someone else already has a product like yours
Before applying for a patent, you need to make your own research if someone already has a similar product like yours. You can search on the internet, look through the government’s list of patented products, and see if you find something. In case you don’t find anything similar that doesn’t mean that you are still the first one with that idea.
You should consider hiring a professional to search for you because the patenting process is not cheap, and you don’t want to spend money for half the process and then find out there is someone with a product like yours. We suggest that you don’t cheap out on hiring a professional since that costs less money than what you are going to lose in case you didn’t search properly and you have to abandon the procedure halfway through.
Conclusion
Moving from an idea to a patent is not easy, but it will be done eventually. There are many benefits that patenting your product offers. One of the cons of patenting is that is a relatively expensive process and that it takes a long time to finish the patenting process. When do have one, you will be grateful because you will be safe from any potential theft of your idea. Keep yourself away from these mistakes and everything will be fine.
