Before you consider whether or not to apply for a patent, keep a notebook with all of your inventive activity just in case. Good records of what you have invented can help protect your invention. Records can show who really was the inventor or even support tax deductions.
Make sure the pages in the notebook are not removable.
Number the pages consecutively.
Date each page.
Sign and have someone witness a dated written description of the invention.
Make sure the witness agrees in writing not to disclose the invention.
Good records are essential to winning an interference
If two inventors invent the same thing and both file patent applications, the Patent and Trademark Office have a proceeding to determine who will get the right to patent the invention. This is called an “interference.”
In the United States, the one who invents first gets “priority” to file a patent. The date of invention is either:
1. The date the invention was built and tested; or
2. Filed a provisional patent application.
However, if another inventor is the first to conceive of the idea and works diligently to reduce it to practice he would receive priority. But he would have to have signed, dated, and witnessed records of his invention.
Let’s give the inventors names to clarify things. For example, Sam and Bob each go into their garages on opposite sides of town and work on their amazing super colossal widgets that will change the world as we know it. Sam and Bob don’t know each other, they don’t work together and each invention is completely separate. They just both happen to be working on inventing the exact same widget that will revolutionize the world.
Sam thought of the idea for the widget on January 1, 2010, and started work on the invention then. He has worked as diligently as possible since then, unbeknownst to Bob. Sam built and tested his widget on May 2, 2010. He filed his patent application July 17, 2010.
Bob thought of his widget on February 9, 2010, and immediately started work. He built and tested his widget on March 20, 2010, and immediately filed a patent application.
Both patents moved through the patent office with previously unknown speed…and an interference hearing was declared. This trial-like hearing was held, and Sam was given priority. But Sam only got priority because he was able to show his EXCELLENT RECORDS!
By the way, Sam and Bob decided to patent their inventions in other countries, and filed them on exactly the same dates as their U.S. applications. Bob was a little depressed, knowing that he had already lost out on the U.S. patent even though he filed first. They were quite surprised when Bob got the patent rights in the rest of the countries! The U.S. is the only country that doesn’t use a first to file system. Of course if they had had a good patent attorney working for them, she would have already explained this…
