[gg3]

Many of us here, and undoubtedly many others, have ideas that could turn into inventions relevant to energy production and/or conservation. These range from hand-powered tools/appliances to replace electric or gas powered ones, to designs for things such as inexpensive and easily-deployed wind turbines, new configurations for vehicles such as electric scooters, and so on. Yet most of us are not fulltime inventors; we don't have the money to file patents on everything we come up with; and in most cases we don't have the vague clue how to deal with the bureaucracy and paperwork of the patent filing process.

So here's a modest proposal: an inventor's co-op.

The co-op would have to have enough members to afford hiring a patent lawyer and an admin staff person full time based on a reasonable yearly membership fee. The co-op itself, as an incorporated entity, would have an equity stake in each patent it successfully filed and marketed.

Profits derived from successful inventions would be split between the inventor and the co-op, and the co-op's share would be distributed to the members (including the attorney and admin staff person) at the end of each year. This way, each member stands to benefit from the successes of the others, which is a relevant consideration as will be made clear below.

Each month, the members would submit their latest designs to the entire group (or to an elected Board) for its monthly general meeting. The submissions would occur in advance in written form (via email or a file-sharing system) so each member could review the entire batch ahead of time and ask questions if need be. Also, if you propose something you think is interesting, but see that three other members have ideas you think are real blockbusters, you can withdraw your proposal for that month and resubmit it some other time.

At the meeting, each design would be reviewed and discussed, and prototypes demonstrated if need be. After each design is discussed, the members (or the Board) take a vote on the potential viability and profitability of the design. Each member (or Board member) can vote a "0" (invention is not interesting or viable), a "1" (invention has reasonable commercial potential) or a "2" (invention has major commercial potential). (Or some other scale or voting system could be used, that enables each individual to assign variable levels of value to each idea.)

After reviewing each design, the point-totals are tallied up, and the ones at the top of the list are discussed further, to prioritize them for action. During the following month, the attorney & admin staffperson do the necessary filings (also with member fees used as a source of cash for this).

Inventions that don't make it during a given month, but achieve a reasonable number of points (the number of points required, has to be set carefully) can be resubmitted at any subsequent month.

Here's the tradoff for each individual member: In any given month, you might get one of your inventions forwarded into the patent process. But if you don't, then you still might earn something from the inventions of others in the co-op. This balance of interests should help keep people reasonably objective in their voting.

The percentage split between what each successful individual inventor takes home, and what the co-op itself keeps for general distribution, would have to be set rather carefully. It needs to provide enough of an incentive to individuals who have successful patents, to keep them interested in staying in the organization; and enough for the co-op to provide a profit spit to other members to make it worth their while to stick around even when their ideas don't get taken further.

Re. prototypes: Certain ideas are sufficiently straightforward that there should be no need for a prototype. Others are sufficiently arcane that a prototype should be required (for example, anyone claiming a means to produce energy from the zero-point field or other ambient energy fields aside from sunlight and wind). Guidelines should be established in advance to specify cases or categories where prototypes are and aren't needed. In fact this could be another part of the evaulation voting system: to vote that a design be sent back for prototyping before the proposal can be evaluated.

Profit share distribution at the end of the year could take into account the following factors for each member: How many inventions the member submitted during the year, and how high a point total did each one receive?

For example, if you submit a bunch of useless ideas (for example if you've joined the co-op to get a free ride and are sending through stuff that's all BS), and get solid scores of 0 all the way through, you don't get anything at the end of the year. On the other hand, if you send in a bunch of stuff that's really good, and gets high point totals, you get more. The point of the latter case is, since the co-op has limited resources, it can't patent & market everything that comes in, but it should reward people who (if the co-op's resources were sufficient) would otherwise have made it.

Also, the ability of members to earn something from other members' inventions, helps keep everyone reasonably objective. For instance if I have an idea I think is good, but I see that someone else has a real blockbuster this month, if I *don't* have an incentive of a profit share on that person's design, I'm less likely to support it. But if I *do* have the incentive of a profit share on that person's design, then I'm going to be more objective about giving it the support that it deserves. That is, with profit sharing, my incentive isn't based on a zero-sum outcome where the only way I earn something is if *my* designs get patented and marketed. Instead, if I see someone else has a good idea, I'll support that because I can benefit from its potential.

Realistically, the inventor's co-op is not a way to earn a full-time living until it really gets going and has a commercially successful track record. That is, it might take a few years between the time it gets started, and the time it starts earning money for its members. But after the co-op gets a few things sold to manufacturers, or otherwise out to the market, it will start generating an income stream from buy-out fees and royalties. And there's always the chance that a couple of real blockbusters will turn up and make everyone wealthy.

Anyone interested? Any other ideas to make something like this attractive to potential members, and commercially viable?

[Devil]

Count me out: too many kookies and fruitcakes, who wouldn't know the second law of thermodynamics if it bit them on the elbow, here. They would simply waste everyone's time and money and the odd good idea would be lost in the morass.

I'm a Scotsman and therefore know not to invest a brass cent in such a scheme.

[JLK]

Interesting idea, gg3. I can tell that you have put a lot of thought into this.

By way of introduction, I am a US patent attorney. I was a Patent Examiner at the US Patent Office back in the 1980s, and I have been in private practice ever since. Hopefully, you will find my comments to be constructive.

If you are serious in further exploring this, I suggest that you obtain the book Patent it Yourself by David Pressman from www.nolo.com. In actuality, I do not think it is advisable for individuals to try to prosecute their own patent applications; I recommend this book only because it provides an excellent introduction to the patent process. It makes you a more educated consumer of patent attorney services. It pays to know what questions to ask.

Everyone in the group would need to sign a confidentiality agreement prohibiting each member from disclosing information about the submitted inventions. Failure to do this could compromise potential patent rights.

You should be aware that the patent process is not inexpensive. Essentially, there are two types of patent applications that will probably be relevant to the type of things that you would be looking to develop. A provisional patent application is something that can be written up by the inventor and submitted to the Patent Office with a small fee, which is presently about USD80. The provisional application is assigned a serial number, and you can accurately tell potential industry partners and/or licensees that you have patent pending. However, it only lasts for a period of one year, it never gets examined and it never actually turns into a patent that you can enforce. By the end of the one-year period, if you want to continue the patent process you have to prepare and file the second kind of patent application, which is called a utility patent application. This is considerably more expensive, both in terms of attorney fees and government fees. Even for a very simple mechanical invention, it is unlikely that you will be able to have a utility patent application prepare and filed for less than about USD5000, and you can expect several more thousand in fees and expenses over the next few years. So there would be a considerable investment, especially if an attorney gets involved. It is unlikely that you will be able to find an attorney who agrees to perform the necessary services in exchange for a share of the co-op revenues or licensing revenues for the patent, because such deals are generally thought to be unprofitable from the attorney's standpoint. Most of us do very well and have plenty of work that is performed on a fixed fee quoted basis or on an hourly rate. In essence, to get a better deal, you will need to find an attorney or agent who is desperate for the work (which of course is problematic in other ways). Of course, many patent attorneys such as myself are concerned about Peak Oil and would probably be willing to accept a reduced fee out of general support for "the cause." This would only go so far, though, as most of us have very well-paid secretaries, monthly rent, utilities, etc. to pay.

So the logical way to do it would be to file the provisional patent application and work as quickly as possible for the next 12 months to try to find an industry partner who could take the idea further. Ideally, the industry partner would agree to finance the utility patent application. If you can pull that off, the system could work.

[k_semler]

Dosen't a patent cost abotu $75,000 USD? That is about 3 years worth of income. What benifit would I possibly see for a $75,000 loan at 6% when I can just keep my ideas to myself and get about $21,000 per year for obeying the Army slogan of "I get paid to do or die, not to ask why? $21,000 of income seems alot better than $75,000 of debit to me. The way I see it, it does not pay enough money to invent.

[JLK]

USD75,000 is a little bit on the high side. I would say, on the average, the typical US patent ends up costing about 15,000 to USD20,000 over its entire 20-year term. This includes government fees, attorney fees and maintenance fees that need to be paid over the life of the patent in order to keep it in force.

When you get outside of the US, things tend to get a lot more expensive. This applies to Japan and Europe in particular. Australia and Canada are not that bad.

[gg3]

Devil:

Not to worry, it's USA-based and we won't come pestering you for startup funds:-) Seriously though, the fact that people would have money on the line and income considerations will keep them realistic. And, recall my item about members voting to require a prototype. Someone comes along and says they have a ZPE engine, they'll have to produce a prototype. If they bring one in and it actually works, and it survives all manner of skeptical scrutiny, then hey let's go! If not, too bad for them.


JLK:

Good info there. I already spec'd NDAs as a condition of membership, knowing full well about the effect of "disclosures" and "publications." Nolo Press book: good idea. In fact, make it required reading for members.

I had no idea about the provisional patent application. Very interesting. That could be done for larger numbers of cases, giving us time to go marketing an idea to potential buyers. Question is, would a potential buyer be able to search USPTO and discover the app was only good for a year, and then wait us out and steal it?

Costs ongoing was also a surprise; I thought once it was filed, that was that, and the only place a cost comes up after that is defending the issued patent against infringers, and paying for the customary renewal at however-many years.

Contingent fee or equivalent: nope, the plan was to have an attorney on-staff as a fulltime employee, or on retainer for a reduction in hourly fees (as you mentioned). And an admin person to assist as needed, also fulltime, i.e. a legal secretary who would also be office manager and delegate lower-level office tasks to members on a rotating basis (or hire an admin assistant).

Agreed about filing provisional patents & seeking buyers who'll complete the filings. Now since provisional patents are a new idea to me, this suggests a slightly different business model: Hire the necessary staff to do the *provisional* filings, and then to *market* the ideas to industry.

Questions: Should provisional patents still be filed by patent attorneys or can they be filed by e.g. paralegals or someone else with specialist training and an admin-level job classification? Is there a means by which a prospective industry partner could discover the provisional status, and then wait-out the time limit in order to position themselves to steal the idea or otherwise apply unfair torque? And, what job description would we be looking to hire for a person whose job is to market these provisional patents to industry?

By the way, no worries about using legal-technical with me, my dad was a top-flight corporate attorney (labor relations), so I was raised with legal language & logic as part of my normal household environment since day one.

My goal here is to develop a means by which a number of inventors can share the costs of attorney(s) and other staff, and be able to "bet on the best horse in the stable" each month or each quarter. The key questions are going to be: how many inventors needed, assuming an affordable yearly membership fee?, and, assuming a streamlined process involving provisional patents, what ratio between ideas presented to the co-op vs. ideas marketed to industry?


BTW, I have folders full of my own designs that I've not had the capital to patent, which were subsequently gotten by others independently. Everything from recycling collection systems (first design anywhere for a multi-compartment compactor vehicle for handling separated waste streams efficiently, 1983) to gradual-volume alarm clocks (late 1980s); including a few that have gone bigtime ("public-key cryptography for personal and commercial use," 1983, preceded PGP and similar apps by nearly a decade; and "Blue Vue," an internet filtration application, mid to late 1980s, that preceded Net Nanny and the other ones by about five years). And a few more that others haven't got yet, which may or may not ever go anywhere.

So I tend to think I'm not alone in this regard, and there are enough of us out there to add up to something viable.

[gg3]

JLK, I have a couple of questions and a serious reason to want to know the answer. I'm not asking for a formal legal opinion here, just your gut sense of this, informal, for reasons that will be made clear shortly.

1) If I publish a design for a machine, for example on a web site that's clearly marked with the keyphrase "PRIOR ART SEARCH," and someone later tries to submit a patent filing for it, can that filing be denied on the grounds that there was published prior art?

2) Would I have grounds to raise an action (e.g. including intervening against their patent application) against the applicant on that basis?

3) Would an applicant under that scenario still be able to file a "design patent," i.e. for a slightly different-looking embodiment of the same technology?

For example, let's say I patent "vacuum cleaner" with the claim, "machine using motor-powered fan, blower, or pump, or similar means to create suction, where the suction is applied to household surfaces in order to remove dirt, dust, and similar particulate matter." My application has drawings that show a vaccum cleaner in a cylindrical housing on wheels, with a hose attached at the top.

Now someone else comes along and submits a design patent which says "improved suction cleaner," and shows inherently the same mechanism but mounted in a squat rectangular container with the hose attached at the front. Seems to me they can't get a competitive advantage for control over the suction mechanism, only the physical housing. Right or wrong?

4) If I've taken sufficient care in outlining my claims, could I also preclude the design patent case such as above? For example, my prior art publication would read "a machine, mounted in a cylindrical, spherical, rectangular, or irregularly-shaped housing..."

5) Does an $80 provisional patent strengthen my claim of prior art in a case such as either of the above?


Reason why:

In the General Roundtable topic on "appliances, good bad and execrable," we've been discussing the development of appliances that are thorough and complete energy-wasters. Read the most recent page of that for the background on this idea:

Set up a website where we would publish outlandish ideas for energy-wasting appliances, in sufficient detail that they would be submittable as patent applications. Label the whole thing PRIOR ART SEARCH so it turns up in any keyword search for prior art.

Now what I'm hoping happens is, this effectively denies companies the incentive to manufacture these energy-hogs, because they don't get a competitive advantage from unique possession of the intellectual property.

In essence it's a variation on the "open source" method.

What do you think? Is this workable or am I mistaken?

If it's workable, I would suggest that anyone who's interested is welcome to join up with me on this one, and we'll do it. Think of the impact of removing (prevention = "removal in the future-tense":-) a couple of energy-hogs from every home in the industrialized world. It might not be as useful as building nuclear reactors and wind farms, but every little bit counts, and the little bits add up to a big chunk over time.

What do y'all think?

[Licho]

Do you think that any inventor is able to design more than 1 really usefull invention per year nowadays? I mean, it's almost impossible to present new idea every month. Do you invent such innovations every month, that are even remotely worth a patent?

[gg3]

Actually, Licho, there have been times when I've come up with a few in a single month. The recycling technologies were one case, and I can prove measurable need & benefit. But for the lack of capital to go get the patents...

There are basically two issues relevant to "is it worth pursuing." One is, does it provide some clear benefit to the purchaser and the world at large? Two, can it be done in an economically viable manner, i.e. can it earn a sufficient profit to be worth producing?

The other day I came up with two new ideas in a single day, one of which conserves energy performing a particular type of work and could potentially be commercially viable, and the other is at best a household niche-market product of questionable commercial viability. Whether either of these, or most of the stuff I've designed, are worth patenting (as opposed to pursuing in some other way), is something I personally can't judge; that's where lawyers and marketing experts come into the picture.

You'd be surprised at how many other people have similar skills. Really it's not a big deal. I have a close friend who qualifies as the next DaVinci, and when he was living with me he'd fill up a legal pad or so every week. Now *that's* impressive, and if even 1% of what that guy creates is worth doing, he'd still be in the Bucky Fuller category.

The item about "no access to capital" is not a BS excuse: we're GenX, which means we already arrived at the races with a foot tied behind our backs compared to the boomer generation. And I'm not whining about that, I'm trying to *do something* about it, thus the idea about setting up a co-op or similar means, which would provide "strength in numbers."

[JLK]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'Q')uestions: Should provisional patents still be filed by patent attorneys or can they be filed by e.g. paralegals or someone else with specialist training and an admin-level job classification?

[gluc0se]

I have actually done something similar to this with a few people I know and an older financial analyst, (I am 17 aka the technology and he is 40, the businessman..) I think its a great idea... I myself am similar to you and your friend who burns through legal pads, gg. I'll admit some of my ideas help PO and others would potentially hurt it (mass producing more unecessary luxuries..)...

Anyway, I am sad to see this thread start to die out... I think your idea about prior art is clever, and could be a beautiful pain in the neck to energy-hog producing companies... I'd like to hear the opinions on it from a legal standpoint.

Enjoy

[bart]

As a tech writer, I'm out of my league on this thread!

However, I've known several inventors and engineering geniuses and have some observations to make.

First. Getting patents and making money directly from one's inventions is a lot of work, as mentioned in a previous post.

Second. The creative people I've met do not seem to be motivated primarily by money (if they were, they'd probably be selling real estate). Instead, they relish the opportunity to work on interesting problems without interference. The approbation they seek is that of their peers.

Third. There are ways to create and invent that don't involve the hassle of the patent process, but which can yield satisfaction and build a reputation. For example, the intellectual freeware movement (Linux, etc.), working with non-profits and volunteer groups, or simply publishing one's work for other people to use.

I'm familiar with retired engineers who don't need money, are bored with the typical retirement activities and are looking for a challenge. A spokesman for an appropriate technology center told me that much of their help has begun to come from retired engineers over the internet.

From a Machiavellian point of view, one work in this way, building up a reputation and making contacts, without the hassle of patents. Then when an invention with $ potential comes along, one can go the patent route.

I'm interested in alternatives to the patent route, because the situation for writers is similar. Most writers do not write for money but to communicate and for ego gratification. It's a good thing they don't write for money because the profession pays zilch; a survey a few years ago revealed that professional published writers on average earn less than the minimum wage.

If you can't earn money from writing, why not get one's satisfaction directly by publishng on the Internet?

And perhaps the same thing is true for inventing.

/** Disclaimer: knowing gg3, he's probably already thought this through. Also, no knock against earning money; it's very gratifying to be rewarded for one's creative effort **/

[Graeme]

Air recycler wins 'inventor of the year'

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')n Australian invention with global health and environmental benefits has been named Invention of the Year by ABC TV's The New Inventors.

Developed by Melbourne motor and mechanical engineer Chris Bosua, the Exhausted Air Recycling System (EARS) converts wasted air from compressors back into energy.

Bosua's system of fittings and attachments converts previously wasted exhausted air back into energy and significantly increases the efficiency of power tools.

The system provides a closed loop between the air compressor and the air tool by capturing the exhausted air from the tool and returning it to the compressor. This generates more power from less energy.

[max_power29]

Hmmm, Sounds like a rip off of the Internal combustion engine turbo. If these kinds of things are so great, why doesn't every car manufactured come with a turbo?

The fact that an inventor of the year award was given for an invention that has essentially already been invented suggests to me that we are reaching some kind of asymptote (such as the asymptotes of Y=1/X) or limit of human ingenuity.

[BlisteredWhippet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('max_power29', 'H')mmm, Sounds like a rip off of the Internal combustion engine turbo. If these kinds of things are so great, why doesn't every car manufactured come with a turbo?

The fact that an inventor of the year award was given for an invention that has essentially already been invented suggests to me that we are reaching some kind of asymptote of human ingenuity.

[Frank]

Air compressors use lots of energy in large factories and this sounds like a nice idea. If nothing else, when retrofitting the new hoses and equipment required, factories might get around to fixing the huge number of air leaks that typically develop in various fittings and joints. I have never been in a factory in my life that did not have a tremendous amount of air leaks. It's one of those areas that maintenance folks never seem to have the time to address, yet it's very costly.

[max_power29]

China will make good use of this invention then. Too bad for the inventor that the Chinese don't really respect laws like patents, copyright, or intellectual property rights.

[grabby]

This is why Chena will rule.

The Frunch have totally rediculous copyright laws, (If we mentioned it, it is ours forever) and their court system allows double, triple jeopardy - you can sue for the same thing even if you just won a lawsuit)

In fact you can sue if you just THINK someone did something to youand want to get them back. If it sounds good to the judge, you'll win.(They are called lieyers - may the best liar win)

Copyright severely limits productivity. Like totally. Yoiu can only go two or three generations into patent payments before anything becomes uneconomical.


A society with open free help allowing anyone to build on an invention, (like our early internet where a dollar was spit on) would take us to the moon. Remember ALL THE COOL FREE PROGRAMS we used to get? Everyone could write them and did. all free. and better than what you can buy now.

The Frunch's laws have kept them underdogs for the last 200 years, but now amrica will and is falling [rrey to these laws.

Copyright means you care more for yourself than for the community.

Like I said.
Chena is going to rule.

"WELL WITHOUT COPYRIGHT LAWS WE CAN NOT MAKE MONEY

Total BS all the way.
China is doing just FINE without any copyright laws. Without copyright laws you would finally get payed only if you are PRODUCTIVE not cause you were lucky enough to accidentally discover something.

DNA copyright is so disgusting.

[emailking]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BlisteredWhippet', '
')I thought you had simply invented a new word until I looked that one up:

asymptote: a straight line approached by a given curve as one of the variables in the equation of the curve approaches infinity.

[BlisteredWhippet]

I wonder if they give a prize for biggest Math_nerd in Chena?