Patent or copyright

[Inquisitive]

Hi  Someone has approached me to help them market a new product.  I need to find out initially how they should go about protecting their concept, before going any further.  Has anyone had any experience of this in France, and where do I start?

[tj]

Hi

My first thought is why would someone approach another with a new product who also does not not know how to protect it? And by virtue of the fact the details have been disclosed to you this breaches patent regulations and could make any application void.

To answer your question directly, products require patents, written material requires copyright, and logos require trademark registration, you can download the neccessary forms to complete from the Patent office website.

The first step is lodging the application with the appropriate fee, you should do it at the UK patent office, ( forget european offices )and you can also apply for worldwide patent protection.

The initial application gives basic protection for one year, and the fee is not much. To be granted a full patent you need to instruct a patent search and investigation which is where it can get expensive.

I think your first step should be to search the patent register to establish if your product is actually patentable, ie just because a product is not available it doesnt mean that a patent has not been registered for it.

DO NOT discuss with anyone the detail of the product until after you have submitted the application, and talking in general terms perhaps to possible manufacturers etc you should have a contract of non disclosure signed by them, this is very difficult in many cases because for example, someone wants to approach Sony with a new media device, they would be reluctant to sign such agreement in case they are actually developing the same product.

Patents are very complex, if the product is a potential goldmine in your opinion, you should approach a patent agent to deal with the application. 

regards

[andyh4]

The European Patent Office for an invention.  A patent will only be issued for something that is new and has not been in the public domain before.  So for example you cannot patent a helicopter, because helicopters are alreayd known, but you could patent a new design of helicopter blade perhaps.

Be aware that in some cases it is not worth patenting and indeed it may even be detrimental to patent.  If for example you patent a way of doing something, but would subsequently not be able to prove or not whether someone else was usig your method, then all the patent would do would be to tell others how to do it.   So for example (and assuming it were a new concept) you could but should not patent the use of electrostatic charge to improve paint adherance to metals, because if you see a bit of painted metal, how could you prove whether the paint was applied electrostatically or not.  You could however patent machines that applied paint electrostatically, since you could take a paint machine and demonstrate that it used electrostatic principles for the application.

[Inquisitive]

Thanks to you both for such informative answers.  The reason I am being asked to help is that the person with the original idea, has absolutely no idea of how to go about marketing it, and I would like to help them. They are creative, and not commercial in the slightest, and it was I who wanted to protect them.  It is a potentially lucrative product (I think).  It may be that copyright is more applicable than a patent - I need to do much more research, but you have both been more than helpful. 

[Owens88]

Errm. This is the sort of stuff I do in my day job, and also possibly beyond my capabilities in  my day job !

I echo the advice to look at the UK patent office site. They are quite explicit on the difference between copyright and patent. You may want to acquire 12 months breathing space via them anyway.

If it as clear-cut as you intimate then a specialist advisor is needed asap. Obviously anything you communicate is only with people who have signed NDA's or equivalent.

Good luck.

John