[rollei_list] Re: OT - Low-budget inventing (was: "Praise don't pay the bills")
- From: "Austin Franklin" <austin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 20:32:28 -0500
Hi Ardeshir,
> Further to the following exchange between us, regarding what I had said
> about "registering" an invention with the US Patent Office for $10, you
> had written on Tuesday, January 25, 2005:
<snip>
> The thing is called a "Disclosure Document".
I know what a disclosure document is. I'm surprised you "forgot", given how
many you claim to have "filed". It has nothing to do with "registering"
anything. It is simply a dated document. The document isn't even reviewed,
it is simply filed. Disclosure documents are only as valuable as the amount
(and significance) of the content of the document. To have any real value,
they must be followed up with a *real* patent application (and of course,
having something that is actually patentable helps as well). My
understanding is you have never actually filed a patent application, so you
really have never been through the process or the scrutiny. So, Disclosure
Documents can be from entirely worthless to having some possible value.
Perhaps you ought to read up on them:
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/disdo.html
and try to understand what they actually do (and do not do) for you. They
offer little to no "protection", especially if you do nothing subsequent to
the filing with respect to actually getting a patent. They also don't offer
any assurance what so ever that what you have filed is even remotely
patentable. There is a huge difference between filing a disclosure document
and actually filing a patent application, much less even getting a patent,
which you apparently have never gotten. Filing disclosure documents also
does not make one an "inventor" by any stretch of the word.
BTW, a registered (page numbered and bound) properly dated notebook is
equally as valid for establishing what a disclosure document establishes.
Austin
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