Patents
The usual procedure in obtaining a patent is to hire a patent attorney or agent to order a search and then to prepare the application and prosecute it in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office until the patent is issued. The costs run from $2000 to $20,000.
If you are a frequent inventor, it is worthwhile to take a university extension course in patent law (approximately two terms at one night per week) and then prepare and prosecute your own applications. At the very least, you will understand the system better and communicate with your patent attorney better. You will also be qualified to take the Patent Office examination and be registered as a patent agent.
The same examination is given to both lawyers and engineers. At one time both earned the title "Patent Attorney," but the lawyers then invented and sold the semantic ploy that engineers are called "Patent Agents" and only lawyers are called "Patent Attorneys." To a layperson it would appear that a patent attorney outranks a patent agent, so the lawyers won a competitive advantage. It makes no difference whatever to the Patent and Trademark Office, but only lawyers can argue infringement cases which go to court.
For your application you will need patent drawings, which must be made in accordance with Patent Office specifications. You can hire a patent drafter directly, or you can learn to do the work yourself if you have the skill.
Purpose of the patent system
Why do we have a patent system, and what does it do? The purpose of the patent system, in the public interest, is to encourage inventors both to invent and to disclose their inventions to the public to provide a basis for further inventing by others. To accomplish this, the government offers a deal to the inventor. If the inventor discloses enough about an invention so that others can reproduce it, then the government rewards him or her with a limited monopoly of the use of the invention.
What is a patent?
The patent document discloses the invention in the "specification" and "drawings" and defines the scope of the monopoly in the "claims." The "monopoly" is actually the right to exclude others from using the invention rather than a right to use it yourself. For example, if you already have a patent on the automobile and another person then patents an improved wheel, the other person can prevent you from making automobiles with his improved wheel but you can prevent him from making any improved wheel as part of an automobile. In practice, both then get together and cross-license.
Patents as an educational resource
Despite this arrangement the patent system is neglected as a source of education by most American design engineers. After World War II the United States sent a group of scientists to Europe in Operation Paper Clip to round up German scientists and engineers, particularly those responsible for the V-l and V-2 guided-missile programs. (The Russians, of course, ran a matching program.) We netted Wernher von Braun and most of the engineers and scientists who had worked with him at Peenemiinde. When von Braun was asked how he developed the V-2 rocket in such a short time compared with the little progress which had been made in the United States, he answered, with surprise, "Why, we studied the patents of your great Dr. Goddard, of course."
If you become a serious inventor in a particular art, you will at first be disappointed that most of what you invent turns up on patent search as old art. However, as you become more and more the master of that art, you will find that the anticipating patents are more and more recent until you start finding that some of your inventions are new and patentable.
You will also learn that most patentable inventions are based on a recent problem or opportunity or a new material or technology. Most of what could have been invented in the past was invented in the past. It is discouraging to discover how many other smart people there have been and still are. The continuing occurrence of "interferences" (duplicate inventions by different inventors at about the same time) in the Patent and Trademark Office demonstrates this. Inventing is also a race, so you should maintain your sense of urgency and competition.
