Copying the Work of Others...

[dray]

This subject comes up year after year. I agree with Brady. There are no new ideas.

A few years ago I had asked on this forum about patents, provisional etc regarding a small universal torque transferring device everyone scoffed said it wont help you a bit etc etc. My provisional Pat stopped everyone in their tracks on the small part and gave me market share for almost two years until a separate design was made. I ended up making a fairly tidy sum on the small stainless steel design.

I designed and manufactured the lithium battery in the below bike. It normally mounts at the water bottle holes or will fit on any bike in the frame.

I had spent right around $55k on all of the injection molds the extruded aluminum mold, the BMS design etc etc. I immediately threw a provisional on it for design and utility. My provisional patent information was extremely vague and hard to comprehend. There was one other in frame lithium battery but it looked nothing like mine, it was a triangle shape, it did not have a locking cage allowing you to take it into work with you to charge it. Mine (10AH) gives the rider a 25+ mile range VS an 18 mile range. Very similar properties but with a spin.

Within 30 days I was cloned by a very large company in China. I was crushed for a few weeks and then I simply contacted them and let them know that this is my personal design, my intellectual property etc. They basically said go kick rocks.

So I emailed them a copy of my provisional and a threat that I will contact the local police in Guangzhou. They stopped immediately.

It ended up costing them what ever stock they had along with the molds they made.

So the bottom line is there are no new designs, but if you throw a spin on an existing design you can protect yourself.

Even with a provisional patent (pat Pend) if you see someone using an exact copy of your design and making $$ off of it send them a certified letter stating that they are using your design etc.

You then wait a year or two and if you go through with your patent you can collect all of the revenue they had made off of the product in the passed two years. This will cover your atty fees and put some $$ in your pocket. If it is an extremely good design companies will ask to use your patent and give you a portion of the proceeds off of each unit sold or a lease price.

But on these boards there was maybe 10 replies stating that a patent would not cover me what so ever yada yada so don't believe everything you hear and talk to an attorney. Talking to an attorney is free and he or her will tell you what your options are.

If it is something simple and another company is not making thousands off of it it really wont be worth your time or effort.