How to Own your Invention

So you have invented something? What do you do next? Should you patent it? Before you answer that question you need to consider your goals carefully--

What do you plan to do with your invention?

• Make it yourself?
• Sell or license it to someone else?
• Give it away

In each of the three cases you need to consider the patent status of your invention. Even if you don't have any intention of patenting your invention you may still need a patent search because: Your invention may have been invented first by someone else who has patented it

Before you start down the road to a patent , find out find out what the closest prior art to your invention is with an AlaCarte Patentability search. Even if you don't want to patent your invention make sure someone else doesn't own it with an AlaCarate Freedom to Use search. We offer 5 different kinds of Prior Art searching. Click here to learn about all of them.

Before you sit down with an attorney to explain your idea , let us help you gather together the information the attorney will want in the form that he or she will want it into an AlaCarte Invention Report . while the clock is stopped.

When you reach the Patent Prosecution stage where your attorney is receiving "Office Actions" from the US Patent Office you may feel confused and as a result not fully understand the options facing you. What claims were rejected? Why? Should you fight or give in? What does your attorney recommend? Is that in line with your business goals? Let your attorney handle the law, let us help you make the best possible business decisions.

Finally, if you are building a patent portfolio or already have a number of patents, look into our patent mapping tool, The Strategic Opportunity Cube, to help you manage them. We help you see where your patents fall in the patent landscape relative to those of your competitors. We let you sniff out whitespace opportunities to draft new patents and even tell when your competitors are moving into your territory. Find out which patents you should abandon to save on patent maintenance fees.

AlaCarte services are transparent. We will NEVER keep you in the dark while the clock is running. We put each step of our patent searches online as we complete them. You can watch your job as its being completed and even make changes if you wish.

We have nothing against attorneys. We are not a law firm, we work with many different attorneys and agents. We simply feel that a well prepared inventor will get a much better patent application and a shorter and less costly patent examination if he contacts us first.

This button will connect you to answers to commonly asked questions and also give you a link to our FREE inventors patent startup kit.

For  free answers to your patent questions.