Patenting an Idea

You should be able to search published parents for free online. But it is a bit of a skilled art - "Information scientist" is a skilled profession! - so if you don't find anything that may be because you are using the wrong terms.

"I expect it is a bit like the Cup Cake industry,there are loads of people making and selling them and there seems enough custom to go round for everyone so perhaps I can make a start with my idea and just accept that others will see my idea and jump in with their own ideas to help wildlife:D"

No patent for cup-cakes, so they compete in open market.

Sulphur, Weedkiller for Marestail (Ammonium sulphomate), Cheshunt compound - all "gone" because no one wants to pay to get them licensed (under the new rules & regs) when they cannot then have a monopoly in return for the investment they put in.

If you have a good idea others will manufacture it and copy you. A patent is the only thing that will stop them (although if they copy your name / literature etc you can go after them, but that job is a lot easier if you have a Trade Mark as prosecuting for "passing off" is much harder - as (I think) Jif Lemons had to do - hence the advertising campaign of "Don't forget the Pancakes on Jif Lemon Day"

 

you may need to develop a 'kill switch' so as to turn off mobile phones and another larger 'kill switch' to turn off the CME's transmitted from the sun

jokes aside though, there is lots of speculation as to what is killing off the bees .... some are speculationg that it has to do with mobile phone masts and some say it may be due to the CME's from the sun, which has been increasing in frequency of late and some say it's a virus affecting the bees, and some say it's GM foods, some say it's the changing magnetosphere etc

I think I know whats killing the bees, page 1

(lots more speculation on the internet)

this year, there have been more mass animal die-offs ...

 

There is one small area they call it "poor mans patient". It is done with the mail service. Maybe you also have this.
You write out your idea, or type it, put it in an envelope address it to you and put it registered secure mail. When it arrives back to you at home, DO NOT OPEN IT. The resisterd secure mail will have DATED IT. And that DATE proofs you had that idea on that DATE. So that in the future if anyone steals your stuff you can prove you had the idea on that DATE.
However, the opening of the envelope has to be infront of a judge who declares that it was not tampered with etc.

But in the meantime, venture forth with the other ideas all have told you.

Just tuck away the envelpe in a safe place for future issues.

 

In the USA you used to have "First to Invent", whereas the rest of the world has been "First to get to the patent office and file an application", so under your system proving the date that the invention was created was important if someone filed before you to prove which of you had invented it first. Lab-books in chronological order (and signed by your boss or somesuch) were a means of achieving that, and mailing a description to yourself to get a posted-on-date was similar.

However I don't think you guys do that any more, all the who-har over the trade disputes a while back included the USA changing to first-to-file and you guys also changing to the term of the patent being from Application rather than Grant (as inventors / companies could prevaricate to delay granting of the patent and thus extend the patent's life and mega-bucks-company could do that easily and to the disadvantage of little-guy-inventor and us lot cried "foul"!!).

I am not sure, but I don't think mailing yourself in the UK would help. Someone else can patent an idea that you ALSO have had, provided the details are not in the public domain. If you have a letter to yourself I don't think that will count as prior-art as it is a "secret" communication.

 

Dim a lot of ther bees are dying because of the Verroa mite that attaches it's self to the bee and causes megga problems... Varroa destructor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I found a large bee the other year when we were out walking along the Long Mynd and it had been grounded and weakend by loads of mites.I didn't like dispatching the bee but felt I had no choice as there was no way it was going to survive.You should have seen the speed with which the mites tried to get away after I had termianted the bee and then i had to stamp on all the mites to get rid of them as well. They say that if all the bees are destroyed then the planet will fail within four years because eighty percent of all the flowers for crops depend on bees for pollination{the other twenty percent rely on wind for pollination}Can you imagine people having to go round with paint brushes hand pollinating every single tomato flower in these large commercial greenhouses,not to mention all the fruit trees,strawberry,rapsberry,blackberry plants etc that would all need to be hand pollinated.It doesn't bare thinking about

Kristen,it does seem quiet complicated,I never thought it would be so,but I feel that something needs doing to try and preserve these valuable garden helpers before it is too late.It saddens me that over ninety percent of the families who live in my village don't even have one flower,tree,or shrub in their garden as none of them are interested in gardening so they miss out on having wildlife in their gardens benefitting from food that they could gather if only these families had things in their gardens other than mud and turf.Some of these garden are quiet large as well,not a tiny garden like I have

Redstar,I think writers used to do that years ago with manuscripts if they had written what they believed to be a best seller,so would post some of the manuscript off to themselves or would only send part of the book to the publishers but I probably have that wrong:D

 

Do not trust companies with your ideas, get it secured first

When I was a young child ie 60 years ago I had an uncle who INVENTED games
He made up cards or boards and the bits needed, and we played for hours and hours for yonks
When I was About ten he had a new game for us
PIRATES

WOW kids and PIRATES, A very big board in those days, lots of tiny squares, you had dice to move squares, and on dotted around Islands you could collect treasure, then return home The one with the most treasure WON
He contacted and was invited to a company,travel at own expence to demonstrate his new GAME
laughed out, sent home very sad no big win for him

Two years later for Christmas the same company launched a sell out game

ANYONE PLAYED BUCCANEER ?
The game board is almost an exact copy of the original I have on the back of an old Maritime sea chart, the islands have different names but in the same place and the squares to move are larger. same balsa wood galleons only plastic, same spoils only shiney instead of bits of glass for diamonds, brass for gold,coins etc

Bah humbug a lesson learned. trust no one until you have it secured as yours

Jack McH

 

Good advice Jack :thumb:

 

happens all the time

and there is also the problem that your idea and product gets "Shanghia'd"... i.e. it gets mass produced and sold for pennies ... (with a small label saying 'Made in China')