I have an idea for a product, what should I do next. I will need a patent.?

I would like to have this item manufactured and then I will handle distribution. They will sell themselves.

The first thing you should do is to consult a patent attorney. Do NOT tell anyone your idea or go to one of those Iinventor's Submission because there have been many complaints. (I worked for a Patent Attorney for 10 years and heard many clients complain about these types of companies).

It takes about 2 years to obtain a patent because of the backlog in the Patent Office.

You may want to go online at the www.uspto.gov and do a boolean search to see if your idea is already out there.

The first step an attorney will do is to a patent search to see if any other patents have been issued on your product or improvement to an existing product. The next step would be drafting a patent application for submission to the Patent Office and patent drawings; then your application will be examined by a Patent Examiner who may or may not have objections to the application. If he does, then an Amendment to the Patent Application must be prepared and filed. If this is not done, your patent application will become abandoned (and you will lose any money you have spent so far in attorney's and filing fees). It is by no means "cheap" to get a patent. A conservative estimate is about $10,000.00. Amendments are additional. Also, once you obtain a patent, there are annuity fees to keep the patent "alive". A patent is good for 20 years then it becomes available to the public domain, meaning anyone may suggest improvements to your patent and file their own application.

You could also do what is known as a "poor man's patent", meaning you describe in detail your invention, and mail it by first-class mail to yourself. Keep it unopened and in a safe place. This would establish proof of priority, meaning you could contest a future inventor's submission of your invention by the evidence of the postmark.

Also, there are companies that will build a prototype of your invention so that you may demonstrate it for the Examiner and potential companies who you target.

I hope this helps! Good luck!

I hope this helps somewhat.

Find a lawyer who specializes in patents. Some of them work on a percentage of sales. You will probably need a working prototype.

A patent can be helpful, however they are very hard to get, you may find your "new" idea has been around a long time! and is patented by someone else!

Do NOT tell anyone your idea since making it public invalidates your ability to claim the idea in a patent. While you should speak with a patent attorney or a patent agent, you should also do some research to find out if this idea has already been patented or disclosed anywhere else (thereby negating your ability to claim it).

Patents can be very expensive (by the time legal fees are tossed in, they can run into tens of thousands of dollars for each country covered) so you should do the background check BEFORE you spend too much time and money on an application. Also, you should consider the cost of the patent relative to how much you expect to make from the product. Sometimes, the costs of filing a patent simply outweigh the return of what you expect to make on sales. You can still sell without a patent (ever seen a lemonade stand?), it just means that competitors will be allowed to copy you if you donâ€™t have one.

You need to make a prototype, then get it patented. Once you have a prototype, you can get some funding from a company willing to back it, or you can sell the prototype to a company willing to make it under their own name.

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