Q: I have a very marketable product idea but I'm reluctant to bring any attention to it.

A: This is a common fear. Unfortunately, if you never tell anyone about the idea it will be hard to move forward.

If you product has new features not found in other products, then you may be able to protect the idea with a patent application. Once you have a patent application on file, then you can share the idea. Ideally under a non-disclosure agreement drafted by an attorney working for you -- be wary of forms on the internet. Note -- the patent application may not protect further improvements to your product that were not in the original patent application so you may need to file a revised and expanded application to capture those improvements.

If your product combines features that exist in products on the market, then you will need to show how it was inventive to combine them. Merely being a new combination is not sufficient to get a patent. It needs to be inventive (the way the law is written one would say non-obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art).

To look for other patents or pending applications on a product similar to what you have in mind, you can learn to do patent searching from my slide set at http://bit.ly/Patent_Searching.

Hope this helps.

Kevin E Flynn

A: There is a second type of patent that may be part of your plan to protect your idea. It is called a design patent. This protects the ornamental appearance of your product. A design patent can ward off a me-too product can copy your product so closely that people are confused whether both products both come from the same source.

A design patent does not prevent someone from providing the same features in a product that looks differently from what you protected in the design patent. To prevent that, you would need a utility patent (frequently just called patent as it is the most common type).

Additional information about design patents can be found at https://www.flynniplaw.com/services/legal-services/united-states-design-patents