Q: Intellectual property: I provided a product idea to a company. They stole the idea and used it to secure a patent.
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A:
This is going to require that a patent attorney take a deep dive on the material that you provided and the nuances of the issued patent claims. There may be a path to correct inventorship to add you as one of the inventors. If you did not assign over your rights, then being a coinventor makes you a co-owner. On the other hand, what you contributed may be something that the receiving party already knew.
Looking at these details and taking the next steps are going to be time intensive. This most likely means expensive as very few patent attorneys want to take on this sort of thing on contingency.
I hope that this help.
A:
You may be out of luck.
Good companies listen to their customers. Often, a company is told of an idea by its customer, supplier, vendor, employee, etc., and the company develops the idea into an invention, which is then patented.
If you pitched your invention to company, then you likely did the presentation under a secrecy agreement. Tlk to your patent counsel.
In any case, ideas are not patentable.
Good luck!
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