I have long admired the "social" elements of the web and have been impressed with the extremely creative model created by the folks at Quirky. What they did was nothing short of extraordinary and they have made many everyday inventors a good deal of money.
Their concept is simple.. Pay them $10 and you can put your inventive idea on their website. Then, all those interested in your inventive idea have an opportunity to cast their "vote" on your idea. If you are lucky, and your idea is really great your idea will migrate to the top of the "weeks pick" and be taken into the fold to be developed.
The folks at Quirky do not "bother" with intellectual property protection if and until a particular design is chosen. They simply "validate" and "facilitate". As such they simply let you know that their power is the social element where they EXPOSE your idea, which has extraordinary value.
A major "stumbling block" is folks who have HOT ideas are concerned about posting their idea on the web without any sort of Intellectual Property protection. Most of these folks assume that their idea is safe but there are folks out there scanning the web for HOT ideas to develop on their own. The hard facts are that when you post your idea on the web this counts as public disclosure which in Patent Parlance means you have 12 months to "claim" your inventive idea.
The least expensive way ($125.00 in 2012) to "claim" your inventive idea is to file a Provisional Patent Application, PPA, that was designed by Congress to be "easy" to fill out. The problem with "easy" is it is in the eyes of the beholder. The 1040 "EZ" is not "easy" either but with proper guidance filing a Provisional Patent Application can be easy. Just go to YouTube and you can search Provisional Patent Video to see a number of good guides.
Again, if you do not have unlimited funds you do NOT need to hire an attorney to file a PPA as long as you take care to properly describe your inventive idea and show the preferred embodiments and do a great job on the enabling disclosure that shows EXACTLY how to make your invention to one skilled in your particular art.
You may frequently hear patent attorneys say that Provisional Patent Applications are "worthless" because you can not add "new matter". The fact is you can not add "new matter" to ANY patent application so this argument only serves to demonstrate that these folks do not understand the patent process and ONLY want to file non-provisional patent applications where the income stream is assured by virtue of endless "Office Actions" instigated by poor application drafting in the first place. It is important to note that the proper filing procedures for patents is the most clearly described and tested of all procedures on the planet. This is because the "rules" are clearly defined in the Federal Register and can be referred to by anyone for free. So, that an office action resulting from something as simple as an "antecedent basis" or the like is like an editor of the Washington Post spelling the word Christmas wrong.
So, the message is this guys and gals... If you have a HOT idea and you want to make money on it then spend the $125 and file a Provisional Patent Application BEFORE you show it on Quirky. Then, when and if Quirky "buys" your idea they will also have you assign your patent to them and YOU will be the patent holder if they elect to convert the Provisional Patent Application to a Non-Provisional Patent Application.
Dave Korpi holds over 13 patents and pending patents in widely varying fields from thermal mass flow meter technology, primary standards calibration systems, to novel methods of manufacture for resonant structures as well as the author of the Provisional Patent Video Course.
The Provisional Patent Video Course makes it easy for anyone with the drive to easily protect their new invention using the USPTO Provisional Patent Application Process by watching the "over the shoulder videos" provisional Patent Video Course: http://provisionalpatentvideo.com/
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