Making Your Millions With Patent Laws

If, like me you consider yourself a bit of an entrepreneur then you will often be thinking of ways to bring it a little extra income or have ideas for various things that can make everyday life that little bit easier. If you have any ideas for new inventions and you are serious about proceeding with them, then one of your first tasks will be to get your idea patented. This will legally prevent other people from stealing or from coping your idea. However, patenting requires extremely careful consideration, as you may only be able to patent a certain part of your invention. This is where you will need to speak to an expert on patent laws.

I am from the UK and over here we have a very popular TV show called 'Dragons Den'. This features a board of potential investors who are all self-made millionaires. Applicant will appear before the investors known as the 'dragons' with a presentation in order to pitch for investment in return for a share in their company. These dragons are clever people and do not mince their words. They scrutinise every aspect of each presentation and if applicants wish to be successful in gaining investment they will need to know their business plan inside out. I have often seen some of the more sensitive applicants leave the 'den' in tears due to the scrutiny of the dragons. I may seem cruel but when you are investing tens of thousands of pounds of your own money you need to sure of a return on investment. Anyway, the reason I mention this show is because there is one particular story involving patent laws that sticks in my mind.

A couple of middle-aged guys stepped in front of the dragons with a good pitch (presentation). Working from their garage at home they had invented a device that in my opinion (and the dragons) could potentially change the world. It was called the 'Energy Saver'. Basically, with a simply voltage meter they demonstrated how much power is used by appliances and gadgets at home whilst they are on standby. The dragons were surprised to see that the average television can use up to 75% of its normal running power just from being left on standby. Similar figures were shown with stereo, DVD players and suchlike. So, where do the patent laws come in? Well, the device they invented was a multi-plug socket with a remote control. You could simply plug your appliances or gadgets into it and then into your regular power supply. Then when you wanted to switch these off you could do all of them from the one remote, thus cutting the power completely instead of leaving everything on standby. On top of this they also had bigger ideas for this invention to be integrated into new TV's, stereos etc eliminating the need for a standby setting altogether.

Now, for the first time ever all five dragons loved the idea and offered investment in the company. In fact, all five agreed that it was the best invention they had ever seen on the show! The problem however, came soon afterwards. You see the guys hadn't researched the patent laws in enough detail. Although they did have a patent pending, it wasn't strong enough to prevent other people or companies designing their own version of the device and flooding the market before these guys had got the product on the shelves.

The short version was, that because their patent didn't cover their product sufficiently in relation to UK (or worldwide) patent laws, all of the investors backed out. That was not the end however. I recently watched a follow-up TV show. A kind of 'where are they now?', which was filmed six months on. The guys had not given up on their idea. They had contacted a patent lawyer and gained the protection they needed. They had then gone on to sell the invention to a large company who in turn would liase with worldwide brands, such as Philips and Panasonic to build the technology into existing appliances.

So, the results of their persistence and the fact that they researched the patent laws thoroughly (in the end), was that you could well be seeing this in your new gadgets very soon, anywhere in the world. Of course the other result is that they are now millionaires who will also receive a percentage of profits from sales over the next five years!