1. Before any publication e.g. by communication to a company, or by advertisement or sale of a product, takes place, you should take the first and cheapest step towards a patent by filing an application with at least an Informal Specification. This establishes certain rights as from the date of application, and gives you one year's grace, before you must take any further action. You should make every effort to exploit your invention commercially during the first year.

If at the end of that year you have failed to persuade anyone of the value of your invention, then you will probably feel that further expense to obtain a patent is not worthwhile. If you are already exploiting your idea, then the patent will probably be self-financing. Protection in other countries is available separately, but the costs are substantial.

2. The cost of developing an invention, making demonstration models, etc., and then of obtaining a patent, must together be looked upon as an investment which you will probably have to make before you know whether you will be successful. The hoped-for dividends are to be achieved through exploitation of your invention, whether by you, or by a company licensed by you, or by sale of your rights. Without the protection of a patent you run the risk of being unable to stop your invention being copied. On the other hand, the fairly considerable expense of a patent is pointless unless you put considerable effort into trying to exploit it.

3. Anyone approached by you to promote your invention is likely to be more favourably disposed if you have initially backed your invention with your own time, money and effort. However, you must realise that a company considering a new idea is being asked to invest its money, and that therefore an invention must show fair prospects of usefulness or saleability before it will be accepted. Moreover, inventions which require the scrapping of existing investments have an additional hurdle to overcome.

4. We are often asked what patents already exist for an invention. This information may be needed to answer either of two distinct questions: first, is there any danger of infringing someone else's patent by using an idea?, or second will it be possible to obtain a patent for the supposed new invention? The first can only be answered by instructing us to make a suitable search through patents in the jurisdiction in question. It is only usually worthwhile to do this if considerable capital investment in an idea is planned. The second question, in practice, very often does not need to be answered at all at first. If the application is eventually pursued, the answer will be given, after paying the search fee, by the Intellectual Property Office. At this stage, the important thing is to get the idea developed and into practical use under cover of an informal patent application.

5. Although Patent Attorneys do not usually assist in finding backers for inventions, we do help in negotiating a suitable agreement with an interested party. On no account should you sign any document concerning your rights in an invention without taking advice.

6. One advantage of employing a Patent Attorney to prepare the necessary specification and drawings for a patent application is that the documents can then be used for presentation to potential manufacturers or backers, preferably with a suitable working model.

7. Over many years, it is our experience that, while it is legally quite in order for an inventor to prepare and file his own application, it does not in the end turn out any cheaper. The reason is that, since it is hardly possible for an inventor to carry through all stages of his application on his own, he is forced to go to a Patent Attorney at a later stage. This nearly always results in very much increased bills for sorting out difficulties arising from an imperfect initial application. Moreover, since the initial application may have to form the basis for the eventual protection given by the patent, the protection available may be severely reduced, even to nothing, by a poor first attempt. Therefore only in cases of real financial stringency should a layman be advised to proceed without proper professional advice.