How do i patent an idea and sell it to a company?

Question

How do i patent an idea and sell it to a company?

Answer 1

You can patent an invention yourself by going to the patent and trademark office website:

www.uspto.gov

after you submit the application, you can mark the item "patent pending" which should give you some protection and start talking to users/manufacturers of your product

Answer 2

The best thing you can do is get the advice of a qualified patent professional who will help you learn whether your idea or invention is novel (new), whether it will be worthwhile to patent, and about how much it will cost to draft, file, and prosecute.

If you can't afford to hire a patent attorney or agent, then for only $105 you can file a complete description of the invention as a provisional application for patent with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Your description must explain exactly and completely how to make, perform, enable, and practice your invention. Then you will have a year before you have to file a nonprovisional patent (which should be prepared only by a patent professional). In the meantime you can call your invention "patent pending" and you can show your idea to companies who might want to buy it. See the link below to obtain the forms and complete instructions for filing a provisional patent application.

If you do find a major company who wants to buy your invention, then aside from paying you for it they will probably be happy to prepare, file, and prosecute the nonprovisional patent application (which saves you the cost of doing it) in return for your assigning the patent rights to them.

And if it turns out that you are unable to interest anyone in buying your invention, and you don't want to try to make and market it yourself, then you will be out only $105 instead of having paid several thousand dollars to obtain a patent that you can't market.