How to patent a book ?

Question

How do i patent a book ive written? I herd something about mailing it to yourself?

Answer 1

You can't patent a book, but you can copyright it. In most countries, copyright is automatic, meaning that any book you write is automatically entitled to copyright protection. In some countries, you can formalize this by registering your book with the copyright office.

There's an explanation of the difference between patents, copyrights and trademarks at http://www.patentengineers.com

Answer 2

What you want is a copyright and you heard of is called "poor man's copyright.  Poor man's gives a date for a draft of a book however, it has no legal standing.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-ge...

Be aware that many publishers will help with the legal copyright if they decide to publish and they tend to shy away of from pre-copyrighted books (it says that you don't trust them).

Here is a link to the forms page of the US Copyright website if you want to legally copyright your work.

http://www.copyright.gov/forms/

Answer 3

You're looking to register the copyright of your book. If you're in Canada,  see The Canadian Intellectual Property Office, in the US, go to the U.S. Copyright Office. In either country, you own the copyright to your book the moment its written. All you're doing is registering the copyright so that if it was to go to court, the onus would be on the other person to prove their copyright was previous to yours, rather than you proving you own the copyright.

That's not legal advice. I'm just a self-publishing coach for ImaginePublishing.com.  

Answer 4

You cannot patent a book.  It is not an invention.