Expert: George H. Morgan, P.E., Patent Agent - 11/17/2009

Question
There use to be a Document Disclosure program in the US Patent Office where you could send an idea for a patent and they would stamp each page and drawing and mail it back to you for a registered date of the idea. They only charged $6.00 and would keep that document for two years. This was supposed to be useful for dating an idea for a patent so a person could attempt to get funding to construct a proto-type of an invention and have at least some protection for the idea while showing the idea to potential financial backing.
I see now that has been eliminated and replaced with a much more expensive system costing hundreds of dollars for each idea. This may be fine for companies and corporations but eliminates the individual.
Is there any protection for an individual now?  

Answer
The document disclosure program was discontinued because there was no documented cases where it helped anyone, and the invention marketing scammers had a field day using it to defraud inventors. They would file the inventor's idea under the program, hype it up as a big deal, and the inventor thought he had protection while sending large sums to the scammers.

You have no protection on anything until you have an issued patent in hand.

The provisional application for patent, filing fee $110, gives you a priority date and a patent pending position recognized by some 130 countries around the world.

Using a confidentiality (non-disclosure) document, drawn up by a corporate practise lawyer gives some protection, and falls under commercial law, which is easier to enforce than patent law. This feature is why most large companies won't sign them. Instead, they often come back with their own "disclosure agreement" (vs. "non-disclosure) that says you have no rights or claims on them unless you obtain a patent, and then, you have only the rights to what claims are awarded.  Avoid signing these. Use your own forms. I advise against signing the company's forms, unless they are fair and equitable, as deemed by your attorny.

You need to be keeping an inventor's notebook. David Pressman's book, "Patent It Yourself" by Nolo Press is in most free public libraries, or they can get it for you.

About scammers...they usually advertise on TV and in periodicals, and even have ads on this site. AllExperts says it is Google's fault, they have no control over it. Horse manure!

Beware of InventHome, InventTech, Invention Submission Corp., Patent Assistance World Wide, Franklin Forge, Absolutely New Idea, and all thier ilk. You can get details on these and others on my link to the Ron Riley, inventor activist, web page, off my Inventors Resources Page of my web site, http://www.evansville.net/biz/patagent

Best wishes on your projects!

I hope this helps.

George H. Morgan
Professional Engineer (since 1958)
Registered Patent Agent (since 1973)