Watch Out for the Scams
Unfortunately, patenting and marketing inventions is an industry that attracts a lot of scam artists. While there are legitimate companies that can and do provide worthwhile help to inventors, many charge inventors thousands of dollars and do very little to actually help them. These unscrupulous firms may charge high fees just to provide information repackaged from the USPTO that anyone can obtain for free.
Some make claims about licensing and/or marketing inventions that exceed the firm’s ability to deliver. Others will deliberately understate costs and surprise you with additional fees that creep up later in the process once you are already committed. And still other firms have been known to take inventors’ money and literally disappear. Do your homework before signing anything or issuing payment!
Here is a partial list of things to watch for:
- Check with the (USPTO) or the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to see if there are any complaints or lawsuits filed against the company.
- Find out if they have ever operated under a different name. Some of the less legitimate providers have changed names several times.
- Ask for a complete disclosure of all costs up front.
- Be particularly suspicious of claims that they will definitely license your product and/or market it successfully. Early in the patent process, it is difficult or impossible to know these outcomes in advance.
Resources you can use to help avoid fraud include the USPTO and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The USPTO does not investigate or participate in any legal proceedings against invention promoters/promotion firms. But, under the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999, the office does publish complaints about invention promoters. You can find dozens of these firms listed here.
The FTC, meanwhile, provides a consumer alert, "Spotting Sweet-Sounding Promises of Fraudulent Invention Promotion Firms" at this page.
Perhaps the best assurance that you will be well represented—at least during the patent phase—is to work with a properly licensed patent attorney. He or she has received considerable legal training and must answer to the state bar association in the event a client lodges a complaint. Other types of firms are not necessarily subject to this kind of oversight, meaning you lack this extra layer of protection.
I spent $1,500 for a search at one firm and they found a competing patent. They don't know if they can get around it to get my idea patented. They based the fee on 'time to search', but I thought it would take less time and cost less when I first talked to them. Is there any recourse I can take at this point?