[Stoves] To patent or not to patent. How about the 'un patent'

Richard Stanley rstanley at legacyfound.org
Sat Nov 21 10:59:40 CST 2015


Julien et al, 
I share many of your concerns about patenting;  Thought you or anybody els on the list might find it or parts this approach useful;  
 
premix is that Patents for the small guy generally protect the lawyers who make them up and those with enough funds and staying power to make them stick. 

reverse the notion;
•  Spread its idea out as widely as possible. The idea becomes open source and therefore becomes hard to patent.
•  Make up a good clear set of plans for your product and sell these plans with the open stated guarantee of your own personal technical support online to backstop any purchaser.  

The “patent “ thus becomes our own personal service / your credibility to the buyer. 
Thats of course not too easy for esp., the shady business person entrepreneur to replicate (probably the least likely thing on their mind anyway). 

You earn money for the plans you gain a good reputation and market appeal and hence potential for financial support. And you help folks at the same time.
There will sill be many who want to just bank out the product and not screw around making it but they will also have to rely upon your experience to do it efficiently. and they can com back to you easily, if they haven’t gone  through you directly and honestly in the first place.

The approach is  not bullet proof, but it seems to gets you closer to satisfaction for having done something  useful and fed yourself at the same time.

Welcome anybody to move the concept forward !

Richard Stanley

On Nov 21, 2015, at 10:27 AM, Julien Winter <winter.julien at gmail.com> wrote:

Hello all;

Does anyone know anything about patenting or registering an innovation to preserve it as open technology?  

One approach may be to take out a regular patent and let it lapse.

However, does anyone know about the Global Innovation Commons?
http://www.globalinnovationcommons.org/contribute

The concern is that someone may develop a new design of stove for their country, only to have an unscrupulous business person patent the idea, and prevent the original inventor from freely using it.

Almost all the development of TLUD technology has been by volunteers, donating their time and money.  After the ideas became public, a couple of people who were (to my knowledge) not involve in the development took out patents.  Fortunately, their patents lapsed after about three years.  However, in future cases we may not be so lucky.

Cheers,
Julien.


-- 
Julien Winter
Cobourg, ON, CANADA
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