to all of you out there that take and make or slightly alter a piece of existing hardware to suit your purposes document and patent the process a local guy here in my area of florida altered a mounting bracket on hit toyota and filled out a form with pics to the US patent office for free and toyota bought his patent for 36000 dollas and every 20000 of these new brackets based on his alterations on thier old one he gets a check for a couple hundred dollas not much but with this economy everything helps right? any way this was the local talk at a few of the car garages in our area and i felt like sharing it with you.. i am in awe of alot of the ingenuity of your threads and work lacking the skill myself i just sit in wonder... good day..

 

Not saying this isn't a good idea, but FYI, patents aren't cheap. My dad is in charge of a division of his company that strictly does research and development and he was telling me a little about the process.

You can actually patent an idea, even if you haven't physically worked it out. But patents aren't cheap. There are lookup fees, application fees, etc.

Also, unless Toyota looked up the patent in the us patents office, the odds of a major corporation coming across your idea or design is pretty slim as well, but that doesn't mean you can't market your idea individually.

Lastly, be careful when altering existing parts. There are definitely laws against copying a patented part... I'm not sure how close modifying a patented part comes to breaking the law. Look into it first.

Mathius

 

this was the local shop talk this weekend i just figured i would repeat if i was wrong in what i heard sorry i didn't look it up they just had a picture of a local guy and a brief story by it...

 

your right, its not cheap. But if its something worth while its $ well spent.
You can get a patent on improving an existing product. Again you have to have so many changes to it. NOT just add a bolt hole or cut of a piece thats hanging in your way etc..

 

That depends. If the bolt hole you add solves a previously unsolved problem then you are set. It doesn't mean that you can make your part, because your part will infringe on the original part. It does however mean that the original manufacturer cannot make your improvement without paying you, or rather you have the right to sue them if they do. The going rate around here is +/- $8000 for a utility patent.
Bear in mind that patent litigation is an expensive process as well.

 

Ya if your fixing a problem I understand that. But just doing something like adding a bolt hole to hold your overflow tank or heating up a bracket and bending it a diff. way to make from for your bolower bracket ,etc.. $5000 is the going rate last I looked into it.