Need Patent for start production

Hi guys,

i'm back here to ask you several questions about my project in starting a business in ebike.
as i'm a good biker and was also making lot of competitions in the past and i know how is important to check heart rate while riding.

i would like to create an opensource sistem that check heart rate and adapt power of the motor according with necessity of the heart.
i saw several system and i read the talk about Falco motor system, but my idea is a bit different.

anyway i come here with my question

in case i would like to start production of my own ebike with cardio control and other nice things, do I need to know if there is a Patent to make this kind of system or i can do without any problem like building a normal electric bike?
do you know if there is a Patent for this kind of staff?

Such a broad subject, Cardio control. How could there NOT be patents. In fact I would assume you would want to license some existing technology rather than try to develop your own. I don't have a heart problem, I'm not in the lease familiar with these shirts, etc. that people wear. Do they plug into a USB port? Maybe with a celphone type plug?

I'm not sure what the BIKE needs the cardio control for. If you just mean to mount a monitor on it, again, you're just using what's out there, right? ". . . .Check heart rate and adapt power of the motor according with necessity of the heart." I don't get it. How is that really relevant?

Yes right, this is exactly what i wanted do say.

can I develop my own cardio control system in case there is some other people that owns the patent?
about what for cardio control, you can just check or adapt power according to the heart beat and so on

so my question is more something: Can I make it or i don't have the right to do it?

I don't know if it is already patented, or...if a new product you design would be allowed to be patented (because it is different from existing systems) but...there are several companies already doing this:

http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/new...any-bike-cardio-controlled-offroad-ebike.html

I already know Falco system, and also others.
I just want to understand if i will be in trouble in case I start production from some that own the paten

doctor_t said:

I just want to understand if i will be in trouble in case I start production from some that own the paten

Click to expand...

For that information, you'd have to talk to a lawyer, preferably a patent lawyer.

Any opinion about it you read on the internet is worth exactly what you paid for it.

For real information, as Amber said, talk to a real lawyer.

That said, I am no lawyer, but this is what I have come to understand. You can use patented information for personal use. If you incorporate it in a product for sale, you are subject to the patent holder finding you, and then issuing a cease and desist order. Some (or most) patent holders may be willing to settle for a modest fee to use their idea in your products, and may want some retroactive compensation.

If we assume that the idea of an adaptive heart rate drive system is not yet patented. You have impaired your ability to patent it by publicly disclosing it on this board. I have come to understand that if patent "claims" are publicly released and in circulation, that you cannot patent the item.

I got this from a friend that works in the field and routinely searches obscure, foreign literature to find descriptions of items that were granted US patents to "bust them..."

Just some thoughts from the peanut gallery.

Keep in mind all aspects of the human construction labeled "patent" do not exist outside the human delusion choosing to believe them real.

At no level of gaining proficiency and understanding of the constructs does it offer the potential to contain any aspects of truth or reality.

The legal system is equally real as folks playing world or warcraft or whatever, and taking it seriously enough to actually convince some folks to do real harms over perceived violations of whatever nonsense game rules they please, ultimately all the game rules were just made up delusions like the "boarders" between countries and dozens more pointless non-real and dangerously harmful delusional belief sets.

If you have an interest in appreciation of the real, I would kindly suggest breaking these dangerous products of mass indoctrination. There is no path through them that delivers truth or reality, it is a tower of mans delusions precariously stacked upon mans delusions. If you probe the nature of this tower of delusion you quickly find only emptiness as the mirage collapses.

If you're participating in this system, you're directly part of the problem. My best legal advice is to stop feeding the parasites.


ATB,
-Luke

Thank you everybody also from philosophical point of view!!!
Anyway Falco and other brands already put on market such product, I had a talk with an engineer that works with patents and he told that if I make a small production probably I won t have problem.
But in case my sales become bigger they can claim their patent.
From my point of view there is no reason for such patent, heart rate is an hold system as electric bike. Just combine them can be a patent?

Uh-oh And out of left field comes Lfp, all wound up!!

Lol, between the comment of programming the thing to suicide the bike if you die :lol: to this, I can barely stop laughing. I actually agree with lfp in this broad sense, and hear the frustration, but I'm not seeing a better solution to the way things are on such a major level. Thread/discussion needed- what would that world look like?

On topic, doctor: where are you planning to market after production? What would be the means of marketing?
Like on a few bikes you build? Or to a big bike company? Or by itself on alibaba or country specific site? What volume are we talking?

I'd say your advice received in and off the ES has been good, but more info would be needed for us to comprehend what you are attempting, and thus your question.

nutspecial said:

Uh-oh And out of left field comes . . . .

Click to expand...

Oops, this could get active real quick.

I just figure that there's so many products on the market so there's definitely patents, I just happen to know there's a Russian company piling them up. I'm thinking if there really is a use for this on an electric bike then what you need is probably already out there. Yous make your bike compatible with an add-on, maybe a USB connection. . . .

I'm just wondering why anyone needs it. All the cheater comments are over the lowered strain in use, etc.

I thought what Luke said useful - you can ignore patents if you choose.

Patents are also country specific - I get the feeling the OP may not live in one of the most lwyered up countries - he may be exempt.
Where do you live Doctor_t?


PS> This sentence is lie.

About the amount of bike that i forecast to sell actually I don't really know!!!

what i know is that i ride bike for many years and electric bike for at least 6 years and i made several electronic changes to all my bikes.
for sure would like to make a good product and try to sell just on global market, this is te point of understand more about patents.

i come from Italy

A patent is only as good as the lawyers you can afford to hire to enforce it.

Else it's better just not to disclose any of it.

To that I'd like to add, how much trouble you get into will depend a lot on which spot on earth you choose to sell it in. Go rip their patent, and sell it in their country with TV advertising, I'd expect their lawyers to hound you.

On the other hand, if your distribution system is guys at a flea market in another country, they'd have to notice you to take action.

Psst, Anybody want a solid gold rolex for $50? :lol: How about a copy of the new star wars movie?

Agree!!! Rolex comes from Tudor and why Tudor is not a status symbol like Rolex? I don t want to make copy of anything for that there is the Chinese market! But I have my ideas and my project, just in case my product will be good as other famous brand I want to take my part in the market.
Just in this case I don t want that some can come to me telling that I be stolen their idea

Go for it then! All the best!

And don't forget to put it for sale here, it would be interesting to moderate bike power via pulse.

Dammit the idea of the bike speeding full tilt if your heart stops is still so ridiculously funny- dark humor perhaps, please excuse!

Thanks friend i will update ad soon as I make the first prototype

I am an engineer with four patents, including one on finding errors in patents! Just a couple points as I understand patents.

With regards to the most ridiculous comment above, patents do provide legal authority and protection. You can say gravity is not real, but stepping off a ledge may convince you otherwise. Similarly, getting yourself into patent conflict can cause you a world of harm, especially financially. Social norms and laws may not be physical science which is not changeable, but they are a reality of life that is very hard to change.

A patent covers the novel, non-obvious, and useful device, process, or design (the three different kinds of patents). Good patents cover a very broad range of things that require the device, process, or design. Weak patents are so specific that a minor tweak in the device, process, or design no longer infringes on the patent. For example, a device may be for a seat with four legs, a flat sitting surface, and a near vertical surface to support the back. If such a seat was patented, it would not cover a 3 legged chair, or a backless stool (but it probably would cover a 5 legged chair). A better, broader "patent" would cover one or more legs with a flat or contoured seating surface, and not even mention the back support in the main claim.

With regards to what a patent does, in most cases, it allows the patent holder to determine who is allowed to use the patented device, process or design. It does, in fact, cover personal use, and not only commercial use. However, the high cost and low reward of enforcing a patent against a private infringement case is rarely justified.

With regards to what is patented or patentable, once an idea is made public, it is no longer patentable. Earlier US law allowed one year from time of public notice to file a patent, but I am not sure if that year is still the law. Earlier law also used to grant patent for 17 years from time of filing to the first inventor, but new law grants a patent for 20 years from time of filing to the first to file, more in conformance with the rest of the world. Note that the typical time to get a patent from the filing date is about 3 years.

What is important to understand, is that if you want to do something that may otherwise be patentable but which someone else is already doing, then you cannot get a patent for it. That does not mean it is or is not already patented, just that the fact that it is in use publicly, means it is no longer newly patentable. However, if you have an improvement for the idea (that is novel, non-obvious, and useful), then the improvement may be patentable. However, if the improvement depends on a prior patent, the prior patent holder can still stop you from using your improvement, just as you can stop them from using your improvement. Such conflicts between patents and improvement on patents are typically resolved with cross-licensing agreements between the patent holders.

Hope at least some of this proves helpful.

Good stuff in the thread! BTW just for info... got a buddy that is 24 years as a patent attorney, and all of us would recognize a few of his clients if we lived in the USA... He says for $1M US he can bust most any patent. Just some food for thought. I am sure there is some "puffery" in that statement, but again, once in court any outcome is possible.

liveforphysics said:

Keep in mind all aspects of the human construction labeled "patent" do not exist outside the human delusion choosing to believe them real.

The legal system is equally real as folks playing world or warcraft or whatever, .

Click to expand...

From a philosophical standpoint, I understand where you are coming from. However, what you identify as a delusion, I would call the social contract. As humans we agree on a set of rules for interaction, commerce, violence, money, etc. That social contract can vary from country to country, and in some aspects from community to community.

When playing Monopoly, we have a social contract that establishes that Monopoly money and properties have a relative value. The dollar bills in my wallet have no magic, simple pieces of paper like Monopoly money, yet we can agree to trade a big enough stack of them for real estate with far more utility than a Monopoly property. Applying your argument to our legal system, there is nothing "real" or "physical" stopping you from stabbing someone, but the social contract we have entered into says you will be punished by losing your freedom, or life.

You can choose to ignore this system, but it will not ignore you - the only way to opt out is to leave, some remote private island, or outer space if you have acheived personal interstellar travel - wherever there isn't anyone else at all, as that would require a new social contract. Although at times it is unfair to everyone in some aspect, you can't accept some of the social contract (say owning a home, or expecting someone who stabs you to be punished) and reject the rest, by its very nature it can't be a-la-carte. If we could pick and choose, then someone could choose to reject the nonviolent part of our social contract, and stab you with impunity. So I would say the idea that one can reject the legal/patent part of the social contract is the delusion.

So if you can't reject the social contract, you have to change it. In my experience, at its heart humanity is a avaricious species, so I would say expecting to affect change on a wide enough scale to modify this aspect of the social contract is also a delusion.

The practical reality is that we are all owned by that social contract, through its physical manifestation, the government. You can change owners by going to a different country/government/social contract that you find more agreeable, but rejecting part of the social contract you are in has a feedback loop with consequences that are less desirable than accepting it in the first place.

-JD

Maybe Alan you can help me to understand if I can apply for patent in is starting from Italy.
As you said it can take 3 years to get a patent, and I m wondering why!!!
In case I apply for patent in Italy then I can ask to make this patent valid in us as well? So from where should I start?

doctor_t said:

Maybe Alan you can help me to understand if I can apply for patent in is starting from Italy.
As you said it can take 3 years to get a patent, and I m wondering why!!!
In case I apply for patent in Italy then I can ask to make this patent valid in us as well? So from where should I start?

Click to expand...

Dr t, that is way outside my knowledge. I believe it is typical for a European to file for a European patent that will cover the entire union, but you can apply for single country patent, and later ask for full euro-union coverage as well as fill anywhere else in the world. I also believe you have one year from getting a patent in one country to file for the same patent in any other countries. I think anyone can apply for the first country wherever they want. However, patent laws change, and the last I worked in the area (as a close observer, not an agent) was in the late '90s.

At least in the US, it can take months before a patent examiner will be assigned to your application and start work on it. More months may pass before the examiner replies to the applicant with their list of objections, which may include prior art, application errors, or other statutory errors that may make it un-patentable. This is called the prosecution phase of the application. Add more time for you or your patent agent or attorney to address each issue brought up, and this back and forth with the examiner can repeat a number of times, each adding months. If all goes well, you should get notice of patent pending, but it can take another year while the patent office finishes whatever it needs to do before the actual patent is issued. Start to finish could be under a year, but over 3 is more likely.

You should ask yourself why a patent is being pursued. I believe the three most common reasons are 1) to get rich from an invention, 2) to collect a really neat trophy, or 3) to protect or build a business dependent on some intellectual property that is otherwise too easy to copy. Number 1 is much akin to playing the lottery. Number 2 suggests you need the cheapest route to getting that very expensive trophy, but it is fine to be proud of your accomplishment and have the proof. Just note that US patents typically cost between $2K if you can do a lot of the patent search and other preliminary work yourself, and can easily go over $20K, including competent help with the required patent search, application drafting, filing fees, and prosecution. Number 3 is the real reason the patent system exists.

My recommendations for anyone seeking a patent are:

Make sure you understand why you want a patent. If it is reason 1, you probably should reconsider. If 2, then stay very frugal and don't worry about getting the patent to be broad or useful, you just want it granted. If it is reason 3, time is critical, as everything takes longer than you expect, and deadlines are easily missed.

Avoid any business who claims to be invention incubators who help turn inventions into patents and profits. Most just collect fees and help very few if any of their clients. The ones they do help end up loosing much of the value to these parasites. There may be exceptions, but I doubt it. I have no first hand experience, but this business model does not pass my stink test.

You can save money pursuing a patent with a registered patent agent (at least in the US), rather than with a patent attorney. You will need a patent attorney if you ever need to fight against someone infringing your patent, but that may only come much later! It is important that whoever you choose to help with a patent has significant experience pursuing patent in the technology area you are dealing with. Much of the cost involves a patent search, and a highly experienced agent will already be familiar with the field and will be able to greatly reduce the cost of the search. Similar efficiencies come into play when the application is drafted so as to minimize prosecutions costs later.

Finally, do not be surprised to find what a patent application says does not appear to really capture what you think your invention is. The figures may appear utterly simplistic and missing things you consider most important, or the claims may appear to be complete nonsensical drivel about tiny details that miss the point. It is you who will be missing the point of the patent. A good patent agent/attorney will distill out the critical elements that need protection and you have to trust that your sparkling jewels may include stuff that was left out (because those jewels are not patentable).

oatnet said:

liveforphysics said:

Keep in mind all aspects of the human construction labeled "patent" do not exist outside the human delusion choosing to believe them real.

The legal system is equally real as folks playing world or warcraft or whatever, .

Click to expand...

From a philosophical standpoint, I understand where you are coming from. However, what you identify as a delusion, I would call the social contract. As humans we agree on a set of rules for interaction, commerce, violence, money, etc. That social contract can vary from country to country, and in some aspects from community to community.

When playing Monopoly, we have a social contract that establishes that Monopoly money and properties have a relative value. The dollar bills in my wallet have no magic, simple pieces of paper like Monopoly money, yet we can agree to trade a big enough stack of them for real estate with far more utility than a Monopoly property. Applying your argument to our legal system, there is nothing "real" or "physical" stopping you from stabbing someone, but the social contract we have entered into says you will be punished by losing your freedom, or life.

You can choose to ignore this system, but it will not ignore you - the only way to opt out is to leave, some remote private island, or outer space if you have acheived personal interstellar travel - wherever there isn't anyone else at all, as that would require a new social contract. Although at times it is unfair to everyone in some aspect, you can't accept some of the social contract (say owning a home, or expecting someone who stabs you to be punished) and reject the rest, by its very nature it can't be a-la-carte. If we could pick and choose, then someone could choose to reject the nonviolent part of our social contract, and stab you with impunity. So I would say the idea that one can reject the legal/patent part of the social contract is the delusion.

So if you can't reject the social contract, you have to change it. In my experience, at its heart humanity is a avaricious species, so I would say expecting to affect change on a wide enough scale to modify this aspect of the social contract is also a delusion.

The practical reality is that we are all owned by that social contract, through its physical manifestation, the government. You can change owners by going to a different country/government/social contract that you find more agreeable, but rejecting part of the social contract you are in has a feedback loop with consequences that are less desirable than accepting it in the first place.

-JD

Click to expand...

Perpetuating the 'social contract' delusion is a cornerstone of all forms of population enslavement. What a twisted fantasy world Locke lived in to create such monstrous propaganda, and what an equally sharp state to ensure its mandatory indoctrination in schools to spread such dangerous nonsense.

Like yourself, I too once remember choosing to substitute this beautiful reality of Now for someone else's fantastic delusions. It doesn't make them real outside your own mind, reality remains free of such nonsense.

Each beings choices determine there actions exclusively, whatever beliefs in imaginary contracts and the dangerous delusion someone can own ideas will continue not to exist outside the minds of the individual choosing to delude themselves in whatever constructed fantasy of there choosing.

Ideas one chooses to keep internal in there mind alone remain in there own custody alone.
Whatever efforts one spends towards restricting an idea that has already been shared from the mind is inherently a goose chaseing scam with a legal system tax at every process. The moment any system (governments included) are stressed a bit, all the preposterous delusions like ideas having the ability to be property collapse back into the imaginations of corrupted minds to rot. This is inevitable.

If the content of your work is beneficial to all living beings, the work itself is more reward than even the most sucessful profiteering.

ATB,
-Luke