Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
How to sell ideas?
Otherwise, if your idea is valuable, most likely it'll be stolen.
Just imagine you are the buyer. To buy something you'd like to know what are you buying, right? But if you already know what this idea is all about, why should you pay for something you already know?
Of course much cheaper if you do it yourself (filing fee in the UK is around £750, not sure about the US).
You need to file in every country in which you want cover. For worldwide cover you'd be looking at several tens of thousands.
Talk to a Patent Attorney, or your local patent office, for more info.
TJ
patents can be really really expensive, especially if you are at it as an individual. You often have to pay yearly fees to keep them registered. You can file them yourselves and keep costs down, but it is recommended to go through an agency if your idea is serious and much profitable.
There is no real worldwide cover a friend of mine in the patent business says. As someone mentioned you need to file the patent in each country, in Europe it's streamlined a bit by using EPC (filed at EPO I think). The EPC patent application is valid in 27 european countries. You can also use something called PCT which works roughly the same way as EPC but also outside Europe.
Again patents are no easy business, but if you have a really good idea or profitable one it might be worth it.