I agree 100%. Also as an owner of a patent the only one that made money on my patent was the government and the lawyer. Yes it's easy ti invent, east to get a patent, but then the hard work starts. The greatest idea in the world isn't worth the paper it's written on unless someone is buying it. Then once they buy it you have the fear of someone suing you because they decided to shove it down their throat and it's YOU FAULT.
I don't want to burst any ones bubble, but reality bites when it comes yo patents and inventions.
It would be interesting to know what you patented.
I have three patents. After the first one I decided that would never happen again. The patent lawyer came out of the yellow pages and was a total flake. Heck, he came to me for funds after his artist blew the drawings like it was my fault.
The next two came about because a client with twenty some plant patents paid for his patent attorney to chase the patent for a percentage. Once again, patent attorney was a flake. Partner walked after his attorney said we would never get a patent. I went with a patent attorney that worked with a friend at a major law firm in Dallas. She made it happen. Well, her efforts and the new attitude at the Patent Office made it happen. The original rejection insisted that we apply for two patents because we had too many claims for one. So that is what we did.
We got the first one. She called me to tell me that something had happened that she had never experienced before. An examiner called her and asked her some questions and then said it would be approved. She said the policy at the Patent Office always before was to reject and then it was up to the attorney to figure out why.
The first reason for denying the second patent application was "Chin teaches". That's patentnese for "someone already had patented that". Well Chin is out of Taiwan and his patent was on the mechanism that makes those soccer mom folding chairs fit into the fabric tubes. Mine was on a mechanism for building with pipe and purlins. I saw that as saying we couldn't patent pecans as nuts because someone had a patent on mountain oysters. Well, the last chance to appeal came up and the final word on it was "Chin teaches".
I grabbed the paper copy of the application and then pulled up Chin's patent online. What I saw blew me away. It was like my attorneys had plagiarized Chin's attorney. Completely different concepts, same words and phrases. I sat down and explained to the patent attorney why we were different from Chin and six weeks later we got the patent issued. Two teams of attorneys and it took a high school dropout to wade in and get it straightened out.
I haven't made any money off of the previous patents. The first one is still being manufactured and marketed by a friend and for that's fine. He doesn't make much and he is a good friend so that's okay. The last two I'm having trouble marketing. But this year I will pay a grand for maintenance to keep the last one current, it was a grand late last year for the first of the pair. I still believe it's a great concept and will some day make money.
I happen to believe that the DeMudder is the second best idea I've ever had. The best idea I made open source. That's Ubuntublox. What I've discovered there is that philanthropy attracts the kind of people who are preachers or want to be preachers. It's all about the show. Motion without movement is the best way I've heard it described. We designed it for the masses and the original machines ended up being used for fund raising and only fund raising. My intention was to get it out into the communities to create jobs and homes and instead it is like those ads you see on tv late at night where they get you with the pictures of the orphans. I have designed a machine now that can do the block making easier and faster and it can be made with dismantled wood pallets. Others are now in charge of Ubuntublox and I'm a technical consultant.
The odds are against the inventor for sure. And that might be fair when you think about it. It wouldn't be right if someone experienced the high of inventing and also experienced great wealth. We invent because we can, think of sky diving. My inventions always have involved making work easier. I'm proud of that.