How 20 Year Olds Managed to Patent Their Product, Band.it
If you’ve ever had an invention idea before, you probably received some advice along the way that included protecting your intellectual property (IP). Although the RDM team does not consist of attorneys, we have gone through the process of protecting IP several times with our clients. Today’s post will explain a bit about IP, and the process we went through with band.it to secure the proper IP protection for band.it.
Intellectual property is most common in the form of trademarks, design marks, and patents. There is a bit of a process that is required to lawfully secure ideas and make sure that no one else can steal them. First, it’s important to find out which types of IP are relevant - for brands, getting their brand identity (logos, artwork, slogans, etc.) protected is typically the way to go. For products, either software or hardware, filing an initial provisional patent application that will later be converted into a utility patent is the most common form of protection.
Example: Let’s say you are in the business of selling T-shirts. You have a unique logo and story, but you are not inventing a new product, using a new material, or creating a new method to produce the shirts. In order to prevent other businesses from selling your brand, you need to first own it. This requires an application for a design mark or word mark or both. Applications and searches for current marks can be done via visiting www.uspto.com in the United States.
For our product, band.it, a design mark for the logo was needed - but it didn’t stop there. It was apparent that protection in the form of a patent was going to be necessary for our ideal exit strategy. However, at the time of invention, the startup was on a tight budget. After research, it was clear that the team could not afford the $7,500-$15,000 for a full utility patent outright, so it opted for a Provisional Patent Application (PPA) until it had more capital to invest. This gave the team the ability to promote the product without fear of IP being stolen.
The PPA was a great way to secure the “date of invention”. For a nominal filing fee, a company or inventor can submit their application for their idea and have a full year to convert their PPA into a utility patent. The great thing about converting directly from a PPA to utility patent is that the “date of invention” is transferred.
Once the band.it product had more momentum, the team turned to the professional patent attorney office of Saliwanchik Lloyd & Eisenschenk in order to convert from the PPA to a utility patent. This was the longest and most expensive part, but two years after submitting the application, US. Pat. No. 9952483 was issued.
By obtaining a patent for band.it, RDM has successfully been able to protect our product idea ensuring it will not be stolen or knocked off. This experience has given us the confidence to help our with the process of protecting their intellectual property by providing the technical elements such as drawings for patents and brand portfolios for trademarks and design marks.