Re: Patents & protection

[P3D Ronald J Beck 840196 <rbeck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I would recommend going to the Post Office to have them stamp any 
documents you have with their cancellation stamp.  This will assure that 
your documents were date stamped, not the envelope you used to (allegedly) 
mail them to yourself.

Another recommendation would be to use a "lab book" to record any ideas 
you may want to later patent.  This is one of those stitched up notebooks 
(not a spiral bound one) with the pages sequentially numbered.  This is 
just another precaution that will help prove your thought process and your 
designs.  These type of books are very hard to forge or modify.

Again, get your _WORK_ stamped, not just an envelope.

Ron

photo-3d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx said:
> e mail it to yourself thing isn't for protect, as such, it's for 
> establishment of the idea's date later on in court cases and such.  
> For who-gets-the-patent first, it's "who files first".  But in a 
> court challange, the date setting  with the envelope might be useful. 
>  Similar to having dual-signed bound notebooks in some engineering 
> environments.  It's a form of "patent disclosure" for invention-date 
> setting.  Nothing directly to do with getting protection, but 
> particularly useful if somebody else gets a patent on it and *you* 
> get sued for using the idea.  If you can prove you had the idea early 
> enough, you can protect yourself.



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