You can take all your designs, pictures, drawings, photographs and fully written and unmistakable descriptions of inventions and put it all in a mailer envelope seal it and take it to the U S Post Office and send it back to yourself in a registered mail envelope (this will and can only be used in court forinfringementt if the seal on the registered mail envelope has never been tampered with and opened) when the postal carrier brings it and presents it to you you sign for it and that date on the post office proof of delivery serves as your date of idea origination. Take the registered mail unopened) and put it in a safer than safe place like a safe. Lock it in and forget about it. If in your need to produce your item you can get a contract written up by legalzoom.com called a letter of non compete or a non-disclosure agreement, which too should also protect your interests and be admissible in court if needed when going to subcontractors for their help in going retail. Most importantly: if you end up needing the registered mail envelope for a court appearance, the judge must be the only person to open the U S Post office registered mail encased documents first in order for them to use that proof of authenticity as admissible evidence in your case.
I suggest the first thing you do is to go to the library and find books on how to bring an invention through the patenting process and launching it to the market. ReadPatents and How to Get One : A Practical Handbook http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0��Protecting Your Ideas : The Inventor s Guide to Patents http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0��Patent It Yourself http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0��Patenting costs does not only involve the fees you need to pay USPTO. The total cost depends on how complicated your product is, and the fees the patent lawyer will charge you. It s not uncommon to hear of entrepreneurs spending upwards of $25,000 or even way more to get their products patented. It is NOT cheap -- patent lawyers are among the most expensive out there.You will need to:- research each and every aspect of your product to see if there are any patents out there covering the process or the product- write the detailed product information to describe what should be patented- provide technical detail, relevant drawings, useful background information, a listing of unexpected benefits and desirable advantages, and the relevant prior art for patent text purposesYou can do the whole patenting process yourself, but you first need to educate yourself how to properly do the entire process. Read the Patent It Yourself book.
