Loss of patent eligibility

[VZM]

Hi, I was doing some useful youtube-watching about patents and stuff, when this one guy mentions that you loose eligibility for a patent if you make a public disclosure of your idea. Well shit... I had a great idea of making a prototype, having a photographer take pictures of it for me, code up a website with a "buy" button and a price, and run some google ads with the pictures. Then I could see how many people click the buy button to gauge how much I could sell and if it was worth pushing ahead or dumping the idea for another one. Then if I get enough interested customers I could file a patent and start selling... Or so I thought. As soon as those google ads are out, there won't be a chance to patent it. My question is are there any workarounds, should i dump the idea of trying to get a patent (not 100% chance I would get it), or try something else?

The real tricky issue for me is that I don't really know who would buy my stuff. When thinking of ideas I thought of problems that almost all people have (at least in north america) so I could target a massive variety of people. With this came the issue of not knowing who would be the prevalent buyer. I was hoping to solve that with the ads, and with feedback from them as to what demographic clicks on them the most I could tailor future ads and the product itself. Both the patent and the ad-based research have their strengths, but it seems like I have to dump one. Curios what the thoughts are regarding to which way you would go and why.

thanks!

 

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[Johnny boy]

Maybe if an omnipotent and all seeing god was the guy sitting in the patent office that gets paid 70k a year and puts a stamp on papers coming across his desk. Then you would have to choose.

It probably isn’t an omnipotent god though…

It’s probably a guy named Jeffrey.

Jeffrey has never seen your ads, he doesn’t even know what your shit really does, he just checks it over and throws a stamp on it.

“Bbbuut bbut it said I lose my eligibility on the YouTube video”

I’m sure there’s a rule that says that. I’m also sure that nobody is going to have any evidence that you ever advertised at all. And I’m sure the patent office isn’t going to subpoena Google to download your AdWords account to review your ads to check.

This is 100% what I think of whenever I see posts like this talking about dilemmas or obstacles.

 

[VZM]

Maybe if an omnipotent and all seeing god was the guy sitting in the patent office that gets paid 70k a year and puts a stamp on papers coming across his desk. Then you would have to choose.

It probably isn’t an omnipotent god though…

It’s probably a guy named Jeffrey.

Jeffrey has never seen your ads, he doesn’t even know what your shit really does, he just checks it over and throws a stamp on it.

“Bbbuut bbut it said I lose my eligibility on the YouTube video”

I’m sure there’s a rule that says that. I’m also sure that nobody is going to have any evidence that you ever advertised at all. And I’m sure the patent office isn’t going to subpoena Google to download your AdWords account to review your ads to check.

This is 100% what I think of whenever I see posts like this talking about dilemmas or obstacles.

View attachment 51829

Thanks! this is the answer I was looking for. I don't really have much experience with this stuff, so all I could go by was "official rules" without knowing how it actually kinda goes. I guess I will continue on as originally planned!