por Andrew Carmichael hace 15 años
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You have all seen the part on Dragons Den where the investor asks the inventor how big the market for their invention is and the inventor says that the world market for brooms (for example) is ### squillion and he hopes to capture 1% of that market which would be # squillion and therefore his company is worth ##### squillion £ - and they cannot understand why they get laughed at!
If only the world were so simple
This will take you to a separate map that lists more resouces available that will help you with this quaetions
There are a great many skilled, qualified and decent intellectual property professionals, >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> BUT - there are a pernicious breed of service providers who ..........
This has to be the first question to ask, if someone else has had the idea before and it is in the public domain, even if they have not protected it, produced it or marketed it, then you will never be able to protect your idea so you will never be able to recoup any investment in money or time that you make.
Its not always a signal to give up, many people use the discovery that an idea has been thought of before as a stimulus to innovate futher.
But you should at least conduct your own searches before you proceed. The two standard ways to start are;
1) Search the catalogues of exisiting manufactures
2) Search one of the online patent indexes
3) Search the internet
Record what you have found and record anything that is near or in the same classification.
Basically if you cannot protect your intellectual property (IP) that embodies your idea then there is not much point in pursuing it. It will never have any commercial value as IP - that is not to say that you should not develop it or market it but you will never be able to stop anyone else using your idea and competing with you. There are many successful business that have capitalised on a so called "First-mover advantage" situation, see wiki link. But that route requires a different business strategy and it is unlikely to ever create the sort of long term financial value that a properly protected idea can.
Secondly there is not always a black and white definitive answer to this question, a clever IP lawyer can often find an aspect of an idea that can be protected that the layman would not have thought of - but you need to do your own assessment first.