In the process of designing a new pad

[darien.30]

pics of design?

[¿Que?]

The only idea re: youth gear any company wants to hear is Chinpokomon marketing
(See South Park)

[greatsave31]

I do watch south park hahaha nicely done.

as for pics of my design, I have to find a scanner and I would have to fully explain the design theory, as my head is a strange place and most (not even goalies) can fully understand the strange oddities in my head hahaha,

give me sometime and I'll get something up here.

[Twitch]

Originally Posted by influenza

Poor man's Patent.

Write the information out in complete detail, dating signing, etc.

Seal it in an envelope, then put it in a registered mail envelope, and mail it to yourself. The post office time, and date stamps the envelope. Never open that envelope until such a time comes when someone rips off your idea. It proves you came up with the idea in the first place.

It's worked in the past, it doesn't ALWAYS work. Patent's are also easily beaten, but minor adjustments in the idea. So remember to put as much detail as possible in the paperwork.

i could be wrong, but i think this only works as a copyright for things like music and literature..

[ScottBattram]

The major manufacturers only interest in youth gear is getting something that looks good, lasts about 1 - 2 seasons and costs them next to nothing to bring in from Asia. This is why you see disposable pads for youth goalies selling for 150 - 300 dollars and the gloves even less. Chances are the cost of the gear landed is less than half the retail cost, so unless the idea you have for the youth pad is really really amazing, I doubt anyone in the position to pay you for the idea, if it involves complex manufacturing, forget it... they want this stuff made as fast and cheaply as possible. Youth gear really isnt a big money maker for any company, especially if its made in North America, but I dont think you will find much of that anymore, possibly BROWN still does some youth stuff. It takes similar amounts of time to make youth gear as it does adult gear.

[obie35]

Originally Posted by greatsave31

hahahaha wow ok... nevermind on the patent idea. I'll just get it noterized or something official... hahaha wow. ok well i definitly appreciate the heads up on that. Anyway is anyone interested in helping out with the idea?

admanimal and goalie33fan: thank you very much for that info.

Don't be afraid of patenting. Embrace it. Just make sure you have idea you think is worth it, then go for it. Have your attorny run a search for the idea, if they turn up anything they think could infringe, they will tell you if its even worth it. that process is around 600 bucks.

After that you move from their. Just remember, if you don't patent it, you will be left standing there thinking..wtf. But if you do, even if it is a broad patent you need to do it. Even if you put 10k into it, if a large company needs the idea, im sure they will gladly pay you 10 fold whatever you put into it.

[obie35]

Originally Posted by Twitch

i could be wrong, but i think this only works as a copyright for things like music and literature..

No, i think what he is getting at is what is known as "prior art" meaning if you can prove with date, that you had the idea first, and put it out there, then you can declaim their patent.

Also, patents do not take 20 years to finalize. They do take a long time to go from application, to filed application, to actual patented product. Then the window is roughly 14 years for you to have that patent. After that everyone can copy it legally without any changes.

If you can get copies of your idea, don't post it here first, take it to a public notary and have it notarized. This will give you proof of dating. Best of luck with it!

[habs-fan]

Prior art involves actual product. If it's never been in producton, they can claim simoultaneous discovery. or obvious goal, as in the idea was obvious and there are only a limited number of ways to get there.

[obie35]

Originally Posted by habs-fan

Prior art involves actual product. If it's never been in producton, they can claim simoultaneous discovery. or obvious goal, as in the idea was obvious and there are only a limited number of ways to get there.

Technically...its a bit of a grey area. If even all you have is a flyer with the product for "sale" or a "panflet" that would count as well. I believe.. in my experience anyways.

[old G]

Someone once told me you could proof date an idea by mailing it to yourseft registered mail and then never open the envelope until it was needed to be defended.
Could that actually work?

Sorry. The answer was given in a prior post. I missed it.

[reidman17]

See Top of page

[habs-fan]

Originally Posted by old G

Someone once told me you could proof date an idea by mailing it to yourseft registered mail and then never open the envelope until it was needed to be defended.
Could that actually work?

Sorry. The answer was given in a prior post. I missed it.

But it's largely unenforcable. Unless you have a provable untampered voice recording of a meeting after that date where you pitch the idea and then the company comes up with the solution, they can always claim 'obvious solution'. The beauty of a patent is that it is in the public record. It's the proof that you thought about it and made sure everybody knew that you had thought about it.

Take the sliding toe bridge that Smith uses. If Pete wanted to sue a company using it, he'd have a case under 'prior art'. But if he had just designed it, and mailed the design to himself and then RBK came up with a sliding toe bridge, Pete's 'patent' would not stand up because RBK couls easily claim that the sliding toe bridge is an 'obvious' resolution to the problem of moving the toe of the skate.

A lot of the cases between Apple and Microsoft around the graphical interface and the mouse revolved around 'obvious solution'. There was 'prior art' involved with Xerox PARC, but 'obvious solution' came into play as well.

[chrisco]

You can do your own patent searches here:

Patent Full-Text and Full-Page Image Databases

Type in "goalie pad" and click on "Search".

There won't be a lot of direct results, but if you start clicking on some of the references at the bottom of the page, you'll come across hundreds of links to many other patents. You'll be surprised at what some people have come up with.

[greatsave31]

Chrisco, thank you very much. I have already spent countless number of hours on this website and a bunch of other websites that have patents listed on them. I couldn't find anything that had to do with my idea.

[greatsave31]

Ok so I basically took the first steps to making something happen with my pad design. I sent an e-mail to Nike Bauer, simply because they are my favorite company. Much to my surprise they responded with an e-mail just giving me guidelines about how I need to submit ideas and so on... One of the interesting things I found was something in the guidelines. That NBH, if I'm reading it correctly does not have to compensate anyone for their idea/design. I find this pretty shocking and I'm just curious if anyone knows of any other company that does similar practice. If it's the same case with all companies I may just scrap the idea all together and wait until I can open my own proshop... try to make the pad myself. Anyways just thought that was interesting.


~Ken