Practivations

  By Brad Griffin, VP/Product Development, Practicon, Inc.   In a series of articles, I’d like to recall and share some of my experiences as a dental product developer since 1987 and some basics about how our own product development process works at Practicon, Inc. Free advice is worth the cost, but maybe something herein will help someone who is equally excited about an idea for a better “mouth” trap.   For this article, the terms “owner” and “inventor” will be used interchangeably, though an inventor may “assign” or sell the patent rights to a third party (i.e. owner) if he/she so chooses. Further, the term inventor may refer to one or more persons responsible for the invention.   Once a new idea enters our product development process at Practicon, one of the first “filters” for it to pass through is the IP (Intellectual Property) filter. What is the status of the IP beyond the NDA, if any? Is the idea original and/or protected? Would protection be important?...

  By Brad Griffin, VP/Product Development, Practicon, Inc. In a series of articles, I’d like to recall and share some of my experiences as a dental product developer since 1987 and some basics about how our own product development process works at Practicon, Inc. Free advice is worth the cost, but maybe something herein will help someone who is equally excited about an idea for a better “mouth” trap. In the first half of this article on the decision to pursue a patent, we discussed whether a new idea was free and clear of any infringement or prior art, and if a new idea worked from a patentability standpoint.  Based on whether we got the green light on questions 1 and 2, we can move on to calculate an answer to the third and final question regarding whether to seek a patent or not: Is a patent worth the cost? Let me repeat that whether an inventor chooses to patent his/her idea is up to the inventor and whatever legal counsel he/she has chosen. In answering this question...