may be as mad as some of wolfies ideas

Is this "The Joey"?

Tell him to forget the patent and just get to market - for normal people (ie. people without millions of dollars to pay legal costs) patents are often next to useless and merely slow down time-to-market and tell the Chinese exactly how to manufacture your invention - additionally I doubt he would obtain a Full Patent on such a device??? But who knows with the Patent Office?

Mike Harding

G'day Mike, he keeps refering to it as "Wheel Winch", not aware of any other names... Discussion has been entered into re: patent or no patent, he wants to market it overseas so a patent is apparently required... I know nothing about patenting so I can't offer an opinion.
Blue

I must concur with Mike Hardings comment.

As the rightful owner of a now expired provisional patent, and also a registered design, the one thing I found, is that the only people guaranteed to make money, are the patent attorneys.

As it seems evident that this idea has a history, it is highly unlikely that a novel approach, which is what is required to secure a patent, is not going to be forthcoming.

I am not an attorney, but it would seem pretty evident to me that the idea of capstans etc, are old hat.

Sorry to sound like I'm raining on someone's parade, and if your friend manages to patent his design, and earn money, then I am more than pleased.... really. It's a long haul doing this stuff, and a lot of the people you ask along the way, just always seem to be giving you the thumbs up, which is good for motivation, but bad for business.

I sincerely wish all involved prosperity, but please, err on the side of common sense.

Wolfie

He has a history of throwing good money after bad, he also has a history of having enough money to do so without suffering any real setbacks... When I was told that almost $120k had been outlayed between the patent office, sourcing materials, technical drawings, failed prototypes and the final prototype... In a really loud voice i said a word which begins with "F" and rhymes with "TRUCKINGHELL", then just for fun I said it again... He didn't even bat an eyelid, I felt sick...

AH Wolfie - you are going to get a laugh outta this - Guess who has all the Joeys???

Blue - I think I heard from your mate last - figured he was producing something of his own.

See my reply below (No 8)

cheers

interesting comments Mike and Ian, so if one has a good idea they may want to take to market , and its not worth doing the patent merrygoround, do you copy right the product to get some protection or just take your chances ?

I have no idea of this stuff, but am interested in the best way to go about it.

Any ideas or hints would be fantastic, thanks all
Brad

>interesting comments Mike and Ian, so if one has a good
>idea they may want to take to market , and its not worth
>doing the patent merrygoround, do you copy right the
>product to get some protection or just take your chances ?

This is always a difficult one. Copyright only applies to intellectual things – books, photographs, circuit diagrams etc. You cannot copyright your automatic hair cutting machine but you automatically own the copyright of the design drawings you did in order to make it. The trouble with (full) patents is they’re expensive – basically you have to get a separate patent in each country (is there a full European patent yet?) and you only have one year from the grant of your Oz patent to do that otherwise your invention becomes public domain in all the other countries who are signatories to the Patent Treaty ie. all the Western World. As soon as your patent is accepted it is published both in Oz and (soon after) in all the other countries mentioned above and a lot of people make a living from examining new patents to see how they can profit from them. So you may find that 6 months after you have started marketing your automatic hair cutter in Oz; Acme Product$ International has just hit the USA market with “their” automatic hair cutter and it’s better and cheaper than yours! But surprisingly similar as far as the really clever bits of the design go! What are you going to do? Acme are worth $$$$99999999999.00 – are you really going to try and mount an international action against them – they’ll bankrupt you and the stress will probably kill you beforehand anyway.

There is a new simple patent available in Oz now (Innovation Patent ) which may have some merit in particular cases – but I’m unconvinced. Incidentally a detractor of this new system successfully obtained a patent under it for the wheel (that’s correct – wheel :) shortly after it was introduced a couple of years ago.

IMO patents are for the multinationals and the like – ie. people with big resources behind them – not the little man. I’ll be putting a couple of new products to market over the next year or so and I’ll just quietly launch them in the appropriate quarter.

http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/
http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/patents/what_innovation.shtml

It’s a while since I looked at this stuff so the above may not be 100% and I’d welcome corrections but this is not really the forum to discuss it at any length.

Mike Harding

mike_harding@fastmail.fm

I have no idea of this stuff, but am interested in the best way to go about it.

Any ideas or hints would be fantastic, thanks all

Brad, this is a little like asking a Doctor, on the internet, medical stuff.......... he won't tell you.

The scope of your question far belies my experience to answer it correctly.

Lots of people have done very well through the Patent system, others have fared not so well.

What ever you do, remember this.........

A patent IS NOT PROTECTION!! It is simply a piece of paper allowing you a long drawn out court battle.

If you're flush with dollars, go for it.

Wolfie

Thanks guys, it answers a lot of questions i had, seems that us little guys are better off just treading quietly if you know what i mean. I've given too much to lawyers so far so the less the better.

thanks again, Brad

goodday wolfie
what do you call a sand ladder i carry 6 pieces of steel cut out of walk way mesh not sure what to call it but i hope it works if needed havent had to use it in anger yet

steve

Bridging ladders are not popular either .

The traditional "Sahara" style of sand ladder made out of perferated steel may be relatively difficult to carry unless in a convoy. (space and weight). There are much lighter materials such as carpet etc that will aid traction. Some plastic ones are flogged at the 4wd shops.
I've tried a few types and can tell you that they're not all that easy to recover when you're out of the poo. Having to stop and recover them when climbing a dune isn't great either. Personally I'd rather use a bullbag and dig myself out.
Mind you there's nothing like having something around to throw under the wheels when bogged, but unless its mud (yukky stuff) I haven't really needed anything.

Hello Willem,
You've brought back memories, the good old Toyota PTO winch.
Had 2 Landcruisers fitted with them at different stages. As long as you kept the engine running you could winch for weeks.
As you stated, darn hard to operate on your own. Once mastered, never forgotten.

Geoff.

Yes, you can shift a heavy load with this but only for a rather short distance. You then have to somehow stop the winching pole from turning back while you place something behind the wheels to stop the vehicle losing all that hard sweated distance you just gained.
Then you have to carefully unwind the windlass, re-set the ropes stretched taut and start winding all over again.

If one is *really* desperate and only has a long rope at hand, it may be a way out. I would prefer the non stretch ropes as used on sailboats - sisal is yesterday's stuff :-)
Klaus

I will have to remember that method. WOW, I knew there was more to learn on this website 8-)

Sparkie(IE not Y) ;-)