Thinkplace - Facilitating Innovation
For a company the size if IBM, innovation is everything. Dell recognized the need to be more transparent in its product offerings, and IBM is following suit.
Thinkplace, ‘a web application for facilitating innovation through idea generation, collaboration, and refinement,’ appears to be on the right track. What Thinkplace does is provide a place for sharing, refining, and recognizing ideas. Any employee or member of the public can look around, post ideas, vote on them, and so on.
It is recommended to keep sensitive information to yourself though. There is no way of protecting a patent if it is out there in the open, although this can be challenged depending on your preparedness.
For more information, feel free to check out the alphaworks website.
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Okay, I give up. What did you intend to say with “There is no way of protecting a patent if it is out there in the open, although this can be challenged depending on your preparedness.”?
A patent is always in the open; that is its purpose. An untimely public disclosure of otherwise patentable IP will jeopardize efforts to secure patent protection, but until the patent is issued, there is no patent to protect. Please help me understand what sense I am to make of your statement.
I am no lawyer, so one should be consulted if there is ever an issue.
In the patent I am filing for currently, I documented every step of the process, and then had the notebook notarized. From what I have been told, this is enough to establish me as being the originator of the idea in case two or more people file for patents at the same time.
I could be all wet, but I have heard this from three patent lawyers in my area.
Also, you have one year from offering the finished product for sale to get a patent, and the protections are levied from the time the patent is filed for, “hence - Patent Pending.” You can further extend that time period if you document the process as you go, and have the notebook notarized.