So say I wanted to sell something...

I don't know about patents, but you will certainly want to learn the appropriate income tax requirements and keep track of all expenses.

Your most important, primary, and unadulterated focus of every living fiber in your being, should be creating immunity from lawsuit for yourself.

I have takken a 'lot of lumps' with startup companies. If liability is an issue at all, you would be much better off selling the idea to an existing company (after they sign an aggreement to not steal your idea).

Or, apply for a patent. You may not get one, but it blocks anyone else but you from ever getting one due to your 'prior art'. You can bargain with this. Have the company pay for the patent in exchange for exclusive rights and royalty payments back to you.

Doing any of this is not easy -- been there. Most people think that with a 'good idea' you can 'make a million bucks'. Its more like you need the million just to launch a new product.

Anyway, good luck to you, Luhan (you can tell the pioneers by the arrows in their back) Monat

Probably true. Just wait until some idiot with metal teeth fillings leans too close to see it working. Or someone with a wedding ring decides to handle the coil with the power on.

Dirk

Or a machine shop worker with microscopic filings in his eyes...

"Fred Bloggs" a écrit dans le message de news: snipped-for-privacy@nospam.com...

Or more obviously with devices involving such a power, an overlooked design point or simply some sloopy wiring/soldering that make it catch fire, burn the house and the neibourgh's house too.

I'm not concerned about patents, I could probably get one (the way the USPTO is going these days), but it would just be a restatement of other prior art, that also happens to be patented! It's not an improvement or anything, it's just my solution to the problem of inductively heating metals.

And because this stuff is patented, can I build and sell it?

As for liability, can't I just write up a license/waiver saying, in essence, "this thing is dangerous and may catch on fire or burn you or explode without warning", to say that, when you bought this, you agreed to the risks involved wiht use?

Tim

There is nothing wrong with it, but likely there won't be much profit in it after all costs, including insurance. Would not hurt too much to try it.

Probably not -- that's what patents are for!

This is based on my knowledge of UK company law, it may be different where you are: Start a company. In the UK this only costs a couple of hundred pounds. Then if the something hits the fan (in the form of a lawsuit), the most you risk losing is the company and its assets (assuming you don't do something criminal, of course). If it's you personally selling the stuff you can lose your house, your car, your life savings...

Some liabilities you can disclaim away, but some you can't. A company lets you limit your personal financial liability to what you've invested in the company. Companies may also qualify for tax breaks, grants, and other benefits you wouldn't get as an individual.

Depends exactly what you're selling! I think induction heating itself has been around long enough that any patents on the basics will have expired by now. If you can find the technology you're selling in expired patents you're in the clear. If there's doubt you need a patent lawyer.

IANAL

Proper legal advice is essential, and needn't be wildly expensive.

Tim

I'd ask my lawyer to look in the direction "This is a component, not a finished product."

IANAL

Thomas

So let him sell the kits. If I'm not mistaken, that's how Heathkit got around the RCA patent on vacuum tubes used in test equipment back in the

Jim

I think you are already getting the idea, but just in case it hasn't sunk in:

Form a company! Don't do this as an individual because the liability will ruin your life!

As far as patents go, if you are infringing a patent, then you are infringing regardless of whether you are a company or an individual.

Then again, I am not a lawyer. ;-)

There are books about this stuff (business and liability), so you can self-educate a bit before talking to a lawyer.

Good luck!

--Mac

It is incorrect to say that just because he formed a company, he would be not held personally liable if a device designed by him, made by him and sold by him, is defective or lacks safety features and causes injury to its users.

It is not true and the doctrine of going after the true owner is called "piercing the corporate veil".

I would not let fear of liability shoot down his idea, he can simply find out how much insurance would cost him, he may be pleasantly surprised. A lot of people form businesses and introduce new products every day.

AFAIK, you're welcome to build things privately, it's selling them, like for profit, especially as a company, that potentially infringes the patent.

Besides, it'd take a hell of a police state to enforce private infringement like that. Not to mention no technological progress would ever be made again, which is kind of a catch-22 in action there.

Tim

false.

absolutely.

Aside from the good comments you've gotten already, make sure you price your offerings high enough. A lot of people who have not been involved in a actually running a business think they can work on very low margins, then get into it and realize that they cannot and have to greatly increase their prices in order to pay for documentation, customer support (even when the customer has screwed up royally you may have to cover them to some extent) and all the other little (and not-so-little) costs of doing business.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

On Mon, 22 May 2006 02:57:10 GMT, Mac wrote in Msg.

It's hard to believe that selling a handful of electronics parts together with publicly available information could possibly be seen as patent infringement.

Me neither, thank God!

robert