Show HN: Write a software patent in under 20 hours with no experience

Show HN: Write a software patent in under 20 hours with no experience(zerotopatent.teachable.com)

19 points by renwoshin 5 years ago | 6 comments

Looks great, not sure about the pricing. Maybe offer a 50 or 100 dollar package, and charge the full 499 for the ultra fine tuning secret sauce package? I'd understand if you don't want to dilute your content though. Maybe offer as a monthly/yearly subscription? This seems like a topic where regular updates and podcast style discussion could be valuable. Perhaps not to the extent of creating a community, but certainly to the extent of creating a regular audience.

renwoshin 5 years ago | |

Thanks for the comment. I'll definitely consider playing with the price and adding more general IP legal content that folks commonly have questions about.

mike_d 5 years ago |

The hard/expensive part is not writing a patent. You pay a knowledgeable lawyer to shepherd it through examination and defend it down the road.

renwoshin 5 years ago | |

I'd say the hardest part is writing a comprehensive patent. Defending it and amending the claims later down the road is easy if you have the base material to amend the claims with (i.e., material you wrote in your original patent).

Also, paying a top firm to write the patent is generally 50-70% of the cost of getting a patent allowed.

Litigation is a different matter entirely...

mrbreeze 5 years ago |

Good luck getting a software patent.

renwoshin 5 years ago | |

Perhaps you mean good luck getting a valuable software patent. You would be right - <5% of patents are used in litigation or licensing discussions. However, it oftentimes still makes sense to have a few patents if you're running a startup (I explain why in the free patent strategy course @ zerotopatent.com) without spending too much time or money getting them.

Regarding your larger point, I've written and prosecuted hundreds of patents, and 95%+ of them were allowed. And very few of these ideas are groundbreaking. It does speak to brokenness of the system, unfortunately, but these are the rules of the game until Congress changes the rules.