Patent/kydex design

[nikoknife48]

Looking for informtion on getting a patent for new kydex sheath design idea.
Thanks

 

[Kiah]

Looking for informtion on getting a patent for new kydex sheath design idea.
Thanks

You'd patent it like anything else I suppose. Bear in mind that most new ideas in sheath making have been done before even when the discoverer thinks otherwise. I'd advise to make sure this is actually a new idea before trying to patent it and dealing with legal issues or at least arguments of ownership if it's already in use.

If you're willing to trust me as far as your idea, you can e-mail me and I'll give you my input as far as whether I've personally seen it done. Either way, good luck in your search.

 

[Oku]

Niko,

I looked into getting a patent for a few things and found out the following.

• 3-5 years for approval if it happens
• $5-8K (The lower end if you do most of the work yourself)
• A 20% difference in product design is all that's required to "get around" a patent legally (and that really isn't much).

A friend in the nylon biz found out that for design, you may be better off with a trademark and even then, it's a bit "mushy".

Patents and trademarks are only good if you have the money and time to prosecute potential violators, and an international one (of course more money) is the only way to have a chance of stopping the rip-off artists overseas....again, only if you have 10's of thousands of dollars to back it up...

Mind you, all this comes into play only if it's truly original. I've been in the Kydex biz since the late 90's (working for Blade Tech Ind) and for the last 9 on my own. Not a whole lot hasn't been tried/tested. I found that it's far more cost effective to make your product distinctive and execute it well.

Even showing your ideas to folks carries risk. I have used non-disclosure/non-compete agreements (from both sides of the table) and again, those are really only worth the money you are willing to spend backing them up. They work great if the folks you are dealing with are essentially honest to begin with and the knife industry is (I know someone's gonna get mad)....not the safest place to play if you want to deal with the "big boys".

I know this all sounds kind of negative, but if you really look into it, protecting "intellectual property" is quite difficult, time consuming and expensive because of the number of ways it can be compromised.

The other side of the coin here though flies in the face of a good friend's advice "That's a super idea...don't show it to anyone!" If you don't get the idea out, it'll never be of any worth to you at all....

Best of luck!

 

[nikoknife48]

Thanks to both of you for your input. Idea has already been done.

 

[leatherman]

Now my curiosity has been raised, what was the idea if you dont mind that is.