My girlfriend first contacted Invention Home about an idea that we had. Jeff called her and told her to send information in on a confidential form so that a patent search could be done. They did send a packet with most of the prices (which were all ridiculous).
Jeff said that we had to spend $350 on a patent search that wouldn't even give us any guarantees that the product isn't out there. After doing some research I found out that you can do that on your own at www.google.com/patents for free. $350 for something i can type on my own in about 15 seconds? He told us once we get through that the next step would be to get a provisional patent. Jeff told us that we could get a provisional patent on pretty much anything, no matter what the results of the search were like. UUUHHH, well then once again why would we do a patent search?
After talking to someone who isn't a scam artist, we learned that a provisional patent doesn't even give you any protection unless you follow through with the full patent. So for the year that you have the provisional, somebody else could file a full patent at any time on the exact same idea.
When we asked him about their success rate he basically refused to answer the question. He kept telling stories about his own alleged success and that of their owner but he refused to give us the actual numbers. After talking to a different rep at the company and pressing for it we finally found out it was well under 1%. Jeff made it sound like we couldnt lose with their marketing system. What a joke.
Their website and packet look good but I'm glad we asked the tough questions.
Mark
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
U.S.A.
0 comments