The president of the company who was rounded up in '97 in "Operation Mousetrap" along with others for bilking people out of over 90 Million Dollars with their Invention Scams seems to be doing the same thing and getting away with it.
What he does is send you a kit and you fill out a form and send the form in with a drawing of your invention. And he tells you to send a letter to yourself so nobody will steal your idea.
After he receives it he has a salesperson call and begin the process of stealing your money.
The salesperson tells you that you have a great idea and that they pay for the patent attorney and will represent you at tradeshows and they do this because they are sure that they will get their money back when your invention goes to market.
But to be sure thay have to do a Patent search and a Marketability rating first and the salesperson tells you that they are sure your idea will get a high rating and the salesperson will give you a scenario of how you will make money if you product was in just 10,000 stores and it will sound good.
The salesperson tells you that you will sign an agreement with a company for at least a 7 year period or 10 or up to 15 years and that they have to pay you "Up Front" for that period of time. Which the salesperson tells you that you can "Retire on that money".
The salesperson will then tell you that it costs $795.00 to do the search and rating.
After you send the $795.00 to them they send you a New Product Portfolio which is a Pre-Scripted document that describes an invention with the name of your invention inserted in various spots throughout this protfolio. You also get a high rating of your invention and a chart that shows you how your invention rated. This portfolio has a thick paper cover and paper glued in it to form an attractive but very cheap book. Only worth a dollar maybe.
The salesperson will then call you and begin the next phase of stealing your money.
The salesperson will call you and tell you that he want's to get your invention in the next trade show so you can "huppy up" and get your idea to market.
But in order to do this he will need "Half" of the money for the contact you make with them and that you have to sign the contract.
He will talk you out the lowest price on the contract saying that it doesn't protect your idea an that the higher price will protect you.
You send them $2,487.50 and if you don't send the rest within a few weeks the salesperson will then call you back and say "You need to send the other half because it is Holding You Back and they can't continue without sending the rest"
You then send the rest which now makes the total so far $4,975.00 this does not include the $795.00
What they do at this point is send a document that has very little information on it to the USPTO along with your drawing and the USPTO charges a $10.00 fee.
They tell you this document will protect you but don't tell you that it only costs $10.00 you find this out because the USPTO sends you a reciept.
Out of your $4,975.00 they have only used the $10.00 and have made a profit of $4,985.00 for sending a document and this is the only document they send. They have a patent lawyer send it so it seems legit.
After they recieve the money months will go by and you will recieve a pre-scripted letter with a company name that they claim was at a trade show that was held 3 months or more prior to receiving the letter that was interested in your idea but they do not tell you the name of the person at the trade show they only refer to this person as "he" and "him".
They also tell you they will promote your invention at trade shows all over the world when you will get only interested companies from a Las Vegas, Nevada show. They may just get these names from the trade show website. These companies will think you got their name from the website. They will toss the letter you sent in the trash. You pay the postage and have to write the letters yourself. PTI does nothing!!!
You then send this company the agreement that PTI tells you to send and you never hear from that company. When you tell PTI they tell you that these things take alot of time.
After 10 months go by the you will get a letter from an attorney saying that your application will become abandoned and you will lose your rights if you don't take a course of action.
The salesperson will then call you and tell you that he will need $6,200.00 more to upgrade you so that you will not lose you rights to a patent.
These people are not doing anything for you but taking your money and pocketing it, knowing that if they get you a patent that it will be worthless.
I also believe they violate the AIPA (American Inventor Protection Act) of 1999, they do violate it.
Also the President of the PTI misleads you about he past. He leaves out the fact that he was involved with a company that was part of "Operation Mousetrap"
This company and it's president are knowingly misleading people into thinking they will be successful with their idea and will make money when infact they know that you will not be.
This company and it president are stealing money from people under the blanket of a business and need to be stopped. This is fraud.
I am out nearly $6,000.00
If you ask for a refund they will tell you that it takes a 2 month review and you will never hear from them again. This happened to myself.
If you refuse to send them more money you will not hear from them again.
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