My husband wanted to patent an idea. Saw a TV commercial for InventorsHelpline.com & filled out the online form for a free Patent Kit. Salesperson from Patent & Trademark Institute called about getting us signed up for a Product Report to see how marketable his idea was. We sent $895 for the report.
Report came back to us in a few weeks in a fancy faux leather binder. It had a lot of fancy words, graphs, diagrams, pictures, etc. Looked ligit. Report also included a packet of info on what types of patents to apply for, out-of-pocket expences, & services included.
We chose US patent only, included all future costs for patent attorney, trade shows, etc. We sent another $9975.
Contacted a few weeks later by Internation Patent Advisors, a group of Patent Attorneys & assistants. They did research on our patent finding similar inventions & advised us to ammend our original patent application to higher cost one. We sent a letter arguing the comparable examples were nowhere near what he designed. They apparently dropped it.
Another few weeks we received a letter apparently from the US Patent & Trademark Office stating the application was submitted & the idea protected under "Patent Pending".
A few more weeks later we got packets from United Licensing Corporation telling us they were in charge of taking the actual idea to the trade shows. We've heard nothing since. Tried to track down someone & got virtually nothing. Found references to the Contempt case against PTI & all entities by the FTC. Did research & found FTC's info "hotline" 202-326-2926
So far it looks like all they did was steal our money. We haven't found any reference to his idea on the uspto. Gov website. We'll need to investigate futher.
We're out almost $11,000 & apparently got nothing in return.
0 comments