Can I Patent Ideas?

Ideas are just thoughts and if it is permitted that for people to patent ideas, the only thing patented would be ideas with not tangible form at all, which certainly is not an acceptable position.

Therefore, idea only in the form of thoughts is not patentable. Patent protection is available only to such ideas that have some concrete form or the other. After all, all products begin as ideas. But if only ideas were patentable, the daydreamers would get rich for having done nothing.

If you conceive of a design for something, that design may be patentable but only when it is used on a product or is ready to applied to it. For instance, design of a bottle is patentable and can be patented if a bottle can be shown to be made on that particular design. So long as the design remains on paper or in the form of sketches, it is a design but still not patentable because it has to appear on a product to satisfy the requirements.

If you want a patent for your product, your inventions must be distinctive enough to stand out among the other like inventions and should not appear to be one of any of the already patented inventions or an improvement on it. Once you have a product that you think can be patented, you must start researching for the like products if any. Your product must not have the traditional knowledge at the operation core of your product because traditional knowledge is considered to be already in the public domain and therefore an exclusive private ownership of it cannot be granted to any person. In other words, ownership can move from private domain to public domain after having been utilized by private persons exclusively for a period of time but something that is in public domain cannot come into exclusive private domain. This is the basic principle on which patents operate. So, if you have a patented product and is distinctive enough to be patentable, you could then look for a patent attorney who could file a patent for you. A good lawyer is essentially someone who has a good understanding of patenting process and is in the know of the current patent trends. How much fee a lawyer takes has nothing to do with how good a patent attorney he would turn out to be in your case. A lawyer might charge for his name and specialization, but that specialization may not be in patents. So, look for someone who does patent work mainly. Such people would be able to predict the time it would take for you to get a patent on your product. So, to patent ideas as thoughts is not possible but if you have a product or you can demonstrate the process or technology, you can get the patent.