Product Developer's Workshop

Patents & Trademarks

• Delphion
  The world's most popular online destination for researching intellectual property. They continually introduce innovative new services to help you analyze, manage and leverage intellectual property assets.
  http://www.delphion.com
  
  
• United States Patent & Trademark Office
  This is the only official Web site of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, a Performance-Based Organization of the Government of the United States of America.
  http://www.uspto.gov
  
  
• United States Copyright Office
  The U.S. Copyright Office, a division of the Library of Congress, is the office of public record for copyright registration and deposit of copyright material.
  http://www.loc.gov/copyright
  
  
• UK Intellectual Property Site
  Help for inventors and developers provided by the government of the UK.
  http://www.intellectual-property.gov.uk/
  
  
• Free Patents Online
  Free PDF downloading (instead of having to page through TIFFs at the US Patent Office) and it is faster than the US Patent Office's site.
  http://www.freepatentsonline.com
  
  

US Goverment Agencies

• US Securities and Exchange Commission
  Particularly for filings by public companies that show sales, businesses, and ownership.
  
  
• Food and Drug Administration
  Marketing information and regulations concerning food, drugs and cosmetics.
  
  
• Federal Trade Commission
  Regulates marketing at the federal level. Useful information on marketing trends and what others are doing.
  
  
• US Department of Agriculture
  Regulations and consumer information on food products.

Shipping Your Product

• US Postal Service
  
  
• United Parcel Service
  
  
• Federal Express
  
  
• DHL International
  
  

Law For Laypeople

• Nolo Self-Help Law Website
  Legal Information, books, software, law forms, do-it-yourself kits for consumers and small businesses including business law, patents, IP.
  http://www.nolo.com/
  
  
• Patent Law
  Brief yourself on patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and computer law. Other help at this site includes help in selecting an attorney and some rough ideas on the costs that can be involved in winning a patent for your invention.
  http://www.patents.com/
  
  
• U.S. Legal Forms
  A source of legal forms for all states and federal.
  http://www.uslegalforms.com/
  
  

Newsgroups

If you have never used internet news groups before, we recommend you obtain a copy of Forte Free Agent (which is free) and set it up according to their instructions. Depending on the resources available from your internet service provider, you are probably already paying for access to over 30,000 newsgroups, many of which could be of interest to you. (Subscriptions to almost all newsgroups are free.)

For inventors and product developers, two newsgroups are seriously worth following:

• alt.inventors
  
  
• misc.int-property
  
  

Other Resources

• Inventor Ed
  Information about inventing, inventors, obtaining a patent, and enforcement of patent rights.
  http://www.inventored.org

• Thomas Register of American Manufacturers Web Site
  If your idea for a product involves manufacturing, you should become familiary with Thomas Register. There web site has some listings but, if you seriously need to find a manufacturer, go to your local library and find a complete set of these books. Usually you can find what you need without having to buy the entire (not unreasonably expensive and very valuable) set!
  http://www.thomasregister.com/