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Some may think that brilliant men like Thomas Edison and Nicolai Tesla are rare these days but I know better. As a matter of fact I have a friend who is a certifiable genius inventor, inventing things like an engine that runs on tap water and a device that increases gas mileage by nearly 40%.

For those who cannot afford to dish out thousands of dollars for a patent lawyer, do it yourself patents can be a great alternative. Do it yourself patents can be done if you are up to the challenge. It is not impossible although the biggest drawback on do it yourself patents is that you are not afforded the luxury of having professional advice.

Chemical and pharmaceutical industries protect their inventions by securing patents. However, they realize, much to their surprise and their bottom line, that the patents do not hold up to scrutiny by lawyers and courts. This article provides practical tips to securing strong patents.

You may have a fantastic invention and obtained a patent for it but you will fail to stop the infringer if any one of the many formality requirements of the patent laws are ignored when writing the patent.

To win in a patent lawsuit, you must have a strong patent, a patent that contains a broad as well as a narrow definition of your invention.

You hear them on late night television, newspapers and magazines, even the radio and the internet. The ad goes something like this, "Hey inventor, call our toll free number and we'll help you protect your idea and get rich quick".

Hopefully you realize that before you do much of anything, you need to look at the marketability of your invention. Remember, you don't want to do anything until you have a good feel for whether or not you can actually make some money from your invention. Of course, you can't ever determine with 100% accuracy if you will make money or how much, but you can gain an idea by looking at other products available in the marketplace.

If the proposed new rules take effect, the patent applicant must excercize great care in disclosing documents that pertain to the invention. It is important to secure a patent and not create potential ammunition for a competitor to defeat the patent.

Chemical, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology companies spend large sums of money so that their employees burn the midnight oil and come up with great inventions, be it on a novel drug treat heart disease or a process to make large quantities of a chemical used in the manufacture of a plastic. Those inventions may be of little value if the company did not file for a patent in a timely manner.

What can be protected? Determining what qualifies as a patentable invention is a highly difficult and complicated task. Patent laws state that "Anything under the sun that was invented by man qualifies as patentable". Simple enough, but if you notice, there are hundreds of pages full of exceptions and details on the idea of patentability following this phrase. Scores of appeals and patent court cases have arisen due to questions regarding patentability because it still hasn't, and probably never will be entirely pinned down.