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Ask HN: I want to patent an idea I've coded for a while. Any advice?
I've made a program that can be used in a certain industry, or incorporated as part of current SaaS solutions. Anything I should or should not do when filing the patent?
- dvt 4y agoYou should talk to a good patent lawyer. But, generally speaking, registering a patent is expensive and software patents are notoriously hard to enforce. Common startup advice is "don't do it" and that your moat should (almost) never be a patent.
- PaulHoule 4y agoA counter-opinion is this. If you’ve never filed a patent before you can probably get 1/4 off the filing fees in which case you might as well skip the lawyer, get a few books on patents from Nola Press from your public library and file one yourself.
- daydream 4y agoWhat's the benefit of going to all that trouble though? The patent is still hard to enforce. Particularly if one doesn't have the resources of a good sized corporation (and if one does, one wouldn't be asking the OP's question.)