Yesterday I thought I was $1,000,000 richer than I do toady.

Ever have one of those days?

I came up with a perfect invention. It was sooo simple and so awesome. I've never seen it in the stores and during my search online I couldn't find anything that really matched what I was thinking.. so.. bingo - patent it. And this wasn't one of my crazy ideas either, this actually had some practical use. So, talked to a lawyer, he loved the idea... etc. So, I scrambled to make a prototype - completed it in a night, woke up my wife at 11:30pm and threw my contraption on the bed and rambled on about it for quite some time.

Today, my wife did some internet patent searching. And sadly, at about 10am this morning, I lost all my virtual money. There, in an email sent from my wife, was a link to an american patent that resembled (almost picture perfectly) my prototype, filed 6 years ago.

:(

A little bit of hope though.. I didn't see one filed for Canada (which is unfortunately 1/10 of Americas population).

There's got to be some similar stories like that out there.. lets see what you got!

ah man, thats a bummer! Did it relate to work or 6x6's? or?

So I can find a us patent and put a patent on it in Canada?

It had something to do with a baby product (not work.. or 6x6 :P). (I'd explain, but need to make sure my doors are totally closed before I open up my failure to the public :P)

Patents only cover the country you have the patent in. I think you can do a blanket patent for most 1st world countries, but it's a pending thing and you'd need to get approval for each country in the end anyways. So, yeah, if you find a patent in the states but not in canada, you can basically cut and paste, apply and secure the canadian market. Most people who file in Canada will file in the States in the same time frame (not sure about vise-versa).

Hope you get it frazer! got my fingers crossed buddy!