Ever because law school I have been asked about the “Poor Man’s Patent”.  And ever given that then the answer is the very same now as it was then: there’s no such factor.  According to the “Poor Man’s Patent”, the inventor merely writes down his invention on paper and sends it to himself in the mail.  Supposedly, this sealed envelope with the postmarked date will signify the date of invention and will somehow accord monopoly rights in the invention.  The concept of a “Poor Man’s Patent” is an enduring myth with the staying power of urban legends such as Elvis sightings and UFO’s.  These urban legends may sound “truthy” but are specious.

The only way to protect the novelty of an invention such as novel devices, business methods, and special designs by means of patent law is to file a patent application.  Now, it is true that establishing a date of reduction to practice is critical in some circumstances, a “Poor Man’s Patent” is most likely not the way to go.  A better method of establishing a date of invention is a lab notebook.  In this lab notebook, the inventor would record his experiments, date and sign it in each and every entry.  Nonetheless, you ought to note that a lab notebook would NOT give you patent rights either.  It would just establish a date of conception or reduction to practice for the invention which might be important in subsequent patent prosecution or patent litigation.

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Now, if somebody is searching for the cheapest way to protect intellectual property, Copyright law may possibly be applicable in limited instances.  One example may be source code or object code in software.  Since software code is protectable under both patent law and copyright law, a Copyright registration might accord some intellectual property protection.  Nevertheless, you really should note that the registration fee would not protect against reverse-engineering and other various fair uses which might not completely safeguard your invention.  Note that Copyright law will not safeguard inventions such as devices, novel methods, etc.  Copyright law only protects the expression of tips, and not the underlying tips themselves.

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