Inventor wisdom for free

Today's Guardian has a very good (and, for a piece on intellectual property, unusually accurate) article on the new British Library "inventor in residence", Mark Sheahan. Mark, the inventor of "Squeezeopen" (examples right), will be giving free one-on-one advice to inventors at the library's business and IP centre.

One piece of advice Mark has to offer all would-be patentees is to get professional advice. The IPKat, who knows a little about the potential pitfalls of the IP system, inevitably has to agree wholeheartedly. The costs of getting a patent, if your idea really is worth protecting, are often well worth the extra money involved.

Merpel adds: whoever drafted Mark's patent applications (here and here) apparently didn't consider the possibility of the devices being made of anything other than plastic, which is a shame for trying to get those pesky work-arounds as infringements. "Beware of the tin man" indeed.