The Poor Man’s Patent is a Myth

One of the undying myths of Patent World is that there is such a thing as a Poor Man’s Patent.  If you’ve never heard of it, the poor man’s patent involves writing out a description of your invention and mailing that description to yourself.  The transmission of this description through the mail and the cancelling of the postage by the Post Office is supposed to establish a date of invention for you.  That way if someone steals your invention or comes along and invents it independently, you have “proof” that you invented it first.  The proof is in the sealed envelop and the date the postage was cancelled.

The poor man’s patent does nothing for you, except possibly hurt you.

When you "file" a poor man’s patent, you may be admitting you have not been pursuing your invention or developing it.  It only shows that at some point you had an idea; it doesn’t show that you have ever done anything to further develop the idea.  When you invent something and do nothing with it, you may forfeit your claim to any intellectual property.  This is because an invention must be practiced to be worthy of a patent.  As broken as it may be, the patent system does not reward laziness.  And there is nothing lazier than a poor man’s patent.

The big question then is what should you do instead of “filing” a poor man’s patent?  Well, first off, you should practice your invention.  That is, you should be developing it.  Next, perhaps you should file a real patent application.  That’s right.  If your invention is really good, you should try to patent it for real.

Obtaining intellectual property can be expensive.  You may decide to take an incremental step with a provisional patent application, but you should never hide it away in a sealed envelop.