Making a coin light up

[keymaker]

It would be the size of a silver dollar (twice or so as thick) and need to light up<p> Watch batteries and diodes??<p>
Also, for the use I'm considering, I want to sell these...
How can I get a patent without spending alot of money? How can I manufacture these 100 or so at a time on my own??

[perfectbite]

Basically there are two kinds of patents. Utility and design. Utility patents are expensive to pursue and maintain. A utility patent becomes part of the public record and, after 17 years (it may have changed), if it isn't amended, then anyone can or use or sell your idea and you don't get a royalty. Design patents (the pet rock's packaging for example (I don't know if it was patented)) are much simpler, don't last as long as utility patents and are worth it if you have a really unique 'gizmo'. However, if you design patent a light up silver dollar, someone else could take that idea and make it a gold piece and design patent that. If you didn't design patent a gold piece or olympic medal facsimile for instance, (the olympic committee may have something to say about that) you can make and sell the silver light up coins but that may be all you are able to sell without infringing on someone else's design patent using your original idea.<p>Did you ever get your garage door opener working?<p>[ June 16, 2004: Message edited by: perfectbite ]</p>

[jwax]

"Getting a patent" and "not a lot of money" don't go in the same sentence. Your best bet is to first consult a patent lawyer and get an idea of the leaguethey play in. Next, bear in mind that having a patent (in 2-4 years) protects you only if you can again pay a lawyer to defend your patent.
Unless the application is waay unique, beneficial, novel, and not obvious to someone familiar with the art, just go to market as fast and as bigtime you can afford.
And yes, there's lots of ways to light up a coin! What are your specific requirements?
John

[haklesup]

Do you want to light up a coin or do you want a compact light source the size of a coin?<p>Such light sources already exist in wristwatches and nightlights.<p>I can think of a few ways to illuminate a coin but making the coin light up itself would be a cool trick especially if the source was not apparent at arms length.<p>Have you considered repackaging the chemicals found in a lightstick into a disk shape with a diaphram or capsule in the middle to seperate the chemicals until use.<p>You could probably design some sort of hot press to fuse the plastic into the desired shape but tooling would run into the thousands then add in material costs and you would need to sell a whole bunch to recoop your investment.<p>Forget the patent for low volume manufacturing. If you are small enough and it is patented somewhere, they probably won't notice and if they do send you a letter; delay, delay, delay until the client gets tired of paying his lawyer $500 a piece to send you letters. Likly all they can really do is force you to stop.<p>If it is unpatented or unpatentable and someone copies your idea, so long as you remain low volume, that event would likly increase demand for yours because you can claim to be the "Original" At higher volume, laws of supply and demand will limit growth of someone.

[jwax]

A good hobby store carries acrylic casting materials for casting your own clear "coin" if that's what you're after. Make one, or one hundred at a time with an inexpensive mold.<p>John

[LucidGuppy]

Don Lancaster www.tinaja.com has written a whole lot about the pitfalls of getting a patent and how they're just about useless to most people. Unless your a big company and the product generates tens of millions of dollars worth of revenue - and there's no prior art - and the design is non-obvious. So thats a lot of requirements.