A college “composition” notebook is a simple and inexpensive way to create an inventor’s notebook. Because of its stitched binding, you can’t (easily) remove the pages or alter the page order. I recommend simply numbering all of the pages in consecutive order prior to using it.
As you write your ideas / inventions into the inventor’s notebook, you’ll need to have the pages witnessed. Yes, it is tedious. But it is the proper procedure. You’ll need to write a line on each page that says something like “I have read and understood the purpose of this invention” which would then be followed by the word “WITNESS:” which would then followed by your witness’ printed name, signature, and date. Your witness should preferably not be your spouse or children or anyone who could somehow profit from the success of your invention.
And all of the above should be done in ink, not pencil.
[...] importance of documenting your ideas in this fashion. (For additional information, read my post here entitled “A low-cost way to create an Inventor’s [...]
[...] There are many bona fide legal reasons why the USPTO doesn’t give any value to a self-mailed letter. For instance, it does not provide an independent witness to the creation of the invention. As recommended elsewhere in this Web site, one of easiest — and accepted by the USPTO — ways of establishing a date of your invention is through the use of an Inventor’s Notebook. See http://howtopatent.pro/2010/03/low-cost-way-to-prepare-an-inventors-notebook/ [...]
Is there an acceptable way to have your Inventor’s Notebook in an electronic form? It seems to me the key is the date/timestamp that we need to capture and prove, so what about something like Google Docs, where each version is date/timestamped, or some other similar format?
Amazing website and awesome information. Thanks for this. I had a question on keeping a log…
Would email be an acceptable route to logging? Rather than keeping a handwritten notebook, I’ve started emailing my daily log (drawing and notes) to myself (at a second account) and to my wife. I figure records exist on the both the outgoing mail server of my Gmail account and both my Hotmail account inbox and my wife’s Gmail inbox. I just “reply all” to the last email I receive, keeping all my notes in a single string so they are all time stamped and kept neatly in one email. What do you think? I work in an office full of lawyers and they always tell me to keep my business emails as they can be used as evidence in court.
Hi Mike. Thank you for the kind words. Much appreciated.
You’ve posed a great question…one that I’ve never come across before. Every once in a while I receive an e-mail from someone which has an obviously wrong time or date. So the possibility of an error seems to exist. But this is certainly not my area of expertise.
I’ll check into this topic some more and see if I can find any specific information. Again, superb question. I’ll let you know what I discover.
Hi Scott.
As you can see, I just tried to answer a similar question in this thread. But, unfortunately, I don’t know how the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would feel about such a recording method. I’m intrigued with these questions. So I will research the topic and reply here when I get a credible opinion. Stay tuned.