If you think you want to be an inventor, read this book. It is not just for people who want to save money or who don't trust patent attorneys or agents. On the other hand, it mainly only helps you understand one optional step in the road to successful inventing. But make no mistake -- this is the most successful inventor book of all time and for good reason.

The book is currently in edition 10 and you should always strive to use a reasonably current edition. In fact, at the moment if you try to operate with edition 6.X or before you would likely get yourself into trouble. If you're not dealing with edition 8 or higher you won't have information current with the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999. And, of course, the law will change again -- particularly when more global patent harmonization occurs. But just because you'll eventually have to buy a new copy is no excuse for not buying a current copy.

Attorney Pressman not only tells you the whats and hows of patenting but carefully blows away many of the common myths of patents. For example; patents do not protect inventors or inventions, they merely give inventors or patent owners the right to take certain kinds of actions when there is a bona fide legal opinion that such actions are acceptable. Infringement of a patent is "legal" (rather than illegal as most people mis-believe). Infringement may be immoral and unethical and may have costly consequences and those considerations may usually lead people not to infringe as a sound business decision.

The book also has strong cautions about doing marketability research and prior art research before committing yourself to the effort (or expense) of a patent application. But once you do make the committment the book shows you step-by-step that you can do what it takes to draft the specification, provide the drawings, meet the full disclosure enablement, and best mode requirements, properly draft (and redraft and redraft and hone) your patent claims, and do all the "i" dotting and "t" crossing paperwork that MUST accompany a properly filed patent application.

And then it tells you how to deal with the almost inevitable first rejection of your application. Detailed descriptions are provided for supplying appropriate arguments for overcoming the examiners rejections or amending the application to accede to the examiners position. You are also provided with the correct format for responding, info on what happens if your application is involved in an interference, and how to properly and timely file child patent applications if appropriate for your invention.

Of course there are also solid sections on the PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) application (it does NOT get you an international patent), the general issues of getting foreign patents, how to "maintain" your patent once it issues, how to handle possible infringement, and the basic whatfors of patent ownership, assignment, and licensing. All this information for a mere $50 (list $49.99 plus taxes and shipping). Of course you can find the book offered at a discount but it will still be more expensive than other inventor books.

Think about it a minute and you'll realize the price is a whopping bargain. If your patent practitioner charges $125 an hour and you have to pay her for just 2 hours of "education" that you could have read for yourself then you'll have saved at least 4 times the cost of the book by buying and reading it. If you decide to do your own patent by wading through the law and the MPEP ("the what") yourself just to save the cost of this book then you are most certainly going to waste hours getting your application in order and most likely hundreds of dollars in fees recovering from mistakes if not thousands of dollars when you finally concede to pay a professional to straighten things out -- if even possible.

If you think you want to be an inventor, buy -- and read -- this book.