Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: Patents

Not much. The process you describe is used to demonstrate that the documents inside the envelope were created before the postmark date. That way, if there is a dispute later on, the envelope can be opened in court to reveal the contents and confirm their age.

There are several problems with this strategy. The first is that the papers inside would have to describe the invention in enough detail that comparison with other inventions will be possible. A mere picture of the item almost certainly will not be enough.

A more basic problem is that the envelope will not prove what you expect it to prove. Try this experiment and you will see why: take a few pieces of paper and mail them to yourself without sealing the envelope. When they arrive, you will have an unsealed envelope with postage from a day or two earlier. You will then be able to create documents *after* the date postmarked on the envelope and still seal them inside.

I am definitely not telling you this so you can go out and do it. Instead, my point is that lawyers and courts know about this trick and don't put a lot of stock into sealed envelopes which are offered as proof of substantial claims. You need a more reliable means of proof.

If you have a viable claim to rights for your invention, you should be able to get a provisional patent from the Patent and Trademark Office for a modest fee. The provisional patent won't give you nearly the protection that a full patent would provide and it will expire much sooner, but it will be reliable evidence of the timing of your invention.

As I said earlier, though, proving *when* you came up with an idea is just a part of what you will need to do. Your major task is explaining *what* you invented, and that is what you should be most concerned about.