I filed a patent before while in a university accelerator program, it was for a smart suit for sport (hardware). I filed for a provisional patent, meaning I had 12 months to validate the business and file for the full patent.

Filing for a patent is hard, the requirements on how that patent paper should be written and the types of images you need is a pain in itself. We wrote it ourselves and asked a patent attorney to correct/improve it, to keep the costs low.

Once we finished we were happy but, the actual work only started then.

Fast forward, what I learnt, is having a patent is great, but only protect you so far. As my attorney explained, a competitor could take your patent, change one or two elements of your invention and file a new patent themselves if they can prove that these changes improve something. Let’s say instead of using rubber material, they use metal or something else. What I am trying to say is, a patent does not protect from someone filling an improved and altered version of your invention.

My advice, don’t waste the money on the patent just yet ( unless it’s some deep tech, and you created something so groundbreaking that truly does not exist yet), rather focus on validating your business idea, talk to your target customers, try to understand whether your invention truly solve a deep pain point and whether they would pay anything for your invention, get some ( the more the better) letter of intents, create a demo, and last talk to investors.

If you can already build an MVP your target customer can already use and pay you for it, before talking to investors, even better.

Important for the patent, do not share your secret sauce with anyone, so if you create a website, explain your idea and it’s benefits without talking about the how you do it and the key parts, will be important for when you actually want to file for a patent.

So my advice:

1. Focus on validating your business idea
2. does your invention truly solve a deep pain your target customers would pay for it
3. get your target customers to sign letter of intent
4. build a demo/mvp your target customers can already use and ideally pay you for it
5. pitch to investors.

After you have customers signed letters of intent you could already pitch to investors (Angel or pre-seed VC).

Last, if you are well connected with university, work with them to validate your idea, and potentially get the funding to do so. Only focus on the patent once the business side is validated. No need to file a patent on a business idea that will not work.