After developing a new business model to paint lawns with vegetable oil for drought, as well as introducing nutrients to the mix, I considered patenting the formula, but then talked myself out of it. Why? Costs for one, but also time to market, patents take time, and the drought here in California might be mostly over after a couple of El Niño years with lots of rain. Still, there’s another solid reason to reconsider writing it.

You see, I don’t think a patent is a good idea, it’s like; “Why write it down so someone can steal it in China?” Or someone else can steal it and add or change an ingredient or two. At first, a fellow business consultant was puzzled by this decision of mine, but then she understood the relevance of my choice not to patent, she stated;

“You know, that’s a very good point that I’ve also considered in the past, to patent or not to patent, however what if it’s stolen by reverse engineering your product (for example, what if it’s reverse engineered by someone else If someone were to “steal” it (whether that person was in China or anywhere else in the world), then what legal recourse would you have without a patent?

Yes, the correct thought here indeed. Now, having a patent really only entitles you to pay lawyers a lot of money to “try” and not ensure that your rights as a patent holder are upheld. A company with a lot of cash can shoot you. Of course, if you run fast enough in the market and notice that no one else has a patent and you’ve already started, they have to catch you, not the other way around.

Fortunately, it’s harder to reverse engineer something you spray on your lawn, because you need the liquid to analyze with no residue on it. So someone has to physically steal an unused part, since this is a service business. So, in this case, I think I feel safer without a patent, and I’m not afraid of the competition, I am the competition, I always win. In fact, I once commented to a friend of mine. “Winning is the only thing I’m good at.” Still, why make it easy for a competitor to beat me using my brain?

She noticed; “I guess I wouldn’t have much recourse anyway if people in China were to steal it, but what about someone here in the US? Wouldn’t that mean they would have absolutely no ownership rights and therefore You wouldn’t have any basis to sue someone. Who stole your product?”

Perhaps it would be wise for more entrepreneurs to understand this point? Please consider all of this.