Patent Pending infringement

May I threaten anyone for infringement of my Patent Pending Number?

No. Do not threaten anyone.

You can only enforce a granted patent. During the patent pending phase, do not threaten a competitor with patent infringement, or demand that he stops making / selling knock‐offs. Just mark your product "patent pending" to express your intention to secure patent protection.

Grant of a patent may take a few years. For this reason, we suggest also obtaining a Design Pending Number, which takes only a few months to become granted and enforceable. Registered designs protect the "shape" of your product and should keep copycat products out of the market.

Accelerate filing of a complete patent:

Instead of making threats, immediately file a corresponding complete patent in the country / countries in which your competitor is making and/or selling knock‐offs. You can expect the complete patent to take between 12 and 36 months to be granted, whereafter you can sue for patent infringement.

Few competitors will incur significant manufacturing setup and marketing costs if they know that you can (via your Patent Pending Number) interdict them from making / importing / advertising / selling the product in as little as 12 months' time.

Because your patent pending number reserves your right to file complete patents worldwide for a period of 12 months, competitors will be hesitant to invest in manufacture and marketing of a knock‐off product anywhere in the world. They would rather knock‐off "lower hanging fruit". The patent pending number elevates your product above the "comfortable picking zone".

Getting a patent pending number is a "no‐brainer".