You cannot get a patent on an idea. As Alex Kralj says above, you have to get it to the design stage and do a patent search. A trade secret might be the better way to go, rather than a patent, because trade secrets potentially last forever but patents do not. You do have to keep your trade secret, secret however. A trade secret will not work if your idea is easily copy-able or can be reverse-engineered.

The answer to that question depends on what nation you are in. However, the basic advice provided by Aleš is a good start.

The first thing that must be considered is that you cannot get a patent for an idea. Patents are for inventions. You must develop at least a prototype of the technology to obtain a patent. Generally, the prototype does not have to work perfectly, or be able to accomplish all of the functions included in your patent, but you must be able to demonstrate that your invention is possible.

But in many nations, perhaps all of them, you cannot get a patent if the technology you've invented is displayed in a public manner. Discussion of the invention in academic research journals or at conferences can prevent you from getting a patent or cause the revocation of a patent after it has been issued.

This is no technicality. There are companies that offer prizes of thousands of dollars to people who can find evidence that the technology covered by a patent was publicly demonstrated before the patent was issued. In the US, this is referred to as being "present in the prior art" where "art" refers to the area of science or engineering the patent relates to. It also doesn't matter if it is you or someone else who published information relevant to your patent, any public display by anyone can be used to cancel a patent or a patent application.

Also, the public display of important information related to your invention does not have to be precisely the same as your invention. If the information that is publicly available makes your invention an obvious possibility for those who are knowledgeable in the area, that may also be enough to prevent a patent from being issued or cancel a patent that has been issued.

Depending on the area of the patent, this can mean that it is not enough to do a patent search to determine if your invention has been already made publicly known. You may need to consider research journals or trade publications or even conference abstracts or other publications.

This can be a difficult process if you are working in a language that is not commonly used in the area of research or business. Generally when a patent for a technology is issued in one nation, the patent is considered valid in many other nations. The Patent Cooperation Treaty permits inventors to file patents that are respected in the 148 nations that have signed the treaty. You can find out more about that here (in English, but there are 9 other languages available):

http://www.wipo.int/pct/en/

In the EU, the European Patent Office has a website devoted to patent applications and regulations with information for inventors. The home page is here: https://www.epo.org/index.html

And the page that gets you started on applying is here: https://www.epo.org/applying.html

Another thing to keep in mind, though, is that a patent consists of a set of claims about the invention it concerns. It is common that some of those claims to be rejected or modified as part of the patent review process. Because of the complicated process it can take many years to have a patent application reviewed and approved. After filing your patent application, it is possible to develop and sell your invention in the marketplace. If you do this, you must be careful with regard to how certain you are about the strength of your patent claims and which of the various forms of your invention you wish to introduce to the world while your patent application is still under review since some of your patent claims may be rejected or you may need to modify them. This can result in certain parts of your invention being no longer able to be patented as they have been publicly displayed before your claim is put into a form that is accepted by the patent office. However, you usually don't want to wait many years while your patent application is being reviewed before you start making money from your invention.

As is the case during the patent application process, if the validity of your patent is challenged after it is issued, you may also have the result that some of the claims in your patent are canceled while others remain in effect rather than the entire patent being invalidated.

Finally, while it is definitely true that applying for a patent can be very expensive, once you have a patent, that does not automatically prevent others from selling technology that is based on your patent, or parts of your patent. You will have to file a lawsuit against anyone you consider to have violated your patent to obtain a legal order demanding that they stop. Litigation over whether a patent has been violated or infringed upon can be much more expensive than applying for a patent, and it can take much longer. In many nations, though, you may receive a monetary award of up to triple the amount of damages you have received due to the violation of your patent if the court decides that the violation of the patent was intentional.

Depending on your level of knowledge, it may be more helpful to start with some basic articles about patents and the patent application process. Others may be critical of this method, but I find that Wikipedia is a good start for information about many topics, especially the basics about science and technology that are popular among the people who provide the information in Wikipedia's articles. The references can also provide further guidance.

Accept my apologies if anything I have written seems too basic, it is difficult to determine how much someone else knows when a question is short. I have studied US patent law and basic international law concerning business and technology, but I do not work as an attorney with regard to patent applications or disputes.

You can patent an idea- but you must have a drawing of the product, and preferrably a prototype. However the patent office here in the U.S. Does not require it. You can patent your idea for as little as 1,000 U.S.D. I have experience with it, but am not in any way an expert, just a person that wanted to patent a couple things and ideas once.

No, you cannot patent an idea. If you have developed an invention to the point where you have a technical drawing of the invention that is presented in a manner that permits a patent examiner with a relevant expertise to understand how the invention depicted could work in a way such that it would have a reasonable chance of fulfilling the functions you list in the patent claims and detailed description of the invention, you are not patenting an idea, but an invention.

The ban on patenting ideas is to prevent attempts to exclude useful and practical inventions by someone filing a patent along the lines of "a device to sequence genes faster than currently possible" without having any mechanism for doing this.

The ban on patenting ideas also prevents patents on things like mathematical equations. This would serve to impede further development in math, and would prevent use of the equations in development of physical products or processes.

The lack of a prototype at the time of filing for your patent may not be an issue - in the United States - this is due to inadequate staffing at the USPTO. Patent examiners do not have the time to demand verification of the existence of the prototype. For many inventions, it is not possible to provide a prototype to the patent examiner, since many prototypes are extremely expensive to produce and/or are in a form that prevents transportation of the prototype.

However, you can be rather certain that anyone challenging the validity of your patent in litigation will demand evidence for the existence of the prototype at the relevant time.

As for the cost of obtaining a patent, it may be possible to do so for about $1000, this is the price for applying for the patent charged by the patent office. This means that you are not paying for any legal assistance in writing your patent application, and this is generally a bad idea. There are requirements for the format of various sections of a patent application, and it is highly likely that your patent application may be rejected due to improper formatting, lengthening the process of obtaining the patent and incurring additional fees for appeals and re-reviews.

More importantly, though, is again what happens after you get your patent. If your patent is truly valuable, you can expect litigation to invalidate it by competitors who will have experts in the relevant areas of patent law and who will be rather persuasive in explaining why your patent claims are deficient and should be invalidated. Even if you obtain the assistance of a patent litigator at this point, you are still stuck with the patent claims and description of the invention that you put in your application.

And the questions about whether you really had met the requirement to "reduce to practice" your invention at the time of application.

Here is some basic advice from a law firm on drafting patent claims for yourself rather than hiring an attorney.

http://www.bpmlegal.com/howtopat7.html

Now if all you want to do is obtain a patent on something and have no plans to further develop, produce, and introduce you invention into commerce, why are you bothering with a patent?

You cannot patent or protect an idea, however an idea is the first critical step toward being able to obtain a patent. You will need to move from idea to invention and ultimatelt to a patent application. What you need is a strategy to help you move past the idea and learn to describe your idea with enough specifics so that it is no longer what the law will call "mere idea". when you reach the point of an invention then that can be protected or patented.

You do not need to have a prototype, but you will need to be able to describe the invention with detail, providing sketches showing your inventive contribution. It is advised that you seek assistance from a product development company around you.

Thank you

In my Utility model 21532 Czech Republic, there were descrbed  "the specific equipment of computers" to share in the clever  distributed computing databases among parallel working clients in common nets with coherent sharing statistic  population of representative samplings -  by entities in variabil defined clusters  and their important variabil  defined important Mass phenomenons....Each of innovation could be statistic tested as the next Hypothese about differences of important statistic parameteres between todays and next predicted statistic estimates of important parameters.....we could vy the acceptance some preferences in choice of innovation allways step by step to gain the best and more detailed statuistical estimates since the first Idea to frame project of innovation till to varified the fullfilment the first hypotheses by the implementing phases of realisation of whole project in standard practical conditions....We often could to manage the Streams of parallel innovations with more intensity and efficiency including to define the critical Cross sections of system, we could to support the continual safety  working whole Transformal Channels! There are neccessary to minimize increases of entropy in system! We should to support perfect combination of intuitive - statistical - deterministic decision making in repeated similar strategic decision making!

There for example in Health care extremal tragic situation - when many Orthopaeds so as Radiologists there are creating the same false similar medical mistakes by usage "individual experiences" when there are mandatory duties to respect Technician requirements of quality implanting Orthopaedic implants  exactly by the technician  instruction, sequential ordering and perfect timing many medical actitivites with Technical aspects including! There are not possible to accept some fatal Crash of implants on the surgery hall as a phenomenons by "the Lege artis" - when the Orthopaed  has no implanting processing Clinic individual Plan of surgery! It was allways Crimi medical case - no Bad Lucky case!  There must be independent guarancy to keep the rules by the Technician requirements of Directive 93/42/EEC Medical Devices! In the USA there are just needlees heavy injured patients or more eher dying patients - about 380 thousands of patients yearly! By my patented method it could be eliminated systematic about 90% important serious repeated medical technical  mistakes! I am just dying needless too - despite I am as a Owner of the indistrial Laws to my patent - namely after criminal orthopaedic medical contecated mistakes by THA surgery since 2007 - but the Police of Czech Republic ignored me for many years including exact technical evidences of criminal traceing too, the Doctors could be excluded from the duties to respect harmonised Laws EU/Czech Republic !

You could continue in my ideas with perfect understanding to my technical evidences - I published the deatils on My profile in LinkedIN!  Bye!