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Not a day goes by in the Den without the question being asked: "do you have a patent in this?"

(Sometimes if the answer is "no" it is followed by one of Duncan's wittiest lines: "don't bother getting one as no-one in their right mind is going to copy it anyway").

Evan will write weekly updates of Den activity throughout the 2009 series.

This week's show was no exception to the general rule. Patents came up twice. Emily Webb had one on her Oarsome Potential handgrip but it didn't help her much as she failed to secure an investment.

Frank Drewett and Lawrence Webb on the other hand did get their £50,000 investment after outlining the patent on their foot-pedal attachment for wheelie bins, which allows the lid to be lifted hands-free.

Although Duncan described the product as a piece of string and a piece of plastic held together by a piece of black tape, three Dragons were willing to invest in it. Peter Jones specifically framed his offer as for "half the patent", rather than for "half the business".

So the mixed experience might make you wonder how important patents are in the Den?

Well, when assessing an investment opportunity the Dragons have to some quick thinking to judge whether a patent has any value.

By my observation, in most cases patents do little to impress them. It turns out that many of them promise a lot but deliver very little.

The reason is this. Entrepreneurs want a patent that is valuable, which means they want it to be as broad as possible.

But in order to secure a patent, they have to prove some kind of originality which is a stiff test, unless they make the patent more and more specific. The narrower the patent, the more likely you are to get it.

Take the example of the Lid-Lifters patent. It would be nice if it covered any kind of device for fitting a foot pedal to a wheelie bin. But that would not have been granted as a foot pedal is not novel and nor is a wheelie bin. And given that other bins have foot pedals already, such a patent would have been successfully challenged.

In the event Lawrence explains to us that the patent he has succeeded in getting covers "the use of a flexible linkage between the pedal and the tumbler".

In other words, if you can find another way to fit a foot-pedal, his patent will be of limited use.

(I should say that Lawrence goes on to explain that it covers a "solid linkage" as well – but that just baffled me because it implies any kind of linkage would be covered by his patent which then raises the question as to why he first specified a flexible linkage at all).

I don't have statistics, but I think the vast bulk of patents in the Den fall into two categories. There are some valuable patents which are "pending", (i.e. awaiting final approval) but which are then subsequently not granted. And there are patents that have been granted but which are not very valuable.

The big question for the Lid Lifters and Peter Jones is whether their patent is one of the minority – a valuable patent which actually exists.

Put aside the fact that it won't last for ever, and 12 years have elapsed since it was granted. Peter thinks the patent is broad enough to stop others producing different competing wheelie-bin foot-pedals. Frank, Lawrence and he can thus sell lid-lifters, or sell the right to produce them to someone else and enjoy a near monopoly.

But making that kind of snap judgement is one of the skills upon which the Dragons' investments depend.

Last updated: 29 July 2009