2 Types Of Attorneys You May Need While Investing

Investing can be a safe or risky activity, depending on your investment choices and the preparation and research you make beforehand. You can invest in a new invention you have patented or in the stock of a company. By involving the right type of attorney, you can make your investment a safer and smarter one. Here are two attorneys to help you invest more safely.

Corporate Attorney

When you invest in your own invention, there is a process you need to complete before you can begin selling your invention. To protect your new product or idea, you will need to file a patent claim on your idea to prevent others from stealing it. For example, if you have invented a new garden tool, you will need to file a patent on your garden tool so others won't steal your idea to begin producing it as their own product.

If someone steals your unpatented garden tool idea and patents it, they have the legal rights to produce and sell it to make money. With all the money hours of time you have put into researching and developing your invention, you should get a return on your investment. 

Some people attempt to write their own draft and patent claim. If you choose to write your own, you run the risk of your patent claim not covering every aspect of your invention's details. If your patent does not describe your invention clearly and completely, your patent could be declared invalid later on. A corporate lawyer can draft up a clear, complete patent claim to include enough detail about your invention for you to legally claim it.

In planning for the cost of hiring an attorney to file your patent, you should complete a patent search. A patent search will check with all the current patents to make sure your invention does not already exist and does not have a patent filed on it. A prior patent found during a patent search would show someone has already invented and patented your idea. Attorney fees for filing a simple patent can start out at $5,000 with the patent search starting out at $1,000. If your invention is more complex, your patent fees will be more expensive, but you will get your money's worth when you hire an attorney to professionally draft and write it for you.  

Securities Attorney

Another way you can invest is by purchasing the stock of an existing company. You can also invest money in a new company that is going to be issuing stock for the first time. In either of these situation, it is a good idea to do some research on the company first to help you avoid investing your money in a company that is committing or attempting to commit securities fraud.

There are many examples in the news of CEOs having been involved in securities fraud with the companies they worked for. Jeff Skilling, former CEO of Enron was involved in insider trading and other crimes which led to the company's collapse. Joseph Nacchio, former CEO of Qwest Communications was involved with insider trading and served six years in prison.

It is a good idea to look over the company's financial statements to see what their profits and losses have been over the past few years. A company may provide false information in their financial statements to make the company look more profitable when they are really losing money. If you choose to invest in a company providing false information, you can end up losing your stock investment when the financially unstable company files for bankruptcy. A securities attorney can investigate the company for you and check their financial statements before you invest to help you avoid making a bad investment decision. 

Corporate and securities attorneys should be an important part of these two investments decisions.