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Watching a toddler swinging his beaker around and spilling his drink prompted Mandy Haberman to invent the Anywayup Cup. After years of development it went on sale and was an instant success.

Eighteen months later, one of the big UK companies, which had seen a prototype, brought out a similar product. The only way to protect the invention was to take legal action.

Mandy Haberman says deciding to go to court was incredibly difficult because she was putting everything on the line. "In my case," she says, "because I wasn't a limited company at that point, it was my home, everything that we had, that was put at risk."

Mandy Haberman won her legal battle. Jackel International, the owners of the Tommy Tippee brand, made a payment in respect of damages and costs and were ordered to stop selling their product.

The Anywayup Cup was patented, but as many inventors have discovered, even if a product is patented this does not automatically prevent similar products finding their way on to the market. If this happens, the only way to resolve a dispute is through the courts.

The UK Patent Office says it is trying to find ways to help. The Director of Copyright, Anthony Murphy, says one possibility would be to create new mediation mechanisms. These would be "cheaper, simpler, more user friendly than going through an elaborate legal process".

Entrepreneurs such as John Mitchell are concerned that even a mediation system would benefit the big players.

Mr Mitchell is managing director of a small company, Allvoice Computing. It has filed a complaint against the computer giant IBM for anti-competitive behaviour. This is being investigated by the European Commission.

Allvoice believes that IBM has incorporated Allvoice features into IBM products without paying for them. IBM denies the allegation, but no-one from IBM was available to talk to the Today programme.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of that case, Mr Mitchell believes that in general small businesses find it almost impossible to take on the big companies. One reason is that the cost of going to court is so high. "Clearly most small businesses simply can't afford it so the companies will just say 'oh we've done nothing wrong', which is a euphemism for saying 'we know you can't afford to take us to court'."

It is that sort of attitude which has prompted John Mitchell and Mandy Haberman to get together with other entrepreneurs. Their aim is to win government support for small companies who are battling with much bigger rivals.

Both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have said they want to foster innovation and entrepreneurship.

Mandy Haberman argues that helping with start up costs for businesses is not enough because once the entrepreneurs produce a good product, big rivals can step in and take the idea.

"All this government money is going into the pockets of the vulture companies from here and abroad," she says. "So you've got UK money setting up UK small businesses but the profits are being made overseas."