INVENT SOMETHING

Collaboration

2010-02-23T12:53:00.000-08:00

First off, let's just say that collaboration is great and oftentimes it is absolutely necessary. I encourage inventors to collaborate for either brainstorming, tinkering, thinking outside of the box, and for improving your invention.

That being said, you should also know what the law on Patents has to say about collaboration. If someone else collaborates with you on your invention, and any part of that collaboration makes it into the CLAIMS of the patent, that collaborator is technically a Co-Inventor and MUST be named as a joint inventor. Failing to name that other inventor will jeopardize the validity of your patent and is grounds for either dismissal, rejection, or a reexamination proceeding of your patent.

Scenario:

You are an inventor and your next door neighbor Ethan comes over. And he sees you working in the garage on your new invention, the toilet seat lifter. Your neighbor Ethan says, wow, great idea man! Ethan is a plumber and tells you that from his experience a metal washer combined with a hydraulic gizmo could do the trick for part of your invention. And you find out that he's right. Even though Ethan only chatted with you for two minutes and is now off to his afternoon jog around the neighborhood, Ethan's suggestion could be an issue.

Now let's say that Ethan's suggestion is great, but there are other ways of doing it that work just as well. But as a result, you put Ethan's idea into the Specification, or Description of the Preferred Embodiments. However, you leave Ethan's idea out of the claims of the patent application. Technically, Ethan does NOT have to be named as a co-inventor.

However, 18 months from now you get an office action from the USPTO and you realize that you have to narrow the claims to get around the rejection. In so doing, you amend the claims to further include Ethan's suggestion. In turn, the Examiner at the USPTO decides to accept and approve of your patent application. In this case, you will be required to amend your patent application and name Ethan as a co-inventor.

If you fail to add or amend the patent to further include Ethan as a co-inventor because his quick tip or advice made it into the claims of your patent you could lose your patent altogether. Let's say you notice that Acme, Inc. thinks your toilet seat lifter is a great idea and they go ahead and start infringing on your patent. Their products reach every WalMart and Home Depot on the planet and they make millions.

In turn, you decide to sue them. And then at trial, the defense attorney calls you to the stand and asks you about your neighbor Ethan...I think you get the idea. And once they can prove that you did not properly add Ethan as a co-inventor, you will lose all patent rights in your invention. You will also lose your patent as well.

So the rule is this: if someone else gives you a tip or some advice and that advice makes its way into the CLAIMS of the patent, they must be named as a co-inventor.

Now, I know what you are going to say. Well, that piece of advice was a really SMALL part of the invention. Out of the 2,000 parts, and assembly pieces which took you over 10 years to perfect, Ethan's advice, which was made in passing as he was going out for his afternoon jog was just so small, trivial, and insignificant in relation to the whole invention, it would not be fair that he is named co-inventor.

Yes, this may seem strange, but in the eyes of patent law, you and Ethan would be 50-50 partners with equal partnership in the patent. This is irregardless of time, expense, expertise, etc. And if you had additional collaborators along the way, then your piece of the pie would go to 33-33-33 or 25-25-25-25 or 20-20-20-20-20 and so on.

Is this fair? I don't know but that's the way it is.

So, collaborate all you want. Just remember that any collaboration that makes its way into the claims of the patent must also require an amendment to the inventorship of the invention

3D Printers

2010-02-19T16:58:00.000-08:00

There's an excellent article in last month's Wired Magazine about the democratization of manufacturing. According to Wired, new advances in software, and other accessible tools makes it possible and feasible for solo inventors to actually produce something and take it to market.

In furtherance of their trends, they cite the use of a 3D Printer. Now I have to confess that when I heard about this "3D Printer" I thought the sound of it was completely ridiculous. However, when you take a look at this video it actually begins to make sense. I am not so certain that these "printouts' will work on all projects, but the concept is pretty interesting. I'm just wondering if it would be possible to scale this puppy up and be able to produce larger molds or prototypes.

However, as the inventor of the printer acknowledges, this is the "Guttenberg Press" of 3D printers. In other words, it's got a ways to go. But the concept is pretty damn interesting.

How to do a Patent Search and save money

2010-02-16T22:16:00.001-08:00

Here's a great video that can save you hundreds to thousands of dollars and precious time as well.

INVENTION SUBMISSION COMPANIES: PART II

2010-02-08T14:42:00.000-08:00

Another problem with invention submission companies is their claims of being able to bring your product to market. Typically, they will charge you tens of thousands of dollars to introduce your product to the right manufacturers, movers, and shakers in your industry. And through these contacts, they will negotiate a deal for you in order to get your products on their shelves.

Sorry, that's just not how it works.

In the real world, invention submission companies do not have any legitimate contacts with Walmark, Toys R Us, or any of the other big names in the business. If anything, they are blacklisted from the big boys in the first place. Believe me, these companies would much rather deal with you, the inventor and owner rather than some sort of go-between. The reason is simply because they do not want to deal with someone without authority to make decisions.

For this reason, if you sign up with them, one of the things you'll notice is that occasionally you will get a call from your invention submission contact with a very vague voicemail saying something like, "Hello Mr. Jones, I just got a call from Revlon about your new invention. They would like to see it but they need to know if you have an NDA/patent attorney/brochure/take your pick to send them or talk to them first. And of course, you will get excited. Big dollar signs will come flooding into your eyeballs and your mind. Whereupon your contact will tell you that they just so happen to have a publishing company that can make you some really spiffy video commercials, etc. to really impress the brass at Revlon to make sure that you can fetch the highest dollar for your invention.

Don't fall for it. By the time you find out it's a scam (if you are lucky enough to figure it out) it will be too late. The reality is that there was no phone call from Revlon/Walmar/Best Buy. Do you really think they would call up an invention submission company rather than call you directly? Of course, they will say that since they have some sort of commission it is in their best interest to do everything they can to promote your product and receive the phone calls directly from the companies.

Again, that's not how it works.

The best way to bring a product to market is to simply do it yourself. Getting your product onto the shelves of WalMart will probably not happen because that is ultra-competitive. The more realistic way of doing so is to go directly to the people through a website and sell direct. There are ways of doing this without breaking the bank. Take Google Adwords for instance. Did you know that you can start up an advertising campaign and you will only have to pay when a person actually clicks on your website?

Bottom line is: no clicks, no money. Did you know that you can specifically set the maximum price you will pay for your advertising campaign with Google? Say for instance, that you only want to pay $500 and not a penny more for advertising. Well, you can set the ceiling at $500 and you will get clicks to your website until all that $500 is maxed out. And say for instance you notice you're getting clicks, but you aren't feeling too good about it. No problem, just cancel the campaign and you can quickly cut your losses.

Compare this method with the invention submission company or with a print advertising in Time Magazine. They will demand all your money up front. And more often than not, these campaigns will cost you tens of thousands of dollars. And...

IT COMES WITH NO GUARANTEES!

That's right. They don't care if you make a million dollars or you lose $100,000, there are no return aisles in the back of the store.

With Google Adwords, you can pay as you go. You will reward them based on performance. And every penny will be accounted for.

Now, I must warn you with a word of caution. In the past there has been some major fraud going on with respect to pay-per-click fraud. In other words, there was a booming cottage industry a couple years ago where people would literally make a living sitting at home clicking on ads in order to drive up advertising revenue. To my knowledge, Google has never had much of a problem with this because their algorithms are able to sniff out a lot of fraud whether it is a competitor trying to drive you out of business or something else. Just be careful and watch every click and do a good job of tracking your analytics.

And if you do decide to do a pay per click campaign, you should only do it with Google, Bing, or Yahoo because they are usually able to sniff out fraud pretty quick. However, most other companies will cook the numbers by having proxies click on links.

In short, the main reason for the existence of these invention submission corporations is basically their marketing services. For legal services you can just enlist your own licensed and competent patent attorney or get some good patent software.

Invention Submission Corporations: Trustworthy?

2010-02-08T14:21:00.000-08:00

We've all seen them. The commercials with a cartoon cave man pounding away on a stone to make a new wheel. These commercials are EVERYWHERE. I even saw one invention commercial at a Carl's Jr. Problem with these commercials is that the corporations that run them are oftentimes scam artists.

There are so many problems with these invention submission companies its hard to figure out where to start. Well, for one, if you go to the USPTO website, they have SEVERAL pages dedicated to warning the public of these invention submission sites. There have been so many scams from these sites they've become a public hazard.

One of the problems with these corporations is the money they charge. Many of them will charge you over $20,000 to help you get a patent, to market your invention, to provide marketing assistance, and to do some marketing research. Now, that alone is not the problem. What is the problem is how they go about doing it.

By and large, these corporations rarely have qualified and licensed US Patent Attorneys drafting your patent applications. If you are lucky you might get an experienced patent agent who is not licensed to practice law, but only to draft patent applications. Technically, patent agents are not legally able to give you legal advice on how to best prepare your patent application and how to clear it through the USPTO. Of course, that has never stopped them from doing so.

What's more, most of the patent agents who work on those patent applications are woefully incompetent. I once had a client who gave me a stack of files and told me to review the patent application in that stack. I later called my client twice over a week and told my client that he did not give me the patent application. However, each time my client assured me that the patent application was indeed in there. Upon the third browsing of that stack I came across a file that looked like a 3rd grade book report. I remember thinking to myself, "Could THIS be the patent application? Naw, couldn't be." I was stunned to find out that it actually WAS the patent application!

This patent application was so bad that I could not even recognize it as a patent application! This document was just so bad on so many levels, it is hard to imagine how a grade school kid could have done any worse. The words, the language, the syntax, and everything about it was just wrong, wrong, wrong. Virtually nothing in this document resembled a patent application. And here's the kicker:

It cost over $20,000!

A decent patent attorney with over 10 years experience would have charged maybe $5,000 for the same patent application. Only it would work and it would be a real patent application.

I later did learn that the person who wrote (or allegedly wrote) the patent application had been a patent agent. However, from the way it was written, to this day I cannot really believe that she wrote it herself. My theory is that she had a community college kid "ghost-write" that patent application in order to save time.

I will follow this post up with some more info.

Invent Something

2010-02-08T14:18:00.000-08:00

For more great advice and information about how you can invent something and take your product to market, please go to the Invent Something Website.

Poor Man's Patent

2010-02-08T14:08:00.000-08:00

First of all, the whole idea of the poor man's patent is completely untrue. This is some sort of urban legend with absolutely no merit at all.

According to the poor man's patent urban legend, all you have to do is write down your idea on a piece of paper, put it into some envelope and mail it to yourself. And apparently, the date stamp and the sealed letter is supposed to be some sort of proof that it is legit.

Problem with this idea is that there is just no truth to it at all. And come on, does anyone REALLY think that a sealed envelope is evidence of anything really. I know that we've all seen those movies of some guy in the courtroom who's on the stand and he dramatically reaches into his pocket to unveil the mysterious envelope. The sealed envelope and the date stamp supposedly proved that he could not have committed the murder.

Well, that's all nice and fine in the movies but its not true. First of all, we all know that there are ways to steam an envelope and open it and place it back without detection. And the date stamp only proves a certain date and nothing more.

Of course, the urban legend of the poor man's patent overlooks one big detail. According to US Patent Law, you MUST file your patent application within 12 months of its reduction to practice or you will forever lose all your rights to that invention forever.

So again, no such thing as a poor man's patent.

When should you file a trademark application for your new invention?

2010-02-08T13:56:00.000-08:00

Trademark law works in an opposite manner as patent law. With patent law, you generally want to file your patent application as soon as possible. And you must file your patent application within 12 months of reduction to practice for your invention.

However, with trademark law, you should only file for a trademark AFTER you have begun to start marketing your product. This is because trademark law is based upon use rather than an actual registration. Technically, you do not even need to file a trademark application with anyone in order to have legal enforceable rights in your trademark. As long as you have been using it consistently in commerce, you will have trademark rights.

Now what if you want to figure out a way to get a trademark registration as soon and as quickly as possible? Well, in that event, probably the quickest way would be to start marketing it as soon as possible. Once you start marketing it under that trademark, and you start selling that product or service under that mark, your rights in that product will be sufficed. The quickest, and cheapest way is probably to start up a free blog and start using that trademark with the product or service itself.

Now, you should be warned that technically, if you just put up a website and just publish the logo and nothing more, you might run into some problems with the USPTO. You actually need to make some sort of good faith effort to actually use the trademark in the way in which it was intended. In other words, you should not really file a trademark application based on 1A through a cheap, quick and dirty way and kind of "squat" on that mark. That's not gonna fly.

So remember, with patents, you file it right away and at least within 12 months of invention. With trademarks, you file AFTER you first start to use your product or service with that mark.

Leather Whip

2010-02-08T11:24:00.000-08:00

If anyone is curious about leather whips and maybe getting a gag gift for a bachelor party, just check out the leather whips blog.

How great does your invention have to be?

2010-01-27T15:28:00.000-08:00

We all saw the prime time TV show a few years back American Inventor. On that show they featured a panel of judges grading out inventions. These inventions were graded on many different metrics including marketability, utility, effectiveness, user-friendliness, and overall quality. By watching that show people are given the impression that in order for it to be successful it has to make millions of dollars and it also has to cure cancer and save the whales.

Truth be told, it's your invention. The only judge that is important is yourself. Keep in mind that if you are happy and proud of your invention, you should know that in the end, that's all that really matters.

Now having said that, what most people want to know is how great does an invention have to be in order to make millions of dollars? Does it have to be some sort of weight loss pill guaranteed to make you lose weight without any additional help? Do you have to build a cutting edge gps microchip to be implanted into your kids' shoes? Does it have to stop a bullet with revolutionary Kevlar?

Not necessarily.

Did you know that one of the most profitable inventions made by a solo inventor was the Chip Clip? Not exactly rocket science is it? Did you know that the former wealthiest self-made woman in the world Ruth Parasol built an empire on online gambling and phone sex? Not exactly high level rocket science. Did you know that one of the best selling novelty products of the 90's was a pet rock? I'm not making this up.

But what do they all have in common (except for the pet rock)? A built-in strong demand. Before the chip clip, people were constantly having to roll up their bags of chips in a haphazard and unsighltly way. The pastime of gambling goes back to biblical times. And don't get me started with the other stuff.

If your measuring stick of how great an invention is its marketability, its ability to make you a lot of money, then you have to start at its built-in demand. Ultimately, it is the demand, and not a panel of celebrity judges that can determine how brilliant your invention is...or not.

Chinese inventions part 1

2010-01-26T10:19:00.002-08:00

Things Europe Never Invented: Ancient Chinese Inventions Pt1

2010-01-26T10:19:00.001-08:00

Top Ten Inventions

2010-01-26T10:18:00.002-08:00

How to Invent / Create New Ideas

2010-01-26T10:18:00.001-08:00

invent something that improves the world

2010-01-26T10:17:00.001-08:00

Invent Something

2010-01-16T20:11:00.000-08:00

Here's an excellent article on what to do when you invent something.

JUHZC52GHQ6B

2010-01-15T23:09:00.001-08:00

JUHZC52GHQ6B

2010-01-15T23:03:00.001-08:00

JUHZC52GHQ6B

2010-01-15T22:01:00.001-08:00

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CES Consumer Electronics Expo 2010 JUHZC52GHQ6B

2010-01-14T18:22:00.000-08:00

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Ebook reader featured at CES Consumer Electronics Expo 2010

2010-01-14T18:18:00.000-08:00

Here's a cool ebook featured at CES Consumer Electronics Expo 2010 last week.

CES Consumer Electronics Expo 2010, Fossil Video Game

2010-01-14T18:06:00.000-08:00

Here's a pretty cool fossil, paleontology video game featured last week at CES Consumer Electronics Expo 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Computer Cleaner featured at the CES Consumer Electronics Expo 2010

2010-01-14T17:59:00.000-08:00

Here's another cool idea featured at the CES Consumer Electronics Expo 2010 in Las Vegas. It is a computer cleaner.

Sharp Solar Car at CES 2010 in Las Vegas

2010-01-14T17:41:00.000-08:00

Here's the Sharp Solar Powered Car featured last week at the CES Consumer Electronics Expo 2010 in Las Vegas.

INVENT SOMETHING

2010-01-10T13:16:00.000-08:00

We hope you find our blog on Inventing interesting, informative, and illuminating. If there are certain topics you would like to see covered, please let us know!