Advice for inventing my... invention

In My Humble Opinion
1

OK, so I have a world-changing idea for an invention. Well, maybe not world-changing, and it’s kind of a mashed-up derivative of some existing inventions, but apparently nobody but me has thought to make & sell this particular thing.

So how do I go about making it a reality, patenting, producing, etc? I’m not great at building stuff but I know exactly what it needs to do. Basically you push some buttons, some calculus happens, and then some specific sounds and lights produce a very specific effect. The lighting behavior can be found in some existing applications, but as far as I can tell, nobody is selling anything like the acoustic part of it. The math is all well understood and can be basically copied from Wikipedia.

So what am I looking at here, in terms of business consultants, patent attorneys, manufacturing, etc? I just want to start cranking out small amounts and selling them on Amazon. Actually I really just want to make one for myself, then sell others to recover the cost of the prototype.

Any advice?

2

I have an idea that I want to manufacture and sell on my own website but haven’t yet because of startup capital. :frowning: I looked into patenting with some advice from patent examiners/SD members. I talked to 2 different patent attorneys and it was going to be $8-10K to do for a relatively simple mechanical device. Also, I didn’t do good enough initial patent searches. After spending money on the initial meetings with the attorneys, I found some existing patents that killed some of my claims. Google and the patent office both have good patent searches. Try all possible keywords. Just because you have never seen anything on the market similar to your idea doesn’t mean something hasn’t already been patented. Most patents don’t make it to market. My plan now is to forgo the patent and spend the money on the manufacturing & online retailing of it.

Also, just because there is a less than 20 year old patent on record doesn’t mean it is still valid. If the patent holder doesn’t pay the renewal fees, the patent goes into the public domain.

Are you able to manufacture it yourself? If so, you could start out simple & cheap doing your own small-scale manufacturing and on-line retail (or even just Ebay) to see what the market for it is before committing a lot of time & money to the project.

Here’s that patent thread:

Good luck

3

My standard advice in these matters: (PDF warning)

4

Another thought, my goal is devolp my own niche business not get rich by selling a patent.
That is why I am willing to forgo the patent.

5

I’m a little confused by the article’s advice to avoid anything patent related. What do I do, just make my stuff and sell it without worrying if it infringes anybody else? I mean I gather that’s what unscrupulous types are doing, but I want to avoid getting sued or shaken down if I can. I don’t want to end up with less money than I started with (capital costs excepted).