Hello, this is my first post! I found this board about a month ago and have been astounded by the diversity and the depth of the knowledge that the posters on this board have. So I thought I’d ask this question.
Inventing things is kind of a hobby of mine. Over the years I’ve built hundreds of gadgets that are meant to simplify something or to amuse my kids. Up until now, everything has been for personal use. But now I’ve come up with something that could possibly have mass appeal. I’ve been testing it out in various scenarios for the past 2 or 3 months and it works flawlessly!
Forgive me for being vague about specifics, but I’m not sure it would be wise to divulge anything on a public forum. I’ve googled around and found a product currently being sold that accomplishes essentially the same thing as my invention, but in a much more complex and expensive way. In fact, it retails for slightly less than triple my total costs. I don’t think it would work as well either.
I have a working prototype and I’ve shown it to trusted friends, all of which have been very impressed. Everyone who knows about it wants one. I’m not currently wealthy and don’t have an unlimited supply of money to sink into marketing this thing. So what is the best course of action for me to take from this point?
Is it something that could be easily reverse engineered? WD-40 is not patented as doing so would give enough of the formula away that it could be reverse engineered, then changed just enough, to avoid litigation.
Patents are EXTREMELY expensive and take an EXTREMELY long time to process, THEN you have to cough up seed money.
Have you considered kickstarter? If it’s as big a deal as you say, having a $100,000 kickstarter jump to 3 million dollars might make other people balk at copying you.
I’m a machinist by hobby, and I’ve found that, if it exists, it’s always cheaper to buy than make. I had a little success in making motorcycle tools, but there’s always another hobbiest that can make it also. And if it were successful enough, my $20 profit on a $30 part will turn to $0 profit when a major manufactur I can’t afford to sue starts making them for $8.
Yes it would be very easy to reverse engineer. It’s one of those things that you look at and say “I could have though of that.” Except I don’t think anyone has thought of it.
I’ve never heard of kickstarter so had to google it. I had no idea something like that existed. I’ll have to look more into it. Thanks for that.
Find an investor (who will have partial, maybe even majority ownership) or take out a loan (got collateral?). Or maybe you could try crowd funding, but i know little about this. Make sure your funding is big enough to see you through to completion of your business plan (you will need one of these), if it is not you are opening yourself to a world of hurt. Build a prototype. Create a manufacturing and supply chain. Convince stores to retail it for you, national chains are best (don’t forget the internet). Agressivly market it. Patent it to protect it; but it is better if you just saturate the market before someone else steals the idea and takes your business. Patents are difficult to protect and expensive to create. Hire the people necessary to help you. Reap the profits.
That’s the ideal way (I am an engineer that has worked at a bunch of startups and have friends who have done this with varying degrees of success), but you could also just try to sell your idea and make a quick couple of thousand dollars. It’s pretty easy to get screwed if you go this route, but some people do it. You won’t get much going this way.
Probably the first step is to do a market analysis. How many can you sell for how much and how long would it take you to do it. If you can’t make at least 20-30% in the short run, it may not be worth it.
I am pretty technical, hopefully someone will come along with more business acumen and correct any errors i am passing along.
If they are selling it at retail for 3 X your cost that’s not really much of confidence builder. For small mass market consumer items your cost to make usually has to be a fraction of the retail price in order for the profit ratio to pay for marketing, advertising costs etc. If their retail price point is 3X your cost to manufacture I assure you their manufacturing cost is probably far less than yours.
I would assume the OP isn’t literally going to manufacture every unit in his garage. Maybe initially, until it’s perfected, Ultimately he is going to hire someone to manufacture it for him.
It costs $10,000 to $20,000 to get a patent written by a patent attorny. You could write your own patent but it is an extremely specialized area of law and the pitfalls are many and there is lots of back and forth letters between the patent office and the writer of the patent that if you don’t respond in the correct manor on time will result in the patent not being granted. Then there is the worry that a poorly drafted patent is not worth much.
You can’t patent an idea, only an implementation. For example, you can’t patent the idea of putting a string on the end of spinning rod to cut weeds. However, you can patent specific parts, such as the way the string is attached to the rod. Someone else can make a weed wacker, but they would need to come up with a different way to attach the string.
It sounds like you have a great idea, but not a unique implementation. If it’s easy to reverse engineer, chances are some other company could make small modifications which make it different enough to be different.
On the other hand, maybe you have a device with a unique implementation. I saw these new strawberry top pullers at the store. It’s a spring-loaded plunger which which pulls the top off and leaves a cone shaped hole. That is something unique enough to be patented. However, you can’t patent the idea of a strawberry top remover, only your specific implementation.
You’ll need to partner up with a company who has deep pockets to produce this item in mass quantities and high quality. I think you can show them the item with a confidentially agreement so that you’re protected. A big company may want a patent since they have the deep pockets necessary to sue for patent infringement.
If it’s a consumer item, you may be able to partner up with someone who does infomercials. There was a show for a while called ‘Pitchmen’ where they did this. They went out looking for products, then they would create infomercials around them.
Practically speaking, it will be almost impossible for you to do this on your own. If it’s a great idea, other companies will shamelessly manufacture their own versions for much less than you can.
Yes. Almost no one is ever successful. When they are, they do not hardly make anything like you are probably hoping for. It is a bottomless pit and they will keep taking your money as long as you will give it to them.
The expensive part is not what you pay to the patent office. It’s what you pay to your patent attorney to write the patent and to handle all the correspondence with the patent office. And yes, you need a patent lawyer if you hope to have any chance of having your patent accepted.
