The exact formula used is still a secret but a functional equivalent has been duplicated by others.
Not just hollywood, I think culturally we want to believe in one person having one idea.
Yes, we may acknowledge that it takes hard work and persistence, but when you look into how real inventions and (self-made) business success happens, it’s often a lot of changing course, and equally often there are many important contributors.
And that’s not the fantasy that we want.
I have thought up several inventions. I built working prototypes of two of them but realize they would have limited commercial applications. They both work very nicely and I have videos of them both running.
One is a process to reclaim bullets from an outdoor firing range where the backstop is comprised of heavy clay. The clay was so dense that when dried you could strike it with an axe and the axe head just buried itself a bit and has difficult to remove. No amount of washing or shaking would dislodge the bullets.
The second was a machine to reclaim bullets from an indoor firing range where the backstop was made of chunks of heavy rubber belting. The bullets that were trapped were everything from intact bullets to fine powder as each new bullet struck ones already embedded. All of this mess was entwined in the fabric-reinforced rubber. My machine was small enough to fit in a pickup bed. It delivered utterly clean lead and piles of old rubber waste. I reclaimed 10,000 lbs of lead using it for a month or so.
My favorite thing I thought of was a catsup container for French fries. Those little packs you get are no good for dipping fries, just squirting catsup. I conceived a cone shaped container about 2" high and 3/4" wide at the base. A tear-off top let you dip your fries. A removable tab on the bottom exposed a sticky base to hold the container upright in your car. I dubbed it the “Stick and Dip”.
Fast forward 15 years and lo and behold, Heinz introduced their own version carried by Dairy Queen . They call it the “Dip and Squeeze”. basically the same thing I envisioned but without the sticky base.
The thing about the functional equivalents is that they can be made from materials available in the average kindergarten classroom. It’s the sort of thing that is a genuine breakthrough in concept, but utterly unpatentable. You can’t make a million dollars by finding an awesome use for baking soda mixed with paper mache paste.
As someone who evaluates ideas/inventions for a living (within my company), I’d say:
I agree that the first invention, while potentially patentable, is probably not worth patenting. Processes are very hard to enforce unless you have deep pockets and a market large enough to justify the cost documenting and litigating infringement.
I could make a case for patenting the second invention, if you wanted to go into either providing this as a service or, better yet, building the machines (or licensing the patent to a budding entrepreneur who wants to build the machines and sell them) for others to provide the service. I’d want to work out a rough business case, but the cost of obtaining and maintaining the patent (especially if you do it yourself) might be justified by the potential (modest) revenue). I agree it isn’t a million dollar idea, though.
The last one is unpatentable as a utility patent. Any decent claims would be demolished by obviousness-related office actions from the examiner. And unless you are one of these big fast food entities, it’s not worth a design patent, which is just the equivalent of trademarking a physical item.
Wendy’s had little containers that you would peal the top off and dip. Didn’t have a sticky bottom though.
Have you been living under a rock? This happens all the time. The drainage thing might be a consideration but mobile detailing is a thing.
A person could easily carry a bucket and sponge and do some of the work. Again, I could open up Craig’s List and get names of 5 people who will drive over to my house and use their own water and supplies and vacuum. Being in Vegas I might even get them here at this time of night. 10:30 PM. Granted that might not be someone who I would want detailing my car but still….
As a business you would need many types of permits, such as Health Dept, if you had any employees you would have to implement a full medical surveillance program for lead exposure. You would need to determine if your waste stream was classified as hazardous waste, obtain correct DOT licenses as a haz waste transporter and, well it never ends.
A relative was convinced that tiny homes would be awesome but he spent 12 years building one and the property owner said to take it or it was theirs. His recent idea to solve the homeless crisis is to build a “Gazebo”. It’s actually a shack where someone can sleep but no bathroom, etc. unknown if it has electricity. These would be placed on land that California state would donate along the sides of interstates.
This precise idea has lead to horrific “informal settlememts” aka “shanty towns” in South Africa, where entire families inhabit a space only slightly bigger than a king size bed. You see similar atrocious accommodation in many countries, India, Indonesia, Brazil are just a few of those I have seen.
And no, they are not hipster fully equipped “small houses”.
I applaud you considering this to be a dumb idea. It is monumentally dumb.
It remains a blister on society that people exist in such shacks.
Yep, lots of issues. Most people don’t realize that the EPA does not regulate firing ranges. They are specifically exempted from regulation providing they do not discharge lead into the surface or ground water. However, any material removed during lead reclamation must be returned to the range (dirt, gravel, rubber, etc). The recovered lead must follow regulations but for plastic buckets with a couple of inches of lead the regulations are minimal. About 3-4 inches is all you can lift!
Caltrans only takes as much extra right of way as needed for a safety buffer (maybe sometimes for later expansion). The idea of forcing people to live in such a dangerous location is boggling.
It would probably be on the other side of big walls which are very common along California freeways and always there when there are buildings of any kind.
It’s like every single Tiny Homes realty show?
“We’re looking for a tiny home”
“…This tiny home is way too small!”
Here’s my dumb idea. Market a lollipop shaped like a rooster. Guess what it would be called?
A friend told me about an idea I had to keep secret. he is dead now so I can talk about it. A bicycle helmet with some kind of holes cut into it for hearing. It would warn of approaching cars and let you know what side they were approaching from. I don’t ride a bike so I have no idea if it would be useful or not.
I’m not sure I understand that idea. Bicycle helmets already have the ears exposed. They typically come above the ear and the ear is completely uncovered. Was he talking about motorcycle helmets? Those are totally enclosed. Actually, I could see the benefit of a motorcycle helmet which had some kind of auditory or sensory feedback to let you know what’s going on around you. I could imagine a set of vibration pads along the inside of the back half which would vibrate according to where a car was. It would start out with a soft vibration and get stronger as the car got closer. Or perhaps it could have speakers which would have virtual 3D sound which would do a similar thing to allow you to “hear” the car approaching.
(A long time ago, did you mention an idea for a dog nail trimming treat? That was a good idea. I think about it often when I’m trimming my dog’s nails.)
I think the concept of a dog trimming his own nails through some kind of activity that could motivate him to dig has some potential but the method I was using had too many minor drawbacks. The dirt cannot be too hard or too soft depending on the size of the dog and his energy level when digging. I came up with a few other things but never tried them out.
I’m sure it was a big secret. And I’ll bet your friend was “an idea guy” who hadn’t worked out how to aerodynamically design the holes to avoid wind and motor noise. In fact, he probably didn’t realize that most motorcycle helmets allow you to hear what’s around you, the main issue is keeping the wind and motor noise down.
In fact, most helmets don’t deaden sound as much as they should. So many doctors now recommend that earplugs be worn inside helmets. Earplugs block out the louder wind noise related sounds, but you can still hear traffic noises. I, for one, highly recommend earplugs and I never ride without them.
And for warning a motorcyclist about cars behind them:
And, of course, no one has thought of how to get pets to trim their own nails:
I have a rule of thumb: If someone sends me a simple, but revolutionary idea (their words), it’s invariably already for sale in some form or the problem has already been solved in some related way, I just have to spend 30 seconds on Google (something the inventors never seem to be able to accomplish).
And I have to tell you that if you can buy it on Amazon, not only can’t you patent it, it isn’t an invention. Sorry (not even if you thought it up all by yourself).
Some advice to those idea guys out there who believe they have a secret invention that solves a simple problem that is well known. Google using simple straightforward terms for the problem and/or solution before getting wrapped around the axle.
I am continually in awe of true inventors who have a full grasp of both the problem and a novel, non-obvious solution. It takes hard work and enormous insight. I treasure those ideas when they are sent to me.
Whew! That got a lot longer a lot quicker than I expected. But if I can save one or two people from carrying a half thought out delusion of invention, it might just be worth the effort.