Trade Show Know How Rita Crompton (AKA The Inventor Lady) https://www.inventorlady.com/ was almost synonymous with the National Hardware Show. Every year she had a large booth right at the entrance to the show where she promoted independent inventor’s projects. Industry leaders always stopped in to see what she had this time. A number of contacts were made and, from what I understand, some deals were actually made right at the show. Why, you ask? Unlike a number of inventors that I’ve seen at the show, working on their cell phones or laptops, she makes her participants Work The Show and nobody ..read more

Secrets of Successful Women Inventors Edith G. Tolchin knows inventors! Edie has interviewed over 100 inventors for her longtime column in Inventors Digest (www.edietolchin.com/portfolio). In addition, she has owned EGT Global Trading since 1997, which links inventors with China factories, providing an exclusive importing service for product sourcing, quality control, production testing, government safety issues, manufacturing, assistance with shipping and customs clearance, and dock-to-door delivery for inventions of textiles and sewn items. She has held a prestigious U.S. customs broker lice ..read more

Trademarks have always been a valuable part of an Intelectual Property Portfolio but even more so now in light of the America Invents Act (AIA) which removed the property rights of inventors. We have seen infringers brought to justice using Trademarks and Copyrights. Adam W. Bell is a Patent Attorney with over 20 years of law-firm and in-house experiance. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford, a J.D. from the University of California College of the Law (formerly UC Hastings). On top of all of that, He is a direct decendent of Alexander Graham and Maybel Bell. So I guess you can say, he ..read more

The Accidental Inventor Amy Jo Brogan is an extraordinarily driven personality. She began a career in the entertainment industry taking on acting and modeling jobs at 13 years old. By age 15, she earned her Screen Actors Guild card (SAG) and by 16, graduated early so she could work as an adult on the set. All in all, she learned how business is conducted and probably knew more about contract law then most attorneys. As with many inventors, her venture into this field began with her own personal frustration. Her primary career kept her very active, running here and there, always with her messy ..read more

How To Make It REAL Once you have validated that your product has a market, in almost all cases, the next step is to make it REAL or in other words, build a prototype. Now you have a physical representation to show potential customers, retailers, and licensees. Werner Blumenthal is the perfect person to walk us through this process. He is an actual engineer as opposed to a product designer, who works mostly on how things look. He gets more into the nuts and bolts of how things work. Werner also focuses on design for manufacturing which can save you thousands of dollars during the manufacturing ..read more

Product Validation This IS the most important step to bringing a successful product to market that almost every independent inventor never does. Fortunately, I am not part of that group. I have a whole shelf in my garage filled with so, so prototypes and file draws full of research. That doesn’t mean that  I’ve given up on these projects. I get excited when I think of an improvement. There is nobody more qualified to speak about this subject then this month’s speaker. Marcy McKenna is an award winning inventor and entrepreneur having successfully design, developed, marketed, and launched ..read more

This month we have, not one, but two speakers giving a presentation on Intellectual Property (IP) from the prestigious firm Wasserbauer Intellectual Property Law. The list of their accomplishments are way too long to provide here but can be seen on the company website: https://wasserbauerlaw.com . Their firm provides practical, business-oriented advice to assist clients and emerging companies in developing and implementing strategies to acquire, develop, protect, enforce and commercialize intellectual property and technology on a worldwide basis. They have a repeatable and structured way to su ..read more

Bob Oros of Business Development Resources www.bdrinovate.com truly knows the ins and outs of working with corporations better than anyone else I know. After all, he has worked for major corporations marketing and developing over-the-counter products, foods and beverages, etc., for more years than he will admit to.  In 1983 he founded Business Development Resources, a marketing consultancy specializing in new business and new product development and innovation. BDR’s client roster is “bipolar” with corporate clients on one end as well as inventors and entrepreneurs on the other.  Dom ..read more

The Real Deal Stephen Kerr is an incredible person. He is an MD, a very busy surgeon, an inventor, a medical device manufacturer, an author of both medical articles, and the book “How To Develop Your Product Idea Without Going Broke”. It is that publication that will be the basis of his zoom presentation for us.          Let me tell you, I have read all sorts of books on inventing. However, this is possibly the best that I have ever read. It is concise (only 109 pages), packed with useful information ( some, that you won’t find anywhere else), presented in a step by st ..read more

Be A Wise Inventor Lesia Farmer’s journey began by being burned by hot spaghetti. She swore that would never happen again and so she began her research. Eventually, she developed the Trap Door Colander which she licensed to Farberware through Lifetime Brands.  I remember seeing it many years ago and writing an article about it for our newsletter. It is really quite clever and one of those simple solutions that calls for the response of, “why didn’t I think of that”?  Now, ten years later, she is manufacturing, marketing, and selling the product herself. She has also become a wealth o ..read more