Everyday Inventors hear terms, phrases, abbreviations, or acronyms and have no idea what they mean. This is compounded by the fact that most people are reluctant to ask the meaning of something they don’t know for fear of looking uninformed.  So, I thought I would make a listing of a number of these terms, phrases, abbreviations and acronyms and give a plain English interpretation to help expand everyone’s understanding. AA (Age Appropriate) – Make sure you have your target audience correct before you contact a company. Example companies that cater to kids 5 and under do not wan ..read more

First let me say I am not against patents, but I do feel Inventors need to know more about patents in the practical sense. Unfortunately, I see more patents that have no commercial worth than ones that you can get a company interested in licensing. Here are some primary issues I see daily. I am not a lawyer, so this is not legal advice, just my opinion based on working with Inventors and companies for years licensing products. The Inventor has filed a PPA and promotes it as if they have an issued patent. The Inventor has a Design patent but thinks it is a Utility patent The Inventor does not r ..read more

I want to discuss an Inventor that has been sadly overlooked. His name is Wile E. Coyote. Yes, I know he is a cartoon character. Yet, he has qualities we all need to emulate to be the best possible Inventor. If more of us possessed his drive and willpower who knows what levels of achievement could be reached. If you have ever watched a Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote cartoon there is a hidden lesson to be learned. We all know that the Coyote never catches the Road Runner. That would have ended the show if he did. What I want to focus on is Wile E. Coyote’s drive and creativity. Wile E. Coyote has ..read more

One of the issues Inventors have told me about is the lack of negative information on getting or owning a patent they get from those selling them patent services. What do you expect, the person selling you a car generally tells you all the Pros of the car and seldom goes into the Cons of the car. The other issue is most first time Inventors don’t know questions to ask to get good advice to make an informed decision. Here are some things you should know and questions to ask those trying to sell you patent search or patent filing services. I am not a lawyer so this is my opinion, not legal advic ..read more

How you approach a company is very important and your attitude plays a large part in your success or failure. Below is a compilation letter I made up from excerpts from letters Inventors have shown me they sent to companies. They wanted to know what they were doing wrong because they were either getting no response back or getting told No Thank You. Is this how your letters look? If it is you need to change what you are doing now. Most companies will not want to work with the type of person that wrote this letter. To Whom It May Concern I have decided to give your company the privilege of bein ..read more

When it comes to inventing, bigger isn’t always better. There seems to be a trend with Inventors to put everything including the kitchen sink into their invention. What you need to understand is the more you add the higher the cost of the product. The more parts you add the greater the risk of a part failing rendering the product useless. You want your product to be as user friendly and streamlined as possible. Don’t add features to your product just because you can. You want your product to catch the consumers’ eye as something they need. We have all seen products on the shelf that do multipl ..read more

Having worked with a large number of Inventors over the years I see certain similarities in how they express their idea/product. The first thing I hear from most Inventors when they discuss their product/idea is about how everyone in their family loves the product/idea and would buy it if it was available. Unfortunately you have to take this statement and forget it because it doesn’t really mean anything of value. It is easy to find a person to say they love your idea or that they would buy one if you sold them. Most of your friends and family don’t want to hurt your feelings so they will say ..read more

Consider this post from a disgruntled Inventor he sent to a invention company that prompted me to write the article below. “You claim you don’t steal people’s ideas? I did research my idea and it had NEVER been done before I submitted it to you lying thieves! No sooner did my idea stall in the selection process, than the FBI announces their new app for missing children. THAT WAS MY IDEA!!! I submitted that. It was almost word for word my idea, about Amber alerts, and locating missing children, posting alerts on local computers, law enforcement notification, etc…almost WORD FOR WORD!!! You stol ..read more

Wanted to make a couple of points about the use of magnets, Velcro and suction cups in your ideas. As a rule, magnet’s run the cost of goods up. And I know your first comment will be how can they be expensive, I see them in all sorts of products. It all comes down to the product, its profit margin and the return on investment. There is no problem using magnets if it is the best fit and not just a quick fix. Also, if you choose to work with magnets do your research to find the right type of magnets that make sense for your application. Velcro is a very versatile product and great to use in many ..read more

Many Inventors trying to bring their product ideas to market are totally crushed by rejection. So, I thought I would provide a list of some of the reasons you could have gotten rejected. It does not cover every reason you could get rejected, but hopefully it will give you something to think about. You need to realize that inventing is fundamentally a numbers game! Yes, you still need to have a good idea, but you will find that no matter how good an idea you may think it is you can still get rejected. Many marketable ideas are rejected all the time. Even if it does not make sense to you that th ..read more