Filed under: Invention, innovation, irishblogs, technology | Tags: Levitat, Invention, Design, patent, Cork, Ireland, millions, irishblogs, how to, rules, cost, NDA, non-disclosure, agreement, confidentiality, basic, draft, engineer, work, look, made, manufacture, margin, experts, public, idea, terms, disclose, disguise, quote, components, redesign, functionality, market, profit
This is part 2 of the series. Part one can be read here. But if you just want the guts of it, here’s a quick summary:
- RULE 1 - do not make your idea public prior to filing a patent.
- RULE 2 - don’t file your patent until you have to.
- Step 1 - research the idea.
- Step 2 - carry out a patent search.
Okay, recap over… So you’ve got an idea, there is a market for it and no one had done anything like it before. What do you do next?
Step 3 is to draft a basic design. You need to figure out how the product will work and get a basic design down on paper. You don’t need to get into the nitty-gritty of the detail, just get it to a point where others can see what it will look like and how it will work. This will be used as a starting point to answer the following questions:
- Will it work?
- Can it be made? (In the quantities you are thinking of.)
- Is there a margin?
If you are technically minded you will be able to research and answer these questions yourself, but most people will need to start talking to experts. Remember rule 1 though, do not make your idea public prior to filing a patent. So you will need to ensure all your discussions are confidential.
RULE 3 - Have a signed non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in place before discussing your idea with anyone. This applies even if you know and trust the person. If anyone later tries to argue that you had made the idea public by talking to these people you can disprove it with a signed NDA. I find most people don’t have a problem signing an NDA and many actually get a kick out of being let in on a secret.
A good NDA (also known as a Confidentiality Agreement or Confidentiality Undertaking) should be simple and clear. There are two good reasons for this, firstly it ensures there can be no misinterpretation of the terms; secondly it allows the person you ask to sign the NDA to understand that there is no risk in their doing so.
The NDA should simply state that the other party will not disclose your idea without your permission. It will however exclude any information they already knew, is in the public domain or is given to them legally by another party. You should be able to compile a decent NDA yourself by doing a web-search. Be sure to read through a few of them to ensure yours covers everything you need it to.
For some answers you won’t want to disclose your full idea and deal with the issue of NDA’s. This may well be the case when you want to get several quotes for the cost of producing your design. A simple way around this is to disguise your design. Show components that have similar shapes to your design but do not give away your idea. You may need help in doing this from one of the experts who signed your NDA.
To get positive answers to the 3 questions above you may well need to redesign your product a couple of times. You might learn that changing the shape or the basic functionality will greatly reduce your costs.
RULE 4 - make changes as early in the process as possible. Remember that a change in the design at this stage costs you nothing… changing a design after patents are filed or manufacturing has begun can cost you a lot.
We already knew we had an idea, there was a market for it and no one had done anything like it before… now we know it will work, can be made and can be sold at a profit. It’s time to start getting serious about taking this to market. Come back for the next post to learn how.
Filed under: books, innovation, inspiration, irishblogs | Tags: Levitat, Cork, pursuit of wow, tom peters, inspiration, irishblogs, innovation, solution, problem, ideas, day off, different, productivity, improvement, job, rekindling, payoffs, perspective
An extract from ‘The Pursuit of WOW!’ by Tom Peters:What if we managers put rebirth at the top of our agendas? … suggestions:
- Do something different. One company gives its telemarketers a whole day “off” each week to work on productivity-improvement projects. In addition to rekindling energy for the primary job, project payoffs have more than covered the costs of the extra staffing required. I can imagine such an approach applied almost everywhere.
My own thoughts on this? I think getting people to work on ‘new’ areas, not even necessarily directly related to their work, is hugely beneficial. It makes people think about different problems; which leads them to look at problems in a different way. Who knows what they will find when they then bring that new way of looking back to their old problems…
Filed under: books, innovation, inspiration, irishblogs | Tags: Levitat, Cork, pursuit of wow, tom peters, inspiration, irishblogs, often, innovation, break, pause, refresh, copier, coffee, sleep, solution, problem, ideas
An extract from ‘The Pursuit of WOW!’ by Tom Peters:
What if we managers put rebirth at the top of our agendas? … suggestions:
- Take a serious daily break. I’m worried about my new, high-speed Canon copier. What will I do now for a break? I find - seriously - that many of my best ideas have come while I stood by my old copier, feeding in 75 pages, one at a (slow) time. Planned coffee breaks are one (good) thing, but I’m talking about something else, a real pause to refresh or redirect our brain waves.
My own thoughts on this? I never had that slow a copier, but I do often find that I think up a solution as soon as I stop thinking about the problem. Unfortunately, it is usually just as I’m about to fall off to sleep and I have to wake myself up to write it down incase I have forgotten by morning!
Filed under: books, innovation, inspiration, irishblogs | Tags: Levitat, Cork, pursuit of wow, tom peters, inspiration, irishblogs, fail, small, often, innovation, fear of failure, success, inactivity, learn, michael schumacher, john watson
An extract from ‘The Pursuit of WOW!’ by Tom Peters:
‘69. “To learn, fail… If nothing ever breaks, you don’t know how strong it is. Strike out fear of failure… Reward success and failure equally - punish inactivity.” David Kelley, IDEO‘
My own thoughts on this? I remember John Watson (F1 commentator) pointing out how Michael Schumacher didn’t just drive to the edge of what the car could do, he drove beyond it. He was constantly pushing the car a little too much and correcting it. That way he knew he was always at the limit.
It’s the same in everything you do. You have to go beyond the limit to know where that limit is. But equally, you don’t want to go so far that you can’t catch it once you find that limit. I think you should be like Schumacher, fail small and often.
