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: Invention, irishblogs, round-up, technology | Tags: Levitat, Invention, Design, patent, Cork, tom peters, irishblogs, innovation, review, round-up, week, feedback, topics, wow, extract, blogging, week 11
Two weeks of blogging… I’m still not sure where it is taking me. I got a few comments this week at last. It seems that my blog about inventing got the most interest, so the second in the series will be coming soon. Stay tuned.
This weeks posts:
- Blog design - I asked for feedback on my blog theme
- The Pursuit of WOW! #39 - part 1 - take a serious daily break
- The ultimate mobile phone! - how did they sell us the dream before they could deliver it?
- EskimoFriends.com - a great website for music lovers
- The Pursuit of WOW! #39 - part 2 - do something different
Filed under: Design, Invention, inspiration, irishblogs, technology | Tags: Levitat, Design, Cork, Ireland, tech, irishblogs, mobile phone, quest, sell, dream, early adaptors, imagine, man, moon, mobile, ultimate, phone, promise, support, style, laid
A mobile phone that:
- lets you make free calls (over the Internet)
- lets you surf the web at high speed
- takes high resolution photographs and video
- stores and plays all your music
- works as a satellite navigation system
- is a mobile games console
- is a mobile PC
- is a mobile video player; even connecting wirelessly with your home cinema projector and transmits high resolution video with surround sound
- is easy to learn and simple to use
That’s the phone I want. That’s the phone that has been promised to me since mobile phones first became popular. That’s the phone that we are fast approaching. But that is not the phone that has been in my pocket all these years.
What I don’t understand is how the phone companies managed to sell us this dream while supplying us the unreliable, expensive and under-delivering phones we have all been buying for the past 10 years.
We bought mobile phones before the networks that let them work were fully developed… We bought camera phones before the pictures they took were recognisable…
I want to know how they did it. How can I replicate it? How can I sell a product that I can conceive now, but won’t be able to deliver fully until 10 years from now?
I can see the tech-loving “early adaptors” buying something new for the excitement of what it is to become; but how did the mobile phone companies drag the rest of us along for the ride?
Imagine what could be created if every under-developed idea was supported like this… A man on the moon is nothing.
Filed under: Design, Invention, irishblogs, technology | Tags: Levitat, Invention, Design, patent, Cork, Ireland, millions, irishblogs, how to, rules, cost, research, patent search
So what should you do first?
- Blog about it?
- Tell everyone down the pub?
- File a patent immediately?
- If you answered 1. Blog about it, or 2. Tell everyone down the pub, you just lost your millions. Patents are granted to you by governments, giving you (the inventor) a monopoly on using the idea in exchange for you making public your know-how. They do this so that others can learn from your work and develop other useful products on top of it. If the idea is already in the public domain, why should they give you a monopoly?
RULE 1 - do not make your idea public prior to filing a patent. (Note that the system is different in the USA, where you are allowed to make your idea public up to one year before you file a patent.)
- If you answered 3. File a patent immmediately, you just cost yourself a lot of money. Patents get expensive very quickly. You have to file separate applications in every country you want protection in… and you also need to renew each of them every year. Expect a couple of hundred Euro, every year, in every country… it adds up. If it takes 2 years to develop the idea, that’s 2 years of expensive patent fees that are unnecessary. You might run out of money before the product is ready to sell.
RULE 2 - Don’t file your patent until you have to. The ideal is to keep your idea secret, work with people under terms of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), and file your patent the day before the product hits the shelves. You might not quite manage that, but delay filing as long as possible.
So what should you do?
Step 1 is to research the idea. Has anyone done this already? Has anyone tried to do this before? Why has it not been done before? Is there a real market for this idea? How big is that market? If you are happy that the market is there and is big enough to make it worth your while, then…
Step 2 is to carry out a patent search. You can do an initial search yourself online (Esp@ceNet, USPTO) but should get a patent agent to do a final search before you commit too much money to it. Many ideas, even if they’re not on the market now, will have been tried by someone, somewhere, before. If you idea has already been tried, you won’t be able to get a patent… unless your idea brings something new to the table.
If you clear those two hurdles you might be on to something. I’ll talk about what happens next in a later post. If you are already at this stage and can’t wait, talk to a patent agent before you do anything else. Good luck.
Filed under: Design, Invention, irishblogs, technology | Tags: Levitat, Invention, Design, eco, kettle, energy, water, power, boil, patent, intellectual property, end, beginning, BoilingPoint™, Cork, Ireland, big idea
Where better to start than at the end? An end is, after-all, a new beginning… So let’s start with my latest invention, BoilingPoint™; a replacement for the electric-kettle.
BoilingPoint™ repackages the basic elements of an electric-kettle to greatly reduce both the power and water consumed.
The electric kettle is the cooking device that consumes the most electricity in the home; about 25% more than your electric hob. A major reason for this is that we overfill our kettles. If everyone in the UK only boiled the water they needed, enough energy would be saved to power all the UK’s street lighting for 7 months.
The solution to overfilling a kettle is simple… don’t use a kettle at all. With BoilingPoint™, you fill the cup that you want with water and the heating element is lowered into your cup. This way you boil exactly the amount of water you need every time.
By using BoilingPoint™ instead of a kettle you:
Reduce energy consumption - by between 30% [DEFRA] and 60% [Tefal]
Reduce wasted water - no water is discarded after sitting still in the kettle
Reduce the risk of scalding - no lifting and pouring
Increase counter space - BoilingPoint™ takes up only a little more space than a mug
Increase flavour - reboiling water reduces the oxygen content, which reduces the flavour drawn from tea-leaves. BoilingPoint™ avoids this.
For more information visit our site.
Major appliance manufacturers have already expressed serious interest, so why is this an ending instead of a beginning?
Just before Christmas we found a prior patent. Filed 25 years ago in the USA, the patent is for a similar (though not identical) device. Unfortunately, that patent is too similar to allow strong patent protection to be obtained for BoilingPoint™.
So, after a year of hard work, I have to let a good idea go. That’s one of the many risks you run when you work with inventions. You just have to learn your lessons and cut your losses, because the next big idea is just a thought away.
