Posts Tagged: "famous inventors"

Crowdfunding is a proven way to get initial funding for the commercialization of an invention. Crowdfunding involves posting a project description on the internet, asking for pledges to complete the project, and if the minimum amount of pledges is received by a certain deadline, having the funds transferred to the project. On some sites, such as Kickstarter.com, if the minimum isn’t reached, you don’t get any money. On other sites, such as Indiegogo.com, if the minimum isn’t reached, you still get what you’ve raised.

Nominations are due by May 15, 2013, and the winner (and the nominators) will be honored on Monday, December 10, 2012, in Washington, D.C. at a gala event. The purpose of the award is to increase public awareness of inventors and how they benefit the nation’s economy and our quality of life. To accomplish this goal the IPO Inventor of the Year Award recognizes the most outstanding recent inventor (or inventors in the case of joint invention). Thus, nominations are being solicited from independent inventors, as well as inventors employed in industry, universities, and government.

I understand it is prudent to proceed with care and not needlessly waste money, which is why I try and help inventors understand how best to start the patent process on a budget, but a couple hundred dollars is not really a budget. You might as well go to Vegas and put it all down on black and let it ride. At least you have close to a 50% chance, which is a greater chance of success than having only a few hundred to spend on your invention. Inventors really need to know and fully understand that there is a big difference between inventing and describing an invention. For well over 100 years courts have marveled at how difficult it is to draft a patent application.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is revising the rules of practice in patent cases to implement the micro entity provision of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA). Certain patent fees set or adjusted under the fee setting authority in the AIA will be reduced by seventy-five percent for micro entities. The USPTO is revising the rules of practice to set out the procedures pertaining to claiming micro entity status, paying patent fees as a micro entity, notification of loss of micro entity status, and correction of payments of patent fees paid erroneously in the micro entity amount.

We pick up our conversation with where many inventors stumble as they attempt to move from idea person to small business person. We also discuss lessons learned from a Big Bang Theory episode, as well as the important of taking reasonable risks, protecting your innovations (Key is a fan of provisional patent applications to start) and the importance of knowing the market for your product.

A lot of inventors and entrepreneurs might come up with an idea that solves a problem, but I’ve always took a different approach. I would let the market tell me what it’s looking for or what it needs or what’s missing. And I like to refer to it as looking for a sleeping dinosaur. By that I mean something that is old and tired. Don’t reinvent the wheel but come up with a small change in existing products. So number one, you’re guaranteed that there’s a market for it. And number two, the technology exists.

Pierre Favre, an examiner from the European Patent Office who is one of 18 examiners working in the area of solar cell technology, and Tina Heuter, an artist from Berlin, Germany, worked together for many years to create a representation of both the skilled person and the inventor.

When finances are difficult people look to themselves for assistance, and to figure out how they can make a better tomorrow without relying on anyone else. But if you do not have enough resources to pursue a plan in a manner that is likely to succeed all that you have done is waste time and money. Yes, the dirty little secret is that being cost conscious and seemingly financially responsible can lead exactly to the point where you didn’t want to be. The truth is that if you cut too many corners in the invention to patent to commercialization cycle your odds of succeeding go down dramatically. Being cheap is not synonymous with being fiscally responsible.

The first step toward commercializing an invention and making money from it is typically to pursue the patent path.  On the road to a patent there are many mistakes that inventors can make unwittingly, some of which will ultimately make it impossible to obtain a patent. With that in mind, here is a list of the top 5 mistakes inventors make, followed by discussion of what you should do to move your project forward in an appropriate and responsible way.

Even when we switch to first to file inventors will still in some cases need to be able to detail when they conceived of various aspects of their invention if they are going to attempt to rely upon the grace period. Affidavit practice to establish what was invented, when it was invented and that someone else derived their invention or disclosure from you will still be a part of patent practice even after March 16, 2013. Therefore, it is critical now to have an invention record and will similarly be extremely important even after the switch to first to file takes place.

All too often inventors feel that the assistance of a patent attorney is really not necessary. That is an opinion shared by many unfortunately. It is not unfortunate for the patent attorney really, but rather it is unfortunate for those who hold the belief because invariably those who represent themselves obtain rights that are so narrow that they are practically useless. Recently I have had the occasion to be contacted by several independent inventors who did file their own nonprovisional patent applications and are now facing a First Office Action that rejects all the claims. A First Office Action that rejects all claims is not uncommon, but these applications have little or no useful discussion of the invention so there will be little or nothing anyone can do to help them ever achieve a patent. A bad patent application results in either an extremely narrow patent or no patent at all. All that time, money and energy wasted. These inventors, who are unfortunately the norm for those who represent themselves, may well have had an invention that could be protected but through a faulty application will now likely never receive a patent on their invention.

As most likely already know, Google has made it a tradition to create fun Google logo’s (or Doodles) to celebrate specific holidays, anniversaries and the lives of famous artists, pioneers and scientists. You may recall that on Saturday May 22, 2010, in celebration of Pacman’s 30th Anniversary, Google featured its very first interactive doodle in the form of a Pacman game you could actually play. You can read more about it in my article Pacman Celebrates its 30th Anniversary – Google Style. Yesterday Google featured another interactive doodle that they call the “Goog” this time in celebration of Dr. Robert Moog (rhymes with “vogue”), an American pioneer of music with the invention of the electronic analog Moog Synthesizer. If you missed it, that’s OK, you can still play the fully interactive “Goog” Doodle through the Google Doodle Library.

At what point does an idea take enough form to be considered an invention that can be protected? First, it is completely correct to say that ideas cannot be patented. Having said that, it is equally correct to say that every invention starts with an idea. The patent laws in the United States differentiate between a mere idea and conception. When you have a conception you have an invention, and the easiest way to define the term “conception” in lay terms is as an idea plus some knowledge regarding how to bring the idea into being, whether your idea is a compound, a product, a process or unique software.