Re: First steps?

Posted by PJ Ballou on May 21, 2003 at 11:45:33:

In Reply to: First steps? posted by Mary M. Honan on May 20, 2003 at 05:54:45:

Can anyone tell me what are the first few steps one should take to find out if their idea is worth patening?

First steps are never exactly the same invention-to-invention and there is insufficient space to write let alone predict all steps that should be carried out before making a go/no go business decision to apply for (a) patent or (b) provisional application, for example a few steps would include :

Availability of one's resources to take either the (a) self-venture or (b) licensing route to commercialisation.
One's qualifications to personally produce along the development cycle versus outsource to others.
Realistic size of purchasing market as opposed to overall size of market.
Familiarity with industry (who seeks what/who is doing what/ often found by reading trade mags,
catalogs, and other publications in the invention's field).
Familiarity with direct and indirect competition (Pricing? Benefits? Product's cost? etc)
Whether a model and/or prototype is available.
Approximate cost to manufacturer versus sell and if spread sufficient to realise a decent profit based on potential life cycle of product.
Independent feasibility study completed and any weaknesses corrected.
Patent search completed accompanied by a favourable "written" patentability opinion (were one intent on taking the patent route to start out with).

After which, one could hire a consultant specialising in the product category unless one is already a specialist in it and/or join an inventors group to learn more about the actual business and marketing process as well as read a book or two.

Newbies with limited funds tend to get sucked into late night TV 800# invention marketing firm commercials offering worthless free patent searches. Inventors are told potential licensees or waiting in line for such inventions "if" one first pays $6,500 - $13,000 (within the next week) to get a worthless rendering printed that can be shown within a manual of thousands of such renderings at an upcoming international trade show(s). For a quick review of companies who may fall into the above category go to www.inventored.org/caution/list

What direction you take depends on which route you choose per the first item on the above list.

Penny Ballou :)

Follow Ups:

• Re: Re: First steps? mandy 11:55:38 12/20/03 (0)
• Re: Re: First steps? JonathanDavis 11:12:47 11/14/03 (3)
  • Re: Re: Re: First steps? mandy 11:54:06 12/20/03 (0)
  • Re: Re: Re: First steps? mandy 11:52:51 12/20/03 (0)
  • Re: Re: Re: First steps? M. Arthur Auslander 20:05:53 11/14/03 (0)
• Re: Re: First steps? M. Arthur Auslander 20:50:53 5/21/03 (0)

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