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[Anomaly]

Hello forum,

I am very new to this forum but it looks like a great place to ask some very knowledgeable people how to move forward. I have an "idea" for a great chemical product, but I am not a chemical engineer so I am not even sure the viability of producing the product. I don't want to give up on my idea just because I am not versed in the field. I think that could be a missed opportunity. Do you all have any suggestions on how to go about contacting a chemical engineer to consult with? Are there chemical engineering firms that specialize in helping inventors? Should I just contact my area universities and see if I can find faculty or a student to help me out? I would like to do this consulting and creating of the actual compound before I go any further in my invention process to look at marketability and so forth. I at least would like to have the compound/product completed before I start to see if and how I can market it.

Your advice and guidance would be very much appreciated,

Thanks.

[doug vagedes]

Contacting your local universities is a good way to find help.  I am not an attorney, but I believe that if they contribute in certain capacities, they would be considered a co-inventor.  So you may want to consult with a patent attorney to determine best steps to protect ownership.  Also, getting a chemical product to market most likely will require approvals depending on application, FDA. EPA etc.  Therefore added cost and time.

[Wiscagent]

... if they contribute in certain capacities, they would be considered a co-inventor.  So you may want to consult with a patent attorney to determine best steps to protect ownership.

At a minimum, before contacting a potential collaborator, carefully document what ideas you already have.  A signed, dated, and witnessed inventor's notebook can be very useful if you need to prove what were your ideas, before you contacted the collaborator.

[Notebook22]

Here are set of notebook guidelines that should help you out. They outline general notebook tasks as well some of the specifics a patent lawyer would be looking for.

Inventor Notebook Guidelines