Indiana Inventors Association

Want to realize the market value of your invention?  Create an image of your invention that attracts the market (people willing to buy and invest in your invention, products and services that embody your invention, and a small business that connects your invention to the market).  Rachel Jackson (of Peacock Publicity & Marketing Services ) offered us practical advice on how to develop and manage relationships with credible reporters (bloggers, broadcasters, and journalists) who can help us to create forceful meaningful images of our inventions and to relate those images to the public. Start with a business that gives meaning to your image. Stock enough service capacity and products for expected sales, provide a convenient ordering system based on current technology, and use a robust customer service plan.  Predict risks and plan solutions for them.  Most importantly, communicate!   Tell your customers what to expect from you (and tell them if you are temporarily overwhelmed), as

Ms. Christine Best Perkins , inventor of FidoRido , a car seat for dogs (see video in left panel), shared with us some of her ongoing experiences as an innovator.  Her presentation and the ensuing discussion offered practical insights into the world of the inventor.   The need.   Ms. Perkins got a puppy and immediately realized that she needed to protect both her dog and herself during car rides together.  How could she make the ride fun for her dog while keeping her dog off of her face, from between her foot and the brake pedal, and from falling out of the window?   The solution – a car seat for dogs – included a molded container (originally a cat litter box), a dog harness that could be strapped to different areas of the container, a cushion that elevated the dog high enough to see out the window, and a removable pouch for carrying small items.  At home, her dog could use the car seat as a bed or (frown) as a bathtub. Mr. Craig Thompson suggested that she focus on finalizing th

Mr. Marcelo Copat and Mr. Dan Lechleiter , patent attorneys from Baker & Daniels LLP , treated us to a very useful discussion of patent fundamentals.  Here are just a few of the highlights (you should'a been there ...). In exchange for disclosing your invention to the public in an issued patent the U.S. government gives you a set of negative property rights.  You don't get the right to benefit from your invention, but you do get the right to stop others from benefiting for the duration of the patent.  What good is that? Many inventors cast their inventions upon the waters of the market, and a patent helps prevent dilution of any profit the market might return.  By excluding others from making, using, selling, offering to sell, or importing your invention in the U.S. you:       • may dominate (or at least position yourself well in) the market, by eliminating most competitors and by persuading most of the rest to cooperate with you;       • in so doing, increase the

A prototype can help you to see whether your invention works, to identify ways to improve its appearance and function, and to communicate it to the world of business and law. A prototype made of plastic is attractive and affordable, and can be made quickly. Mr. Andrew Nehrt (812-522-4433, proformplastics@verizon.net) of Pro-Form Plastics, Inc. (manufacturer of heavy-gauge [.03-.5" thick] molded plastics, non-metallic material [foam, felt, plastic, etc.] cut by steel-rule die, and customized wood shipping containers) spoke to us about the different designs, methods, plastics, and tools he uses to build prototypes. The method of thermoforming uses a vacuum to fit a rectangular sheet of heated plastic (3x4' to 5x9') to a mold of a product part (remember the Vac-u-form toy from years ago?). Before being fit to a deep mold, the plastic is stretched with a felt-covered plug. Plastic shrinks while cooling on the mold, so designing the mold with at least 2 degrees of draft

Please join us Saturday August 15, 2009 for a free Innovation Roadshow workshop! This is a great opportunity for those who are ready to get their ideas out to the world.   The workshop will be held with the Cincinnati inventors group at Eureka Ranch , near Cincinnati, OH from 8:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.  If you would like to join a carpool, please contact Dave Zedonis (dzedonis@comcast.net).   What will happen In the morning, an instructor sponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerceʼs NIST/MEP organization will help you become a persuasive salesperson for your product.  The instructor will help you express your ideas in language that excites business buyers, licensees, investors, distributors, manufacturers, etc (i.e., “buyers”). In the afternoon, you have the option of submitting your invention online to the USA National Innovation Marketplace .  (You will need a laptop computer to do this. If you don't have a laptop, you may be able to share another's laptop.)  You

Inventors solve problems.  What kind of problem do you want to solve?      You might decide to solve a technical problem.  The benefit of your better mousetrap might be that it traps every mouse in the house overnight.  You would be pleasantly surprised if the world beat a path to your door, but your goal is to trap mice.      Or you might decide to solve a financial problem, by inventing a machine that moves money from the market to you.  Your mousetrap is an important, novel, and personalizing part of that machine.  But other parts are important too, such as those that help you replicate, package, communicate, distribute, and sell your mousetrap to the world.      Mousetraps vary in design and effectiveness; so do money moving machines.  This month the Indiana Inventors Association met to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of some parts that you can combine with your mousetrap to build your money moving machine.   Who has the money you want?   Choosing to solve an in

Ken Rainbolt’s display of his award-winning Segway lock sparked a general discussion of how to profit from a good invention. Inventors who want to focus on inventing rather than on running a business often license (rent) their inventions to one or more companies. Let a company make and sell the product of your invention, and in exchange, the company typically gives you 3-5% of its wholesale profit from your invention. How do you find an interested company? Start by looking for products similar to yours in stores, on the internet, and at trade shows. Learn about the companies that sell those products, using the library or internet, and focus on companies that look most promising to you. Ron Jackson especially recommends a company whose net sales are less than $50 million per year, because you may be able to meet with the CEO. Find out where your invention fits into the market (do market research), and what your production costs will be (get estimates from manufacturers), so you c

Inventors are so creative, and so important to our economy and way of life, that our government offers them four main ways to protect their new ideas. Attorneys Dr. C. John Brannon and Mr. Tony A. Gibbens of Brannon & Associates PC explained these forms of protection and offered practical advice on how to use them. 1. Three kinds of patents protect technology (an idea of a physical means to a useful end). A utility patent (for a machine, manufactured article, method, composition of matter, or an improvement of one of these) or a plant patent (for an asexually reproduced plant) protects technology itself. A design patent protects the nonfunctional ornamental appearance of a useful thing. A patent owner has the right to exclude others from making, using, offering to sell, selling, or importing the invention in the United States. But a patent does not give the owner the right to perform those acts (some patents interfere with other patents). Our government grants a patent to an a

“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the THINKS you can think up if only you try!” - Dr. Seuss Oh, the THINKS You Can Think! Members met for informal discussion of various aspects of innovation. We discussed how the government is helping to finance inventors. 1. The state of Indiana supplements, and helps inventors obtain, Small Business Innovation Research ( SBIR ) grants. Rich Boling ( rboling@techshot.com ) of Techshot told us that the state of Indiana will pay someone, such as Elizabeth Brooke Pyne ( bpyne@iedc.in.gov ) of the IEDC SBIR/STTR Program Office or Heidi Platt of Platinum Grants & Proposals , LLC, up to $6,500 to help a first time SBIR grant applicant prepare an application. Contact Mr. Boling or the IEDC for more details. And consider attending the SBIR workshops offered by the IEDC (Indiana Economic Development Corporation). 2. Matt Thie mentioned that the state of Indiana encourages patent activity by allowing a tax exem

In developing a product from an invention (see the April 2008 post) you need to find an affordable, efficient, reliable manufacturer. Mr. Ron Read ( Global Consulting Partners, Inc. ) shared with us his decades of experience in helping U.S. inventors find and work with manufacturers and suppliers located in China. He also connects inventors with those located in India, Turkey, and Indonesia. Consider manufacturing in China if labor accounts for at least 20% of your manufacturing costs. The quality can be as good as you’ll find anywhere. The more you order, the better your price. For low cost items, plan on ordering at least 5,000 items/month; for items that cost $30 to manufacture, plan on at least 1,000/month. Items that cost at least $150 to manufacture can be ordered in less quantity. Savings can be considerable, with manufacturing costs often 10% of costs in the U.S. Before approaching a manufacturer, have an engineering firm prepare precise drawings of your invention, and c