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Showing posts from 2013

October 2013

So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life's a Great Balancing Act. - Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go! Putting your new product or service on the market is a thrill.   Rachel Jackson (owner, Peacock Publicity ) told us how to make that thrill last – look before you leap. First, decide what result you want (e.g., financial profit, prestige, societal change) from applying your product/service to the market.   Then find out if you can make your product/service fit the market well enough for the market machine to produce the result you want.   See if you can get the right tools (e.g., advisors; identification and understanding of potential competitors, customers, manufacturers, and distributors; money; patents; place of business; professional relationships; time) and skills (business strategy, energy, heart, spirit, technical knowledge) you need to create that fit.   Writing a business plan (see how: booklet , workshop ) a

September 2013

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Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.   – Proverb Teach someone to grow fish locally and you sustain a community and the environment.   Mr. Rob Wibbeler (secretary and treasurer of the nonprofit Indiana Aquaculture Association [IAA]) described fish farming in Indiana and the industry’s need for inventors. The human population is growing exponentially and simple natural food sources can’t keep up.   As a result, the oceans are over-fished and the U.S. imports 91% of its seafood.   Innovators are solving this problem with aquaculture — farming fish, shellfish, and water plants. Two popular aquacultural tools are cages and tanks.   Time magazine named the Velella Mariculture Project one of the best inventions of 2012 because, in 6 months and with almost no effect on the ocean, it turned 2,000 kampuchi (yellowtail) fingerlings into 5 tons of healthy fish.   The fish were kept and fed soybean products in 20-fo

April 2013

The interpretation of dreams is a great art. - Paracelsus Where would we be without both imagination and experience?  As inventors, we dream of a better world and interpret our dreams as ideas that can make our world better.  As innovators, we translate those ideas into products and services that make the lives of our customers and investors better.  Experience guides us in both roles.  An inventor learns how to test and refine an idea by building and experiencing a working prototype (model) of the idea.  An innovator teaches initial customers and investors how to benefit from the idea by helping them experience the prototype.  Members of the Indiana Inventors Association met to discuss how to create a memorable experience, for inventors and for those they serve. With 3D printing (additive manufacturing), a copy machine instructed by a computer program (digital design) makes a variety of things ( art , batteries , body parts , clothing, jewelry, machine parts, medical de

February 2013

Patent attorney Michael Hood (Brinks, Hofer, Gilson, & Lione) helped us understand what the new patent law means to inventors.  This law applies to patents and patent applications that contain a claim to an invention effectively filed on or after March 16, 2013.  United States Patent Office (USPTO) rules on how to implement the law are now available. First Inventor to File    The date of invention no longer matters.  What matters now is the date a patent application is effectively filed at a patent office.  The inventor who files first anywhere in the world gets the first opportunity to get a patent.  So a reasonable strategy is to file provisional applications early and often as you develop your invention. You may ask the USPTO to cancel or reject claims in a patent or patent application that are to your claimed invention if the named inventor did not invent, but derived from you knowledge of, the invention.   Prior Art    The USPTO issues patents only for invention