Indiana Inventors Association

80% of success is showing up.   — Woody Allen Erik Magner, PhD (president, Meister Cook) and BetsyMagner (marketing manager, Meister Cook) issued a charismatic call to inventors — Don’t be afraid.   Find your passion and use it to start your own business.   Using their own success story to inspire us, Mr. Magner shared a 6-part strategy that helped them create in less than 10 years a 2-person company ranked by Inc. 5000 as the 41 st fastest‑growing company (2 nd fastest‑growing manufacturer) in the United States. Identify an important technical problem that you care about. William Osler (a founder of modern medicine) advised physicians, “ Listen to your patient; he is telling you the diagnosis.”   Likewise in industry, listen to the experts; they will tell you what problems are commercially important.   Mr. Magner’s first challenge in the food industry was a client’s request for a more heat-efficient hamburger broiler.   The broiler he...

Though she be but little, she is fierce.   — Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame Who would have thought that a small nonprofit organization in Carmel, IN could unlock the secret to preventing chronic malnutrition worldwide?   Glenn H. Sullivan, PhD (chairman/CEO Quintessence Nutraceuticals, Inc.; co‑founder, Sustainable Nutrition International ; senior partner, Intermark Partners Strategic Management, LLC; professor emeritus, Food Science Institute, Purdue University; recipient, USPTO Patents for Humanity Award ) told us how he and his co-inventors (U.S. patent US8,945,642 ) became alchemists by learning how to turn trash into treasure. An estimated 925 million individuals were malnourished in 2010.   One third of the children in developing countries (and many in Indiana) suffer from chronic malnutrition, a condition that kills them or prevents them from becoming independent adults.   Malnutrition could be prevented with rice, a cereal g...

[ Thanks to Dave Zedonis for this article ] All inventors need prototypes of their inventions.   Members of Club Cyberia—Mark Owens (marketing director; marketing@clubcyberia.com.org ; 317-721-2582), his son Austin (events director), and David Norris (equipment director)—let us know about their maker space: a facility equipped for making prototypes inexpensively.   There, do-it-yourself people meet each other and use available tools and work stations to build, collaborate, invent, and learn.   The club is open to members 24 hours every day and offers a tour of the facility to the public on the first Saturday of each month or by appointment. The facility (7,300 square feet for work and meetings) offers an independent inventor the opportunity to develop and build a detailed prototype of an invention.   Available equipment includes hand tools; drill presses, milling machines, lathes and (soon) a press brake; a full set of wood working equipment; 3-D printer...

And they asked me how I did it; and I gave 'em the Scripture text, "You keep your light so shining a little in front o' the next!" They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind, And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind. —      Rudyard Kipling, The "Mary Gloster" Richard McVicker, member of the Indiana Inventors Association for 40 years, patent illustrator at Barnes & Thornburg LLP for 49 years, and patent-holding inventor for 54 years, graciously shared his hard-won insights into innovation with us. Spend money to get a good prototype of your invention, but try to save on everything else.   A good, tested prototype helps you understand your invention and helps you explain it to others (patent attorney, investor, manufacturer, customer, etc.).   For example, Mr. McVicker invented and patented a 10 foot tall yard light, advertised it at the Indiana Home and G...