June 2018
Need help with product development? Troy
Mason (president, CEO, Impulse
Product Development) has some good advice.
It’s hard to develop a popular product. Start by setting a realistic goal for your
invention.
Before your spend a lot of time
and effort bringing your product to market, do some high quality customer
research to see if forecasted sales meet your needs. Your product might become a best-seller, but
there won’t be one in every household.
Product development doesn’t start
with a prototype. Maybe you will
eventually need a physical prototype, maybe you won’t. The essence of some products can be displayed
in a drawing or virtual prototype. If
you need a prototype, especially to test your product’s function as its design
evolves, realize that the first prototype is never the last. Professional help with prototyping is
available, for example at Realize, Inc.
Product development can be expensive. Before you decide to develop a product,
estimate the total cost of doing so to see if you can afford it. Mr. Mason’s company charges $150 per hour for
design. A patent typically costs at
least $10,000.
If you decide that you need a patent, file a nonprovisional
patent application only after you have a good idea of what your marketed
product will be. The general design of
the product should be final, but you don’t need to know all of the details (amendment
or addition of a picture
claim in a well-written application during patent prosecution can take care
of that). In the meantime, filing one or
more provisional patent applications can help secure your place as the first
inventor-to-file (a requirement for getting a patent). Remember that if a product developer (such as
Mr. Mason) invents a claimed feature of your invention, your patent application
must list the developer as an inventor.
(Inventing means thinking of something new and nonobvious that is beyond the ordinary skill of someone working in the technology of your
invention.)
Spend at least half of your time and effort on learning how
business works. How will your product
fit into the market? Which business
partners will you need? Will bringing
your invention to market be profitable?
Inventing is only a small part of innovating.
Thank you for sharing your expertise with us, Mr. Mason!