Indiana Inventors Association

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...

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...

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 bu...

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 app...