Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Tracking a New Invention
First of all, thank you for visiting Chronicles of an Invention. This blog was created with new inventors in mind. A friend and I came up with an invention idea and started out knowing pretty much nothing about the invention process. I new a little about patents and trademark from having investigated a previous idea. My friend knew nothing. Very intelligent guy, just had never researched actually inventing something before.
I am getting a late start on this blog as we are already a month into the process, but I thought this would be a good way to collect my thoughts and a way to maybe motivate anyone who thought they had a great idea, but never acted on it because they didn't know where to begin. Hopefully this blog will inspire someone to take that idea they had and thought it was irrellevant or couldn't get going, to get off their tail and do something about it. It would make my day if someone read this and acted and then let me know about it.
First of all, let me give some major credit to www.inventorspot.com The site and members have been invaluable with the information that they have provided to me. There is a plethora of helpful information on the site and the members have been most helpful. A lot of them have "been there/done that". Not once have I received a response that wasn't helpful.
Before I begin, let me say that along the way I will give as much advice as I can. I will try to pass along the things I have learned. I am not a patent attorney, licensing agent or professional inventor. Whatever advice I give you is solely what I have picked up along the way. Also keep in mind that as the invention has not been patented yet, I can not be specific about the invention. Once you "make your idea public", you could encounter serious legal issues (which we will go into later).
We actually first discussed our idea on January 8th, 2008 so this post will try to catch you up fairly quicly. I will do my best to keep it short and after that I will post whenever I have new information.
Background:
My name is Whitney. My friend and co-inventor is Scott. We have known each other since 7th grade. We consider ourselves fairly intelligent people. I have a Bachelors Degree in Marketing. Scott did not finish college, but does not need a piece of paper to tell him how smart he is. He is one of the smartest people I know. We both have worked retail for over 10 years, although I am now out of the industry and working in the engineering department of a shipbuilding company. I am a Designer/Drafter. Scott is a manager of a local shoe store. The store Scott works for (as did I for 5 years) actually sells the product for which we have invented an accessory for.
The invention is actually an accessory for a particular grill that Scott's company sells. I know. Weird. A shoe store that sells grills. The grill is a very unique product and is one of the fastest growing grill companies in the world with over 1000 retail locations. That is about as specific as I can get about the invention.
Jan. 8 2008:
Scott calls me with an idea he has for an invention. Since I work in 3D design, he describes the idea to me and asks me if I can model it. The idea sounds simple enough so I tell him I could. At this point he tells me that a co-worker of his actually came up with it. Immediately I start thinking "How many other people know about this?" This is important because you can not make your idea public knowledg as it will set the effective date of your patent application.
Scott confirms that Tom is the only other one who knows. Tom actually first said "There should be a product that..." That has really been the extent of Tom's contribution to my knowledge (a little more than that but I can't get too specific).
I start an autoCAD drawing and start to put the vision in my head into model form.
At this point I am going to stop and let you catch your breath. The other reason I am stopping is that I need to refer to my Inventor Notebook so I can get specific dates for the time we have worked on our invention.
I am getting a late start on this blog as we are already a month into the process, but I thought this would be a good way to collect my thoughts and a way to maybe motivate anyone who thought they had a great idea, but never acted on it because they didn't know where to begin. Hopefully this blog will inspire someone to take that idea they had and thought it was irrellevant or couldn't get going, to get off their tail and do something about it. It would make my day if someone read this and acted and then let me know about it.
First of all, let me give some major credit to www.inventorspot.com The site and members have been invaluable with the information that they have provided to me. There is a plethora of helpful information on the site and the members have been most helpful. A lot of them have "been there/done that". Not once have I received a response that wasn't helpful.
Before I begin, let me say that along the way I will give as much advice as I can. I will try to pass along the things I have learned. I am not a patent attorney, licensing agent or professional inventor. Whatever advice I give you is solely what I have picked up along the way. Also keep in mind that as the invention has not been patented yet, I can not be specific about the invention. Once you "make your idea public", you could encounter serious legal issues (which we will go into later).
We actually first discussed our idea on January 8th, 2008 so this post will try to catch you up fairly quicly. I will do my best to keep it short and after that I will post whenever I have new information.
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Background:
My name is Whitney. My friend and co-inventor is Scott. We have known each other since 7th grade. We consider ourselves fairly intelligent people. I have a Bachelors Degree in Marketing. Scott did not finish college, but does not need a piece of paper to tell him how smart he is. He is one of the smartest people I know. We both have worked retail for over 10 years, although I am now out of the industry and working in the engineering department of a shipbuilding company. I am a Designer/Drafter. Scott is a manager of a local shoe store. The store Scott works for (as did I for 5 years) actually sells the product for which we have invented an accessory for.
The invention is actually an accessory for a particular grill that Scott's company sells. I know. Weird. A shoe store that sells grills. The grill is a very unique product and is one of the fastest growing grill companies in the world with over 1000 retail locations. That is about as specific as I can get about the invention.
Jan. 8 2008:
Scott calls me with an idea he has for an invention. Since I work in 3D design, he describes the idea to me and asks me if I can model it. The idea sounds simple enough so I tell him I could. At this point he tells me that a co-worker of his actually came up with it. Immediately I start thinking "How many other people know about this?" This is important because you can not make your idea public knowledg as it will set the effective date of your patent application.
Tidbit 1 - Once your idea has become "public knowledge", you have one year to file for a patent. You must do everything you can to keep your idea a secret. If you have discussed your idea in detail with anyone, you need to get them to sign an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement). This gives you legal recourse if someone that you have talked to steals your idea.
Scott confirms that Tom is the only other one who knows. Tom actually first said "There should be a product that..." That has really been the extent of Tom's contribution to my knowledge (a little more than that but I can't get too specific).
I start an autoCAD drawing and start to put the vision in my head into model form.
At this point I am going to stop and let you catch your breath. The other reason I am stopping is that I need to refer to my Inventor Notebook so I can get specific dates for the time we have worked on our invention.
Tidbit 2 - It is vital to keep up with an Inventors Notebook. It must be a notebook where pages do not come out unless ripped out. Everytime you work on, talk about or research anything to do with your idea you must keep track of it in this notebook. Keep dates and times and descriptions of everything you do.
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