For over 41 years, our finder has been teaching thousands of inventors how to protect and profit from their ideas. As you might imagine, he has answered many, many questions. Though not an exhaustive list, the questions that follow are some of the most common ones asked. Hopefully, this section will help you understand the world of ideas and inventions. And we hope it will help you gain confidence in our program.
| Q. | Because the "invention help industry" is so tainted by scam invention marketers, we are often challenged by this question...How do I know you're not also a scam? |
| A. | One of the reasons Ted DeBoer
founded the non-profit Inventors Assistance
League International was to help business avoid
the scams. He has even helped put some out of
business! And when you think about it, since the
average amount lost by an inventor to a scam is
right around $8,000, wouldn't we be the dumbest
scam in the world to settle for a small fraction
of that? |
| Q. | If your protection method is valid and widely used by companies as you say it is, why don't more people know about it? |
| A. | We begin our answer to that question with a question of our own...who would teach people this method? The government only makes the laws. They don't explain them or teach us how to comply with them. The only other possible course would be patent attorneys. But they make their money and are in the profession to file for patents not to teach inventors how to avoid patents!
Note: To verify that companies use this method in research and development, just ask any engineer or researcher if they are required to keep a "laboratory notebook"...chances are it's exactly the same book as the "Invention Workbook" included in our program. |
| Q. | Why would a company be interested in buying or licensing my idea from me? Don't they develop their own ideas for new products? |
| A. | Think about it this way...new products are the lifeblood of any company. A company like 3M and other large corporations depend on new products currently in research and development for future sales. In fact, the success of these companies five years from now depends on sales of products that don't even exist today. These companies employ thousands of people in their R&D departments, costing them millions of dollars to develop new products. If a large company can get a good idea from you without all the developmental costs, why not? |
| Q. | Would a company be interested in my idea even if I didn't have it patented before offering it to them? |
| A. | This is one of our favorite questions because the answer is so logical. In dealing with inventors, one of a company's main concerns is to know that they are protected from people who don't understand this business of inventing. When they see that you are using the Invention Workbook—the same book they use in R&D—you will have instant credibility with them. If they like your idea, doesn't it make sense that they would much prefer to have their patent attorney, who understands their industry, get the patent rather than someone you found in the yellow pages? Why? Let's say that instead of using the documentation method, you had paid $10,000 for a patent to a "yellow page" patent attorney. That attorney probably wouldn't be familiar with the industry of your idea and would have written minimal "claims" into the patent application. However, the strength of a patent lies in the strength of its claims. In the absence of strong claims, another company could easily patent around your patent. To protect against that happening, your prospective company would have to repatent themselves and you would have wasted your $10,000. |
| Q. | Wouldn't a patent protect my idea much better than this method of documentation you teach? |
| A. | In context of the preceding answer, let's say that you go to that company with a weakly written patent. If they see a way to improve on your idea, they could simply patent the improved version and owe you nothing. Big money has been made on non-patentable improvements to different versions of existing products. If that fits your idea, go for it! |
| Q. | How can I decide if I should make and market my idea or if I should sell or license to a company? |
| A. | Our program will show you how to find all those companies that make and market your type of product. Then, you'll learn how to communicate with them so that those who are aggressively looking for new products will contact you. And you will find out what they are willing to pay for your idea. Based on that information, you can decide if you think you can do better by making and marketing it yourself. But, be sure to count all the costs and consider all the ramifications—see our program overview. As you weigh one option against the other, think about this...a small percentage of royalty on the huge sales of a large company could be a whole lot more money (with a lot less effort) than all the profits on small sales as you struggle to get into the marketplace! |
| Q. | Why shouldn't I make some of my idea and see if they will sell before doing anything else? |
| A. | By offering a product for sale without protection, several bad things can happen. The worst would be that in this world of instant communication, a company could find out about it, quickly file for a patent and they would own your idea. A lesser evil involved is that by putting it out on public display, you have "made it public" as defined by patent law. This means that you have started a time clock giving you one year to get a U.S. patent, six months to get a Canadian patent and in most of the rest of the world. If you don't meet this deadline, you would not be able to get a patent at all, losing over 50% of your potential market. Many people have done this without knowing the consequences and have lost a potential fortune! |
| Q. | Is a working model or prototype of my idea necessary to be able to license or sell my idea to a company? |
| A. | A prototype can be very expensive, usually isn't necessary, and often is a detriment to selling the idea as you'll learn in the program. It is the idea that has value—not how it is made or what it is made of. If you go in with a crude-looking model, it could hinder your chances because people are visually-oriented and what they see makes an impression. Anyway, almost without exception, the licensing companies that get patents have found ways to improve their idea before a patent issues. And, that leads to our next question. |
| Q. | What if I filed for a patent but then saw how I could improve on my idea...what can I do? |
| A. | This happens far too often. People understand the need to protect their idea and often prematurely apply for a patent. The resolution of that is not easy or cheap. In fact, it's like filing for a patent all over again. You would have to file a "Continuation In Part," which almost doubles your cost. And, it greatly extends the time it takes for the patent to issue. In that unhappy scenario, the good news is that our program can very easily be used to protect improvements even to issued patents if you intend to sell or license an idea to a company! |
| Q. | How long does it take for a patent to issue? |
| A. | The normal wait is from one to three years depending on many factors. The stronger and more inclusive the claims are, the longer it takes to get those claims approved by the patent examiners. many patents have taken over five years to issue! |
| Q. | Once I have applied for a patent, I would have a "patent pending" status and protection, right? |
| A. | Yes, you would have a patent pending status, but to say your idea is protected may be an overstatement. What most inventors don't know is that the patent pending does not prevent someone else from manufacturing and marketing your product while your patent is pending. Simply put, there can be no infringement until the patent issues, and at that point the company selling your product can just stop. In some cases, this may not be a problem, but for many products, much of the market can be exploited before your patent issues. |
| Q. | Can I protect and sell an idea that can't be patented for some reason? |
| A. | Too often, people give up on their idea at the point where they have paid $500 to $1,000 for a patent search which finds that similar products exist. However, ideas can be salable even if they're not patentable without risking patent infringement. Again, it often depends on the claims written into the patent. Just because an idea is similar to another product does not automatically preclude that the company will have all the capabilities to engineer and finalize your idea. So, why mess with it—unless, of course, you can do it yourself and enjoy doing it. Remember that companies are accustomed to spending a lot of money for research people just to come up with ideas. If you have a good one, let them do the work and pay for it! |
| Q. | There are many inventor clubs—should I join one? |
| A. | While at first blush, joining an inventors club sounds like a good idea, one must ask what the benefits might be. Think about it this way...if you want to keep your idea secret—and you certainly should—what do you talk about when you get together with other inventors? We like to compare them with fishing clubs where fisherman talk about—guess what? The big ones they caught and the ones that got away. Inventors tend to be a lot like fishermen...proud of their ideas so they brag about them to other inventors and suddenly wonder how it got away! Another drawback of clubs is that they are often controlled or influenced by patent attorneys. Why would a patent attorney associate with or welcome opportunities to speak for a club? Think you got that right! |
| Q. | What is the main reason for using the documentation vs. patenting an idea, assuming both are legitimate ways of establishing priority? |
| A. | There are really two equally valid reasons—speed and cost. An idea be documented and protection establish the day it is conceived while a patent application can take weeks, usually months. Obviously, the cost of documentation is almost nonexistent. A patent application costs several hundred dollars and is only the tip of the iceberg first step toward a total cost of several thousand dollars. |
| Q. | Does keeping your workbook really stand up in court as evidence of "first to invent" protection? |
| A. | As far as we know with thousands of members, it has only happened once that one of their workbooks was used as evidence in court. Our member licensed his idea to one of the larger athletic shoe companies. They patented it, and later another large company came out with exactly the same concept. The company who had licensed the idea from our member then sued for patent infringement. Ultimately, the courts decision in favor of that company was based on the documentation in our member's workbook. Of course, in the corporate world, these books are regularly used as evidence. |
| Q. | Don't companies file for patents on all their new products? |
| A. | Large product-driven companies continually have thousands of ideas for new products in their research and development departments. If even the largest and richest company filed for a patent for every new idea, they'd soon go broke. What all of them do is the same thing we teach you how to do...they establish Pre-Patent protection on all their ideas. They only file for a patent after they prove through market research that the idea has commercial value. |
Read the following to find out other useful information about protecting your inventions and avoiding scams:
