How good are they?

Be more specific. How good are who?

Uhm, http://www.dirtcheappatents.com?

I don't know how well he writes a patent, but I can tell you from looking at his website you need to be aware of this one. He wrote under Provisional patent
" We write a detailed patent specification for you, less claims and background which are not required in a Provisional Application. Drawings and US PTO Filing fees not included."
1. A provisional costs $89 to file so you are paying him $900 to fileout the forms. You can get samples of other provisionals and get an idea of what you need to write.

Look at this response I wrote in the section titled " Hiring Cad Designers"

You know everyone pushes get a patent search done, file a provisional patent, a full patent, do a market analysis, have CAD drawings done. Why? Because you have to pay for these things and they provide a service doing just that.
Here are some things they neglect to tell you.

You can do a patent search yourself using the patent office website or Googles new patent search. The bad thing is if you don't find anything listed it doesn't mean a provisional patent hasn't been filed on it. You just can't see it. You can spend all your money on a patent only to find out somone else has a lock on your spot. Also, you will find out that when you license your idea to a company they may want to improve on your idea or modify it in a way that your patent no longer covers the final product. So another patent has to be filed. Your oringinal patent money was wasted. I have 5 items on the market and didn't spend a dime on the patents. The companies licensing the ideas paid for the patents out of their pockets. The patent covers the product that is being produced.

A provisional patent is cheaper, but starts a 1 year clock. If you don't get it licensed in that year you have to apply for a full patent or your idea becomes public domain and anyone can use it.

Full patents are great if you are a large company and can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend your patent. The average person can not afford to go up against a Disney or Mattel sized company to fight off knockoffs. You will lose any profit you made and be in court for years. If you don't think tha is true look at all the knockoffs of patented items on the shelf right now.

A market analysis is a waste of your money. If you do one today and you find company tolicense your idea they will do their own market analysis and not take your word for it on yours. So, you are paying for something they will do anyway.

You don't need Cad drawings to get a point across. All my drawings are in PowerPoint and two dimensional. I have 5 items on the market licensed and haven't paid to have a drawing done yet.

YOU CAN DO THIS WITHOUT PAYING EVERYONE ELSE AND GOING BROKE.~~

Http://www.rogerbrown.net

Thanks, cause I just can't spend money like it's water.

I already spent 200 bucks on a Win2 marketing evaluation that's due to come back in March.

I've read stories about licensors not even talking to you without at least a provisional or even a full patent, or acting like they're not interested and then later you find you own product on the store shelves. What are you going to do then, sue them? Doing stuff that's clearly in the wrong just because they can deplete your funds out of existance if you try to sue them.
Or, they don't want to hear it because you'll "give their engineers ideas", and they don't want to infringe.


I need to get this idea presented and protected before somebody else thinks of it, it's not on Google and probably not patented yet.

Who do I talk to see if they're interested? The parent companies of companies that sell similar products? The companies themselves? Call for an appointment? Do I need flashy presentations and a suit and the whole nine yards? Cause I'm really not a very professional looking person and I bet they're just going to just say, eh, look at this kid with his non-disclosure agreement, what does he know? Bring a lawyer? Bring my old man, tell him to sit by me and not say anything, and leave it to imagination?

I'm perfectly willing to have a lawyer and spend a reasonable amount of money, but only if I'm sure the licensors have interest in it.

Is it really possible to sell an idea to licensors without taking on much risk?

Thanks very much if you could help.

HI,

I know going ta this for the first time is scary and confusing. You can approach many companies without anything more than a nondisclosure. I do it all the time. What area is your idea in? You don't have to tell me what it is just what area it fits, toy, toll, baby product etc. If I have any contacts in the area I will send them to you.
You don't need to meet them face to face. I live in south carolina and work with people in California, New York, Florida and Oregon. I have never met the majority of them other than on the phone and through email.
look for compnies in the area of your idea and make a list of which one you would approach first, then start looking for their contact info. You can call them and ask if they look at outside ideas from Inventors. Do not tell them what your idea is over the phone. Example if they do tools you could say " I have a device that allows the user to remove a tire in 20 seconds. I didn't say how it works or how it accomplishes that task only that it makes the job faster. So you can describe it without describing it if you see what I mean.

I have an eye glass product coming out this month. All I told them was I had a easier way of holding your sunglasses to your visor and you can insert them and remove them with one hand. From that description they were interested and we went from there. I got a contract 2 weeks later. No provisional patent,full patent, lawyer, invention submission firm. Only a one page drawing and explanation of the product. The company is paying for the patent to protect their investment. It isn't costing me a dime.
Don't let money hunger sharks sell you a load of crap you don't need.

Holy crap that's amazing. Now I know why career inventors don't go broke every time their luck takes a bad turn.


Okay I live in New York, my idea is amateur astronomy, and Imaginova, the parent company of Orion has an office in Manhattan. Meade is in CA, they're a few others. Do you contact manufacturers or final sellers if they're different?

And where's a good state specific legally binding non-disclosure agreement that you can print out on the web? (they're even selling *those* too!)
Do they have to be signed in front of two witnesses notorized?


Again, thanks for the help.

I contact the manufacturer of the product. Sometimes they will be the same entity. Sometimes the seller, for example if you have atoy idea http://www.hogwildtoys.com looks at outside ideas from inventors, but they have the product made by another company for them. This is typical of a lot of companies. They sell it but China makes it for them.

Here is a link to a nondisclosure form you can use and modify to meet your needs. You do not have to be present for the signing. A represenattive of the company will sign it just as you will. You may have to sign it first mail two copies of it to them they will sign both, keep one and send the other to you. That way you each have a signed copy. http://www.edisoninventors.org/confidentialityform.html
Make sure any presentation sheets you send them or prototypes all have your contact information on them. Do not send a prottype until they ask for one. That way they are looking for it, not having it show up and no one knows who it goes to.
Good Luck.

Check out my inventions on the market at http://www.rogerbrown.net

Great. And I like the pizza cutter.

You will like the Quik Clip even better. I will post it on the website as soon as it is released in Sunglass Huts nationally. Hang in there.

hi,

I used dirt cheap patents and didn't have a great experience.
He was honest enough, that wasn't the problem, it's just that he wasn't too bright. I don't mean to be rude it's just that I don't know how else to say it.

Mr. Prince did a patent search and emailed me saying that the item appeared to be patented, but if I could come up with a different enough item the idea may still be usable.

I looked over all of the patents he sent which correlated somewhat with my idea, and the two specific ones he believed were identical. I phoned him to determine his assessment, because when I read the patent in question it was a product that achieved the same goal as mine, but was a completely different form of product. I had to explain my points of assessment and disagreement with him explicitly so he could understand and even then it wasn't until I used the analogy of different vehicles performing the same transportation functions but having very different methods of employing the final goal (a car versus a truck versus a motorbike etc or a manual tool verses an automated tool) that he understood what I meant. It was only after I explained thoroughly that he was able to see how my final product was a very different product than the other one that was patented even though they had a similar purpose but achieved it through a very different means. This concerned me because it didn't take a scientist to figure out the different formula and format and product and I was concerned that he couldn't figure it out. The rational involved seemed elementary to me. I internally questioned his intellect although I remained very civil and told him that I would have to take proceed with my idea through a different agent. He gave me the phone number of a patent lawyer whom he uses. I contact this person in January and still have not heard back.

It's all quite disillusioning really.

I understand your frustration with the patent lawyer. I had a tool patented through a company I was working for at the time. I explained my idea until I was blue in the face trying to get that lawyer to understand the concept. Even afetr I built a prototype and demonstarted it in front of him I could see the light in his head was still out.
The patent took 4 years, two months, to finally get approved. I had to argue my claims 3 times with the patent office due to the way the lawyer wrote the patent. The item is used in the nuclear industry and I got a claim back from the patent office about a machine that makes sausages. So, I REALLY understand your depair. What in the heck do sausage and nuclear material have in common? LOL

What is your goal? Are wanting to produce these yourself or license it to a company? If you want to license it and your idea works similar to something else out on the market. Have you found any of those items on the market? If yes, would your idea improve their existing item, make it more user friendly, more marketable, etc? If Yes, you may want to conatct them. If you can't find it on the market what type of company are you looking to approach. Without giving away the idea to us is it in the toy, tool, etc market? That way someone here may have a contact in that market you could approach.

thanks for your questions.
Maybe I could personally email you if you'd like or you could email me at

donnelaine@yahoo.com


My situation is more discouraging because I initially had 2 ideas, which aren't random little inventions, but from all counts have a great potential for marketing. Not knowing anything about this inventors format I had absolutely no idea that it's a field where scammers and raqueteers seemed to hone in on. So I thought I had investigated the company called www.inventorshelpline.com or also known as Patent and Trademark Institute of America, Garden City New York. I didn't find them listed on scam lists and thought I would use them and not knowing enough about the invention field I placed my first of two ideas with them last November for $900.00. I last heard from them on the first week of January. In february I called back for a progress report and the answering system had changed. No one returned my call. Again a week ago I phoned with the same result. I faxed a message and the fax number was terminated and just discovered a new phone message that says the PTI company is in receivership under the court of a judge.

I was heartbroken, not just to lose the money, because I've spent $900.00 on junk food for a party, so that wasn't so much the disappointment, the problem is that my idea has a great money marketing potential and is in the pet industry field. There is nothing like it on the market. I could go ahead and re-submit it with a credible patent lawyer.... if I can find one.... but the patent fee isn't the problem, the problem is that I don't have the money to make a prototype and market it even though I know that it would sell and I could get that money back. I'd have to take out a loan to do an investment and I'm not prepared to do that. Of all the small invention ideas out there that don't make a whole lot of money return this idea would be one I'd take a gamble on. I'm fairly burned out at the moment and may wait a few months and decide to go ahead and take out a loan to get it rolling. I hadn't even thought of selling the idea to a marketing company and have no idea what steps to take in that regard.

So, I decided that with the second and final invention idea I would investigate more thoroughly. It turns out that I didn't know what to investigate or what questions to ask. I thought I'd use dirt cheap patents but it turns out that Mr. Prince isn't a patent lawyer, he's just trained in patent inquiries. The idea I submitted to him would ideally be patented and the idea sold to a hair product company, such as Dove, Loreal or Clairol as it is a type of hair product that 99% of women would want to use. Cosmetic industry, like the pet industry, has the potential for a big market depending on what the product is, and my 2 products are the type of things that leaves a person saying, "why hasn't that come out before, it's such a great idea."


So I have two ideas that I've tried to get legal patents for in order to go on to the next step, but I can't get past the first step which is to find a decent agency to put a patent together for me. With dirt cheap patents I decided I didn't want him to write up a patent application because he couldn't argue the case for me if he didn't even understand the basics of it. Well, you know what I mean as you've experienced it yourself.

I'm very disillusioned now, as I've said, but I'm still left with these 2 brilliant money making ideas which I'm sitting on and have no idea how to find a decent avenue in which to get it going.


thanks for listening to my vent. I appreciate your time, especially since it sounds like you can relate to some of my experiences.

Unfortunately as you stated the Inventor field is full of compnies waiting to bleed you dry and give you nothing but a headache for your troubles. I would see if you can file a complaint with the judge that has the company in receivership and get on the list of people owed money for non-service.
I have some other contacts for the pet industry I will send you offline.

Hi everyone,

$900 for a provisional is absolutely ludicrous.

Click here for a free PPA how-to kit. Many many functions of inventing can be done through personal time, or "road work" making calls, doing research etc. I will include a few good links to start off with inventing.

I'm personally involved heavily with inventing, first as a member of Design My Idea, a design firm, and secondly working on licensing and manufacturing our own product line Cord Order.

Its an interesting ride, and the feedback from Frank has been helpful.

Good luck.

Some good resources for inventors starting out, as well as a highly renowned patent attorney.

Design My Idea Resources
Joan Lefkowitz, successful beauty accessory product licensor
http://www.inventor-strategies.com/inventi...ng-company.html
http://www.patentdesk.com