Jacob Enterprises/inventhome Options

[Pinebrook]

I am thinking about contacting this firm with regards to securing a lincesing agreement for my product.

Has anyone ever worked with them?

Pinebrook

[Roger Brown]

Think about this before you start down the road of paying everyone to do things youcan do.
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

[CriterionD]

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.

The other bad news is that if the invention exists in a foreign patent publication, or is on the market, or has even simply been described in sufficient detail on internet, your invention will not meet the requirements for patentability (also the Google Patent search portal currently does not search published applications and many recently issued patents).

A good patent search is always a good idea, especially if you want to avoid investing a good degree of time, effort and/or money on an idea that is not patentable (or even worse an idea that would infringe on someone's patent if put into action). It is true that you can
generally conduct a respectable (by market standards) patent search on your own, but if you are going to do your own search at least familiarize yourself with the patent classification system as well as the boolean search operators used by the search site you choose. And don't simply type in a simple keyword or two, look over the first 200
results, and call that a patent search.

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.

That might be your experience. But some form of patent protection is obviously recommended when approaching potential licensees.

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.

Patents can still be rather valuable. First, among other potential applications, an issued patent will discourage knock-offs. Second, if you truly have a good case, someone will generally always be willing to fund your case.

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.

I can't agree with that at all. Its true that an automated type "market analysis" that you might receive from a company like Invention Submission corp is largely useless. But a good objective market analysis can be useful for several purposes.
While a potential licensee will do their own research, they will do it to verify what you have told them and what you have shown them – which is what presumably got them interested in the first place. And potential licensees have a lot to think about – 1.) is your product marketable, 2.) are there any unforeseen threats/pitfalls, 3.) would your product be in line with the company’s existing strategy, 4.) even if the conclusion is that a product would be marketable, would the company be better off introducing another product instead which might be more marketable. Every inventor seems to think their idea is the best ever, people who are in a position where they tend to receive new product submissions have heard that over and over again.

A good, ideally objective, market analysis can help make a better case for marketability, and output statistics that can help you sell your invention to potential licensees. Moreover, it can help locate potential acquirers (specific companies and/or market segments), and it can help anticipate possible objections, allowing you to overcome (or be prepared to overcome) those objections before they arise. Or, after looking at the overall picture objectively, you might find out that your invention may very well not be so marketable after all.

Of course, you can do your own research (while you may or may not be able to be objective). Or, you might already have a good knowledge of the industry you have in mind (even in this case its still generally a good idea to do research and double check “facts”). But to say market analysis is useless because a prospective licensee will do it themselves any, is generally off-base.

Bottom line, yes, many “invention development” firms may simply do what you could do yourself given enough free time (to some extent, at the very least). But many of the premises provided (patent search, market anlysis, etc) are not baseless

Anyways, in Pinebrook’s case, who knows whether this conversation applies. As far as InventionHome is concerned, I am not familiar with them, their website looks professional enough. There do not appear to be any relevant complaints filed with the USPTO - http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/iip/complaints.htm

[Roger Brown]

That might be your experience. But some form of patent protection is obviously recommended when approaching potential licensees.

That is my point as you pointed out several times in your reply. You are still advocating spending money for a patent search and market analysis prior to approaching a licensee. Even if a person was able to find a cheap lawyer and a cheap marketing firm they would still spend a thousand or more dollars prior to approaching a single company. What do you do if you have several ideas for different markets? You are back to spending more than the average person has without taking out a loan or mortgaging their house. Look at how many of the Inventors on The American Inventor show had done just that.
I am trying to say you can do a thorough job of research yourself without spending anything other than your time. I have 3 items under evaluation with three separate companies and have spent less than $10. One of the three is in China getting price quotes.

You can invent successfullly without going in debt.


http://www.rogerbrown.net