How do you actually turn a million-dollar idea into a million dollars? From scribble-on-the-napkin to product-on-the market, The Independent Inventor's Handbook explains everything a potential inventor needs to know and the tools he or she needs to use to take a raw concept and turn it into reality.
Written by Louis J. Foreman, creator of the PBS series Everyday Edisons and a holder of multiple patents, together with patent attorney Jill Gilbert Welytok, here's a book that speaks directly to the inventive American-the entrepreneur, the tinkerer, the dreamer, the basement scientist, the stay-at-home mom who figures out how to do it better. (over one million of them file patents each year.) Here is everything a future inventor needs: Understanding the difference between a good idea and a marketable idea. Why investing too much money at the outset can sink you. The downside of design patents, and how best to file an application for a utility patent. Surveys, online test runs, and other strategies for market research on a tight budget. Plus the effective pitch (hint: never say your target audience is "everyone"), questions to ask a prospective manufacturer, 14 licensing land mines to avoid, "looks-like" versus "works-like" prototypes, Ten Things Not to Tell a Venture Capitalist, and how to protect your invention once it's on the market. Appendices include a glossary of legal, manufacturing, and marketing terms, a sample nondisclosure agreement, and a patent application, deconstructed. Louis J. Foreman is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for innovation. He started his first business from his college fraternity room and for the past 20 years has been starting and building successful companies. Louis is the founder and CEO of Enventys, a product-development firm working with major consumer product manufacturers and leading retailers. He is the publisher of Inventors Digest magazine and executive producer of the Emmy ® award winning PBS show Everyday Edisons. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Jill Gilbert Welytok is a registered patent attorney and a founding partner of Absolute Technology Law Group LLC, specialists in helping independent inventors reach their entrepreneurial goals. She has written several books on legal, business, and technology topics, and lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Introduction: The Entrepreneur & the Attorney
Chapter 1: Eureka! Turn an Invention into a Venture
Chapter 2: First Define the Market, Then Design the Product
Chapter 3: Prototyping, Manufacturing & Distributing: A Crash Course
Chapter 4: Protect Your Invention (With as Few Lawyers as Possible)
Chapter 5: Make Your Mark: Branding, Pitching & Selling
Chapter 6: Doing the Math: Licensing vs. Manufacturing
Chapter 7: Money Matters: Finding the Funds to Bring a New Product to Market
Chapter 8: Protecting & Defending Your Invention in a Global Marketplace
Epilogue: Becoming the Next Edison: Your Personal Road Map
Appendix A: Confidential Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA)
Appendix B: Performing a Basic Patent Search
Appendix C: Excerpts from a Sample Patent
Glossary
Acknowledgements
Index
Have a million-dollar idea? Make it real.
From a sketch on a napkin to the finished product, Everyday Edisons creator Louis Foreman and patent attorney Jill Gilbert Welytok show step-by-step how to be a prosperous inventor: how to harness your imagination and follow the systematic process of problem solving that's required to convert a raw concept into a profitable business venture. Includes a glossary of terms, a sample NDA (nondisclosure agreement), and how to perform a basic patent search and read a sample patent.
"This clear, thorough, and entertaining guide will be sought out by those who need practical help to bring their ideas for inventions to fruition. Highly recommended."-Joan Pedzich, Harris Beach PLLC, Rochester, NY, Library Journal
