When it comes to capitalising on your invention ideas, you really need to understand how the legal system works. You can obtain a patent much like a regular idea and you could receive sole rights over the idea. As you would expect, then, there are a number of things which you will have to do before you actually patent the product or idea. The first step in creating a business case for a new idea is determining ownership rights. Only when it is established that you possess exclusive rights to a particular idea can you benefit from your invention.
The way that many inventors start off their business is by going on the hunt for investors who will fund their innovative ideas. One of the ways they make money is through licensing their patented inventions. As any business owner will tell you, if you can get a fee for using someone else’s idea, you will always make money. A good example of this is the invention of the television.
So how do you determine if you have exclusive rights to an idea? In order to determine whether an idea is worthy of a patent, it is necessary to determine the market potential of the product or idea. There are several ways that an inventor can do this. The first of these is to talk to someone who is knowledgeable about the market and figure out what type of product would sell in that market. An example of this would be someone who has created the T-shirt that states “You are what you eat” – this tee shirt is a great example of an innovation.
One other way that an inventor makes money from their brilliant ideas is to patent them so that others may benefit from their invention without paying for the right to use it. This may seem like a very complicated and difficult way to generate revenue from new invention ideas but, actually, it is really not that hard. If you think about the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of books on what to do, why not just sit down and write a book about what your brilliant idea is? This is going to be the best possible way to patent your idea and bring in the revenue.
One way that you can determine if your idea is one that deserves a patent is to hire a patent attorney. Patent attorneys specialize in helping clients with patents and all of the technical patenting aspects of the process. You can pay thousands of dollars to have an attorney patent your new invention ideas and you should not let the expense deter you. Patents are not cheap and a patent attorney that spends thousands of dollars for this important work, is likely to make a large profit off of this investment. This is a wise investment that allows you to reap the rewards of a new invention idea without having to spend a penny upfront.
Now that we know some of the reasons that may be preventing people from coming up with new invention ideas, let’s talk about how one can determine if their invention is one that deserves a patent. If you are like me you like to ask questions, so when I was asked the question; “If your product or idea is not patentable, does it still infringe upon any others?” the best way to approach this is to ask yourself a few follow-up questions. What is the current marketplace, what is my competition doing, are there existing products that may infringe, is my idea different than any other existing product on the market? When you answer these questions you will be better able to answer the question; “Does my invention infringe upon any others?” This process is often referred to as “cleaning the barn” after you finish building the barn in the first place.