Great advice for inventors...
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I was stumbling around the internet and the Twitter and found an interesting podcast, Startup Story Radio.
The most recent episode caught my attention as although I am not an inventor (unless you count creative mixing of fountain pop flavors at the Taco Bell or Burger King as an "invention") I have had many friends and family who have been interested in inventing or have had failed inventions, and remember seeing a few inventors around town and thought this advice pertinent.
Some of the highlights were very interesting -
- How a Patent doesn't protect you, only gives you the right to protect yourself;
- How you shouldn't share invention ideas with companies as they can (and will) just take them;
- How marketing is going to be the most important and largest expense in any invention-driven business, as an invention without customers or that doesn't solve an existing problem doesn't have much of a business case.
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Cool post Jeremiah! Thanks for sharing. The largest segment of my client population is startups looking for business strategies, funding strategies, and capital so they can successfully launch their new invention into the marketplace. I connect them with the legal resources and business strategists and funding resources they need, when appropriate, at each stage of their business. I'm sure I'd find some of the other info you discovered of interest and perhaps helpful to my clients. If you'd like to contact me offline and share other sites or info sources you remember seeing during your internet search, that would be great!
Have a great weekend!
Lori
Lori T. Williams, PC--Your Legal Resource
www.bestlegalresource.com; 248-594-4470
Connecting People And Professionals
Specializing in Attorney Referrals, Investor Referrals, and Dream Team Development for Startups
Jeremiah and Lori,
This is an interesting post. Our company has some experience with the patent end, the trade secret end and of course the invention component. I'd like to add that in the past our challenge has been to find vendors, thus sharing confidential information with other firms and not have them run off with our ideas. I've brought this issue up with our IP (Intellectual Property) attorney and he informed me of a new federal law that is somewhat in response to the changes to patent law.
There is a new, enforceable, federal law that protects the trade secrets of a company or rather the infringement of a company's trade secrets. What I've found is that there's a portion of our system that is copyright'able, another portion that is trademark'able and yet this third component that is a culmination of our trade secrets.
Now a company, even a small one like ours, has some muscle when a company, vendor or individual discusses, makes public or infringes on our trade secrets.
And even better, any disputes would be hashed out in federal court - thus providing even more of the intimidation factor. The federal court legal bills would be quite high, this is both a positive and negative depending on which side you are on I suppose.
--Chris