The ABC's of Inventing - Steps 7-10

Network with other inventors. Join a local inventors organization.Who can I trust? What do I do next? How do I find the help I need? Among the best people to answer these questions are those who have successfully marketed new products. There are nearly 100 nonprofit inventor organizations around the country. The members include inventors, lawyers, prototype makers and others who are in the field of new product development. You owe it to yourself to join a group so that when questions about a specific company or a specific problem come up, youll have someone you can trust to turn to for advice. If your patent search looked promising (see #3), make an appointment with a patent attorney, patent agent or professional patent searcher. Show him the results of your search and follow the advice.Patent professionals are able to do a thorough search of the files of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as well as searching some international literature and patents. The patent search report that they give you should also have an opinion of patentability, which will tell you what they think your chances are of getting a patent. An attorney or agents charges for preparing and filing a patent application is several thousand dollars. Theres no sense paying all that money if a professional patent search will reveal that you have little chance of getting a patent.Do what you do well and hire pros to do the rest.This seems like such obvious advice, but many people try to save money in areas they think dont really matter. Some inventors can make excellent prototypes then they send them out to prospective licensees with handwritten, poor quality letters. Others can create wonderful brochures and letters and send them with terrible prototypes. You only have one chance to make a first impression, so dont mess it up! Think about the things you do well and do them. Be honest about your weaknesses and get help.Dont fall in love with your invention, but if youre sure youve got a winner, hang in there! Even overnight successes take a while!In invention, as in life, the key to success is most often perseverance. Inventors have to have thick skins and a lot of determination. For example, IBM experts told Chester Carlson that his invention wasnÕt really needed because people had carbon paper. Carlsons invention was the xerography process, and the company founded on his invention is Xerox.For more information and articles visit my blog at http://invention-submission-lounge.blogspot.com or my website at http://www.patentzoom.com

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