What do I need from you, the ideas man or woman?

I’d obviously need an email address to contact you directly, along with your name and address. A phone number would also be helpful, but is not absolutely necessary.

You will not be contacted unnecessarily by me trying to promote anything  to you, just to simply let you know about interested parties.

I would need a brief description of what the product is, along with whether it is already patented or not and if possible a picture or brief sketch of the final product. The sketch should not show the workings of your idea, just enough to provide preliminary interest from visiting companies before they sign a non-disclosure agreement and receive a more detailed description

Also needed is a full explanation of how it works so that the businesses can review the product to see if they want to take the matter further and go into production. (This is needed for a full patent, just to make it legitimate.)

See the examples I provide!

The aim of your advertisement is to attract attention (not clickbait), not to give away too much information so that anyone can copy your product with very little trouble and you ned to express the benefit of your product over others.

I reserve the right of being able to modify your ad if it doesn’t read right in the English language.

Keeping your identity and product protected for your benefit is the prime concern of mine!

And don’t forget, your first six months advertising is free, so hopefully you’ll have your ideas sold by then.

So how will Invent an Idea survive on the internet?

Basically, your ads should be free, so any income will be created from a ½% to 1% share of your sale provided by the purchaser. An alternative could be a 1% share in the retail sales of your product regardless of who produces the product, again written in a contract to be used when the sale occurs.

Prices will vary over time, but this is to be kept to a minimum just to offer this service virtually freely to potential new inventors.

Is a product patent essential?

Having a product patented is a powerful reality in most countries of the world. They instil in you a sense of security and prestige, a feeling of superiority over your fellow mankind.

Imports can be seized at the ports and destroyed if you have the patent to any product and you can claim damages from any devious companies manufacturing your products.

But patents are expensive, even if you do it yourself. The cost of a patent will more than likely exceed $6,000 over the lifetime of your patent, but if you need professional help you can expect to pay over ten times that amount.

The biggest problem for a new inventor is when an infringement occurs, it is extremely time consuming and excessively expensive to fight the case through the courts.

So, when is it worth applying for a patent?

The simple answer is using the four ‘P’s.

1 Product. If you don’t have a product, then more than likely, you don’t need a patent, hence the reason for www.inventanidea.com coming into existence.

2 Plan. If you don’t have plans for development and expansion in selling your product, like making a few products to pass out to your friends, or maybe you’re not considering it as a commercial entity, then you do not need a patent.

3 Paying Customers. Once you've decided you need a plan, then the next question is where do I get paying customers from? You will need paying customers, and usually in great numbers, to put your plan into action and develop a business.

It’s OK to share your products around, give them to friends, but if you just cover your costs, you will soon realize you are working for nothing in no time at all and at a time like this, why waste your money on paying for the patent process.

It’s no use convincing yourself everybody needs this, but take a step back and ask around, see what different people’s responses are, and then decide from there whether you could really make a go of producing a paying business.

It’s also no use applying for a patent because of your vanity. Having a patent on your wall gives you bragging rites, but it’s very expensive wallpaper.

4 Profit. You definitely need to make a profit to make a patent worthwhile and for this you need many customers after you consider production and delivery costs. 

You could sell the patent directly to a company to produce your product, or even take a share from the companies sales.

That way you literally have to just sit back and keep an eye on your bank balance. There are a multitude of ways to reap the rewards from having a patent granted for your product, but this all means you need a product to patent in the first place.

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So what do you do if you have an idea, but no funding? 

Could you offer it out to companies in the hope they may be interested in producing this idea?

In this situation, you’d think if the companies found your idea interesting, they would grab your idea and simply run off with it, giving you nothing in return – a bit like a suggestion box at work.

But… Invent an Idea has overcome that little problem by offering vague descriptions as advertisements to businesses globally on the internet, with a code shown with the advert.

A company would need to provide that code before IANI (Invent an Idea) would contact yourself requiring further instructions from you before any company would be offered a proper description and possibly drawings or a photograph to allow them a better understand what is being offered.

The company would be obliged to accept a Non Disclosure Notice before they received the better explanation.

They would then be allowed a certain amount of time to review it, and they would have to sign a contract where they apply for the patent (whether on your behalf, or a shared ownership) with a view to producing sales of the product.

Doing it this way, ideas can become patented products with the ideas person forking out virtually nothing.