...
Contents:
Engineering Services
You can count on one thing when you get a brilliant idea. Someone else will also think of it. Too many people lose their ideas because they know what they want to do, but don't know how to do it. We can team you with engineers specializing in the areas you need assistance with.
Don't risk having your invention stolen by an unscrupulous marketing scheme that promises to help you patent your ideas. Too often, they only help you get rid of your idea - to them! We offer full non-disclosure and contractual protection in exchange for reasonable fees. If your goal is to patent your invention, we can recommend competent, honest firms to represent you in the process. We can also help you avoid the unscrupulous firms out there in patent land.
Partnerships
Our company president invented the computer paint matching machine. Unfortunately, at the time, he couldn't afford to complete the patent process and lost the invention to someone else that could. Don't get caught in the same trap. Once you start the patent process, your idea becomes public knowledge. Make sure you can complete the process before you start it.
You must know the following things before you start the patent process:
- Is the idea patentable?
There are certain legal tests an idea must pass to be patentable. It costs less to run an idea by a patent attorney that specializes in the area of your patent than it does to start the process and be ultimately denied. This step alone can cost over a thousand dollars, however.
- Is the idea marketable?
A patent is usually an investment. If you want a patent on your idea just to have a bit of immortality, you will have to find a way to finance that yourself. If your idea has commercial potential, however, you should consider taking on a partner to help fund the endeavor. This is usually known as venture capital, but is in fact a very specialized form of venture capitalization.
The usual form of venture capitalization involves taking money from an investment group with business skills but very few technical skills. They usually take a controlling interest in your endeavor, also. This may be okay from a business standpoint if they exercise their feducial responsibilities correctly, but can be disasterous when they do not understand the technical needs driving your spending decisions. It takes lots of money to patent, develope, test and produce a product. Consider that it usually takes $110,000 MINIMUM to patent something in Japan! Echo that for covering all of Western Europe.
- What is the Market Lifetime of the End Product?
Given that is costs a great deal of money to bring a product to market, can you sell enough of them to make a profit? Is there enough of a customer demand? Will it become obsolete too quickly? Will competition erode your customer base?
We will evaluate your ideas, under full legal non-disclosure and contract, for a reasonable fee. If in our sole opinion, the idea merits it, we may propose a partnership for the completion of the project. Proposing a partnership in no way affects the non-disclosure and the contract will be very specific about protecting your rights to any idea you present to us.