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Why inventions fail:
Author: Inventblog13 As you can imagine inventions can fail for possibly thousands of reasons. The most obvious one that is easy to pin is that “it was just a bad idea”. That is true, it could have been a bad idea, but even inventions that are a good idea fail and for many reasons. Here are a few of those reasons. Money – There isn’t enough money to develop the invention. It starts but doesn’t move on. Sometime picking the incorrect route to market can be to blame. Timing – you wouldn’t normally think about this, but timing is important. I had what I thought was a great new variation of a game which I got presented by an agent to the big toy companies. This happened to be during the recession in 2009-2010 time frame. At this point their sales were down and they were sticking with the basics and not expanding their base product offerings. My item may still have ultimately failed for other reasons in a better economy, but I can’t help but think timing had a huge part in this failure. Cost – Sometimes your invention just costs too much. It may be a great idea, but if the market isn’t willing to pay that price to solve their problem your product will fail. If a customer can spend a lot less on the alternative to your invention to get the same result, you will have a hard time getting traction. For example a super creative and cool mouse trap that costs 5 times what the standard wooden spring mouse trap costs. You better have some cool features on yours that will sell it, because that is a huge price gap to overcome. Reach/Influence: Getting your invention through the right channels. As with most things in life, business, jobs, etc. “it’s who you know”. If your invention is a high tech handbag. If you can get influence, training, mentoring, etc. from someone with close ties to the industry (an insider) you will have a better chance of success. Similarly, there are a lot of situation through the normal course of the invention process where you will have a choice to work on your own or go through an agent. Depending on the product and situation, you may get better reach to larger companies through an agent than going it on your own or though other routes. These are just a few of the reasons why your invention might fail. One thing to remember is to separate yourself from your invention. Don’t tie the “failure” of your invention to your own personal failure. It is very important to separate these. Successful inventions as a percentage of all the ideas submitted is astronomically low. There will be failure. You are successful for even having an invention. And you are even more successful for having pushed it through the system to get it processed. I know you have more ideas. Pull them together, get them out there. 
Feeding the Machine:
Author: Inventblog13 Work with me here. Imagine a single piece continuous flow manufacturing machine. In one side goes raw materials which get processed into the stage one product which fall onto a conveyer belt as they continue through the process through the remaining two operations required to manufacture the product. Once through these the same machine takes the product off the line and packages them into boxes to complete the process. Image the invention process as this machine. Your ideas or inventions are the raw materials and the completed packaged boxes at the end of the line represent successful invented product that made it to market. Along the way in the process are is the quality control. These are the reviews of quality of the manufactured product as it goes down the line. If there is a bad product it is pulled off the line and either scrapped and thrown away, or re-worked. The same is true of your invention ideas. You can start them through the process and somewhere down the line through many checkpoints can determine that your invention is just not going to work. It will not make it through the process. Or it too needs to be “re-worked” or re-thought through on how it can overcome whatever kicked it out. Through this analogy we have a machine that represents the invention process. Raw materials (ideas/inventions) go it and complete package product (successful inventions to market) come out. What do we need to do? Feed the machine. I think it is very unlikely that an inventor has only one idea. I think inventors have at least 2-5 ideas brewing in their head or on paper at any point in time. We must realize that the invention process is hard. There will be failure of at least one of your ideas. But it is up to us to “feed the machine”. We need to get those inventions into the pipeline, into the machine. Without pushing them into the machine they stay in the dark and will not benefit anyone. Set a plan to push these into the machine. Only then will they have a chance for success. Best of luck feeding the machine. 
Are you ready?
Author: Inventblog13 So you’re an “inventor”? (based on the inventionmax.com classification). You at least have your foot in the door; Good job. What does this phrase mean to you “Are you ready”? Sounds innocent enough. But if you have something going, an idea, something in the works on the invention side, you might see this as a challenge. Maybe a call to action. Maybe you have something that you have been thinking about for too long. This question “Are you ready”, slaps you in the face and says get moving. Do you know that the best idea in the work is nothing unless it’s developed? Doing nothing will get you just that “nothing”. Without action we go no-where. “Are you ready” is a call to action. Push through to put in action that which you are already working on or are thinking about. The world needs your ideas. Let’s move forward and get things moving. Sometimes we don’t move forward because we fear failure. Push past this. Think success, assume failure. You must move forward with your idea enough to determine if it will be successful or not. Until you get to this point you will not know. Push through to this point. Sometimes we don’t move forward because we just haven’t figures out what the next step is. Push past this. Set a target. Set a deadline. By June 15th I will figure out and write down what my next step is along with a timeline to get that step completed. It is too easy to stop. Set a target. Push past it. For most of us “Are you Ready?” is answered with “oh.. not really, hold on”, or “uhm I’m busy procrastinating don’t rattle my cage”, or maybe just “no”. “Are you ready” is a call to action, to get things done. Nothing at all negative, all positive, all encouraging, but just knowing that your idea in your hands doesn’t help anyone. We need to get it processed. We need to get it to market. Push forward. “Are you ready?” 
Are you an inventor? One classification: Author: Inventblog13 What is an inventor? How do you classify inventors? We know inventors by novice/beginners and obviously the pro’s. The ones who have had either one big successful product, or a series of multiple moderately successful inventions. No other real way to rank inventors though, that I have seen. Here is one 5 stage version:
Where do inventions come from?
Author: Inventblog13 Great question. The climax is usually that "ah-ha" or light bulb moment that comes when the idea is first born. This is that spark of magic, of ingenuity and creativity. But is this where it starts? A random spark? Or does the real process start before this point. At its core most inventions originate as a solution to a problem. As a better way, or a new way to do something. This can be a more efficient way to do something, a cheaper way to do something (companies and individuals alike love saving money), or even a more unique, entertaining or stylish way to do something. But how can someone get in this inventive mind frame? You want to invent something, but where to start? There is no doubt that some individuals are gifted with creativity. New ideas can flow like a river to them. They have a designers mindset, and other gifts that make them more likely to invent. These creative people are likely the 20% (of the 80/20 rule) that generate the majority of inventions. Hopefully you are one of these. But there's no doubt that ideas for inventions and better ways to do things comes from solving everyday problems. You should always have an open mind and be on the lookout through your everyday life identifying problems and thinking of alternate solutions. These alternate solutions, or better ways, can take the form of inventions or improvements to products that are already on the market. I think the key is to look for problems, keep a very open mind, and look for creative solutions. |
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Is Your Invention a Business?
Author: Inventblog13 If your invention is a product or improvement to a product, then it could be. Do you want it to be? Almost any invention that is a product or product idea could ultimately be turned into a business. What does this mean? This means that if you have a product and wanted to go out on your own and invest in starting up a business centered around this one invention you could. Starting up a business would include everything it takes to create and package a product, everything it takes to ship or sell a product to an end user or customer along with all of the required administrative support functions (HR, Customer Service, Accounting, Etc.). There have been many a business created completely around one product. Take the George Foreman grill®, the Juice mixer, the Total gym®, and any other product you can think of that is sold on QVC. These are single products that could drive one business regardless of whether that business did have other products or not. The question is do you want your product to be a business? If so then you probably can. Running a business is a very tough and challenging task. A lot of times inventors don't have this skill set, or interest in running and managing a business. And that's fine, to invent you only need to invent, not be able to run a business. Fortunately there are other options for inventors other than trying to go at it alone with their new product. Inventors have many options. They can go it alone, bring in an outside investor or partner, bring in someone with the proper management skills, or sell their invention to someone else for royalties (on your own or with an agent). However it is interesting that a lot of the components of running a business will come in handy for an inventor as they are developing their idea. Things needed to run a business are also things needed to properly manage the invention process for new product. This can be managing your expenses, working with vendors on prototyping your invention or getting parts for your invention or working with legal and accounting and other professionals on your invention or just managing costs of what it will take to produce and ship your product and balancing that against what you can sell it for. Most of the time inventors starting a new invention product do so on a shoestring budget. So they will have to manage money very closely, which of course is something that business managers must do also. 
Changes to Our U.S. Patent Laws? ..A brief review.
Author: Inventblog13 The recent changes to the United States patent law were made as part of the America Invents Act on March 16, 2013. This legislation represents the most significant change to the US Patent system since the 1950's. The goal of this act is to stimulate economic development, innovation, and Jobs. Key changes include:
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