Inventing ...The United Inventors Association

Print What?

2012-02-02T07:53:00.002-05:00

Not that long ago when you wanted to make a new product you went to a model shop where each shop had a basic staff of talent.

Starting with the Sculptor – yes, that’s right, every product on a store shelf started with a block of clay or wax. The sculptor would then take that clay or wax and sculpt it into an exact replica of the final product. If there were multiple parts, each was sculpted separately from drawings.

If it was a more technical product it was given to the Model Maker, he/she could make the basic parts using a hand operated machine for making precision parts called a Mill, or often they would use some specialized homemade too they had in their tool box.

The Sculptor or Model maker would then pass the parts over to a mold maker – that’s all this person did, make the rubber molds of the sculpted parts and then cast the new parts in resin so they could be sent to the manufacturer for tooling.

But before that happened, the mold maker would send one of each part back to the model maker who would assemble them into a working model (thus the name Works Like Model)

When that was done, the model would be passed to a finisher or painter who would then put the final finishes on to create what in the industry has become known as the “Looks like – works like” model

When all that was done, a fully functional looks like, works like model and one of each cast part would be put in a box and sent to the factory for manufacturing tooling.

Those were the good old days….Although there are still plenty of model shops around, and a modified version of this process still happens on a smaller scale - Today the process has changed and many of those craftsman were replaced with a process called 3D printing.

Get Connected!

2012-02-01T21:53:00.000-05:00

Inventing is my second career

2012-02-01T08:17:00.000-05:00

I recently did an interview with AARP magazine for an article about retirees who invent. As the reporter asked a series of questions I started thinking about how many retirees inventors I come in contact with each year.

The demographic we see for inventors is a little different than one might think. In fact, the over 55 inventors make up the largest sector of the independent inventor community. But it wasn't until the AARP article that I really started to think about why the numbers of inventors fluctuate so greatly by age.

Female inventors surge in number in their 20s and 30s as they find new and improved inventions associated with child rearing and the home. However their numbers drop off significantly after that and don't really increase again until their 50s - but even then nowhere near the earlier numbers of “Mom Inventors”, or even male inventors.

Men on the other hand are much smaller in number through the 20s 30s and 40s but jump dramatically in the mid-50s. We don't know exactly why this is other than to assume in the 20s, 30s, and 40s they are focused on work and family, but by their 50s they have achieved their career goals, raised their families, and come to the emotional realization that life is short.

Although the types of inventions that are created by both “mom inventors” and “retiree inventors” vary greatly, the core motivation for inventing is likely the same - income augmentation. Given the financial stresses of young children, mom inventors often turn to the inventing process in hopes of relieving that pressure by creating an unplanned income. While in addition to more available time, retiree inventors are generally motivated by the flexibility an income created by inventing will give them in retirement.

At the end of the day we all have our own reasons why we invent - some for money, some for love of the process, and some simply give back to our society. No matter what your reason or your age, if that great idea is rolling around in your head, you should do something with it – and who knows? Maybe make a little extra cash.

From Makin’ Bacon to Makin’ Dreams Come True

2012-01-31T08:24:00.000-05:00

Hi, I’m Abbey Fleck and this is the story of how I invented the Makin’ Bacon bacon maker.

One Saturday morning, when I was 8 years old, my dad and I were cooking bacon. My dad had to put the bacon on the classified section of the newspaper because he ran out of paper towels and my mom freaked out. Dad made a wise crack and said, “I could just stand here and let it drip dry” and I thought he should just hang the bacon while it cooks with a bowl below – then you wouldn’t need paper towels.

So dad and I went to work, we made all kinds of gadgets that cooked the bacon above the fat, not in it. Eventually we came up with our first MAKIN BACON dish. It was great, we made a bowl with a handle and three bars to hang the bacon on. It cooked great too.

Since then we’ve been all over the world telling people about the healthiest way to cook bacon. We were listed as a hot new food product by Parade Magazine in November of 1994, featured in People Magazine, Good Housekeeping plus hundreds of write-ups in many other big newspapers and magazines. The story of my invention has has been featured on Dateline NBC twice, on Paul Harvey, The Today Show, and many others nationally and internationally. I’ve been on TV shows like David Letterman, Maury Povich, and Oprah. It’s been so much fun.

Now you have to try it and buy one for your friends. Everyone needs to know how great the bacon is when you cook it above the fat, not in it. It tastes really great and my dad said that the bacon is 33% healthier than cooking it in a regular pan.

But my little sister Kelly doesn’t care, she just loves the bacon.

You invented it..now SELL IT

2012-01-30T09:02:00.000-05:00

Some call it the Mall Cart Show, others the Kiosk Show, but it doesn’t matter what you call it – it just matters that you go and show the world your Retail Ready product.

This is the second year the UIA will be bringing inventors the opportunity to show the Kiosk and specialty retail buyers, manufacturers, and distributors your retail ready products. That doesn’t mean you have a warehouse full of stock, or a truck ready to back up to the dock. Retail Ready means your product is developed and the buyer can write you an order on the spot!

This is an awesome chance to meet the movers and shakers in the Mall Kiosk and specialty retailer industry. With over 100,000 Kiosks in malls across the country the need for new product is enormous. Feed the need and strut your stuff in Vegas baby!

Each Inventor Zone exhibitor will receive the following for the 3 day show.

A real Kiosk Display Space

2 chairs/stools

Full Color Graphic for your display

4 Staff badges to the show

1 year subscription to Inventor Digest Magazine

1 year subscription to Specialty Retail Report

FREE Virtual SPREE booth for 1 year ($1,500 value)

Listing in SPREE show Directory and mention in UIA/SPREE ad

Mention in the SPREE/UIA Best Product article in the SRR Summer Issue 2012

Entry into the SPREE/UIA Awards Program for Best Overall Product

FREE one-on-one consultation from industry professionals

In addition to the great booth package, the UIA will be hosting the Inventor Zone awards for exhibiting inventors. So get recognized, get an order, and most of all – get registered!

For additional information on how to register for the SPREE Inventor Zone contact Jen Lawlor (202) 857-9730 or jenlawlor@uiausa.org

Ron Popeil wants to meet YOU!

2012-01-27T08:49:00.000-05:00

For questions about the UIA Educational program or to register your booth at the Inventors area of the International Home & Housewares Show contact Jen Lawlor jenlawlor@uiausa.org

Understanding the Planets - Part 3

2012-01-26T07:17:00.000-05:00

We know there are two planets, the Inventor Planet and the Business Planet. We know there is a bridge between them designed to get you ready for what to experience when you get to the other side. But what about navigating the many roads and being able to get from place to place?

When that time comes many inventors charge off with little more than desire and a sense of what they think they know is correct. Others – well they take a Cab.

Not a Cab in the sense of a bright yellow car, but a Cab in the sense of using someone more familiar with the area to do the navigation for you. In the inventing industry those “Cabs” are the group of service providers waiting at the foot of the bridge as you step off onto this planet you know little about.

Picture this – you are on a cruise and you walk down the gang plank into a beautiful little island port. Waiting for you are 3 Taxi drivers.

You don’t know it at the time, but one will take you directly to your destination and charge you a fair price to do it. The second will take you to your destination but in a rather long rout that racks up your bill a bit. He’s not directly stealing from you, but he knows you don’t have a good sense of where you are or where you are going so he bumps it a bit for his own advantage. The third Taxi, well he’s fully aware you are clueless about where you are and how to get where you’re going. So he promptly drives you around the island twelve times only to drop you off very close to where you started.

How do we keep this from happening? It’s simple – we get a map of the island before we get off the boat and use it to understand where we are and where we are going. If you had a map in the third Taxi you would have seen very quickly what the driver was doing. The same could be said for Taxi number one. A map would have shown you very quickly that you could trust this driver and each time you needed a ride from that point on you would have looked for him.

Working with service providers in the inventing industry is really no different. There are all three types of “Taxies” ready to greet you when you walk off that bridge onto the business planet – and with little effort and a few conversations they will know if you are holding a “map” of the process.

Don’t get me wrong, its fine to use service providers. Just understand while many are like Cab number one, there are some like Cabs two and three. You don’t know when you get in what Cab you have, but if you have done your homework and figured out where you need to be going and what the stops are along the way, you will quickly be able to tell which Cab you stepped into and if you should take the ride, or get out before you spend all your money.

Understanding the Planets - Part 2

2012-01-24T06:43:00.000-05:00

Inventors always seem to think the problem in our industry is the business planet. Envisioning gangs of thugs running around just waiting to jump out and mug the first inventor that happens by - Wild gangs, intent on stealing the inventor’s money, their ideas, and their dreams.

Yet people on the business planet look across the bridge and conger up visions of these creative trolls locked in their basements toiling away on ideas that most people don’t really want or need - A greedy bunch that puts far more value on their invention than the rest of us do, demanding to be treated better than others when they grace the business planet with their presence.

Are either really correct? Maybe in some cases both are correct, but how do we fix this overall mischaracterization people on both planets have of each other?

The key is education, and that’s where the bridge between the planets becomes so important – it represents the ability to educate ourselves.

The bridge is a span between two known worlds. Each planet having its own environment, its own risks, customs, even personality. By educating yourself about what you will find when you arrive, you dramatically increase your chances of fitting in when it comes time to make that trip. That entire process happens on the bridge.

You see, the bridge is constructed of knowledge - built from planks of information dried in the kiln of experience. Google, Books, CD’s, DVD’s… Blogs, Forums, Radio shows, Magazines, even simple Conversations are all planks on the bridge of knowledge.

Some inventors take years to cross the bridge, soaking up the knowledge on every plank. When they arrive at the other planet they are truly prepared and the result is that they are generally successful. Other inventors want to run across the bridge, they bypass all the really important planks and in record time they have reached the other planet. The result is predictable – they normally fail, walking back angry and dismayed ready to tell all of us about the roaming gangs of thieves, and lack of appreciation and understanding the other planet has for inventors.

The bridge built of education and best traveled slowly and with persistence. It is in fact, an exercise in personal responsibility and the success you have when you reach the other side is directly relevant to the amount of time you took to cross it.

When you do get to the end of the bridge – you may want to take a cab, but I’ll explain that next.

Understanding the Planets - Part 1

2012-01-23T07:57:00.000-05:00

I often give talks about the Inventor Planet and the Business Planet. I thought it would be a good idea to do a series of blog entries on this subject since it provides a very strong image of where we as inventors live, where we need to go, and the problems that often face us on our journey.

This planetary relationship illustrates the dynamic between the two worlds that govern the innovation and commercialization of inventions. That is – they come from two separate planets with wildly different atmospheres. Our ultimate success is dependent on mastering each of these different atmospheres and crossing back and forth between them.

Let’s start by looking at both planets and how they differ.

As you may imagine, The Inventor’s Planet is a place with zero gravity. The inhabitants are free to jump about and do things that would be restrictive on any other planet.

On the inventor planet creativity is a raging river irrigating the creative needs of those around it. The sky is Blue, or Red, or Purple…or whatever your mind’s eye may see, and the air is filled with tenacity and hope. While the people spend their days harvesting the crop of invention planted months before from seeds of innovation.

All in all, the inventor planet is a happy creative place where anything goes and the limits are all in your mind – But don’t look for any money on the inventor planet, there is none. For that you have to go over to the Business planet.

The Business Planet is a much different place. It’s a happy place as well, but for different reasons. On the business planet there is a strong gravitational force that governs a set of rules ensuring everything runs efficiently. The gravitational pull of manufacturing, the gravitational pull of consumer wants, the gravitational pull of money, and even a gravitational force of luck. All work in synergy to ensure it all functions correctly.

On the business planet the mighty river of commerce flows swiftly as people constantly throw new things in and fish others out. The sky is a constant, but beautiful, emerald green, the air is full of hope and tenacity. While most nights you can stare into a star filled sky of profit waiting for the next day to arrive and offer a new opportunity.

Sure, there’s often a lack of creativity, and the sky is always the same color, but on the business planet it all works well to make sure everything functions within the gravitational limitations of the planet itself. It's not a bad place at all - just a different place than the inventor planet.

So – how does one move between the Inventor Planet and the Business Planet? - On a bridge of course. But we’ll talk about that tomorrow

Meet me at the Mall....

2012-01-21T11:33:00.001-05:00

S I M P L E ….that’s how you spell success

2012-01-20T07:35:00.000-05:00

Ideas about medical devices, grand illusions of creating the next big energy source, even bar napkins full of sketches of new transportation devices. For some reason novice inventors always want to make it so complicated.

I’m not saying people don’t have the mental strength to invent these things, or even that they shouldn’t. What I am saying is one of the hardest parts of this process – and yes, Inventing is a process – is to stay focused, and we all know how hard that is for most inventors.

But fear not – We have a few tricks to help, at least when you are first starting out.

First: Always work in an area of inventing that you may know something about. For example, if your hobby or job has given you a fair amount of experience in the construction business you may want to start your first invention in that industry. This can give you a leg up in the sense that you know what the problems are and you have a readymade group of people to work with. If you have never been in the construction business it would be difficult to understand the nuances that go with that trade, and thus difficult to invent a useful solution for them.

Second: Keep it as simple as you can and work your way up. Find a nice everyday problem to tackle and invent a solution to it.

Third: Always make one invention pay for the next. Sure, document every idea in an inventor’s notebook – but for those you choose to move forward with, the ones you choose to spend your family’s money on, make those raise the funds necessary to finance your next invention.

This is very important; by using mechanisms like these you commit yourself to picking only your strongest ideas. This makes sure you stay on a track of progress, not just flail around from idea to idea spending money.

It's just an opinion

2012-01-19T07:56:00.000-05:00

It seems in this industry the one thing inventor wants almost as much as a million-dollar deal is feedback.

Professionals in this industry are often asked: what do you think of my product? Will people buy it? Can I get a deal on it?… Even, will you invest in it?

Although there may be some people in the industry that feel that they do, most of us realized long ago we have no crystal ball. At the end of the day we all have to walk to the end of the diving board jump off, and hope there's water in the pool. Although there are a lot of things that we learn in this industry about how consumers react and what they may likely buy - none of us know for sure.

So what is this elusive feedback but and individuals opinion. Because it's just an opinion, it's probably less important that we get the opinion, than it is who we get it from.

The spectrum of experience in the inventing industry is so vast the feedback an inventor is likely to get about their idea is based on that individual’s expertise in one section of the linear commercialization process.

A good example of this may be asking for feedback from a sales rep. The response you will receive should be very accurate in terms of the kinds of products retailers are currently looking for. However, it may be inaccurate in terms of the product’s manufacturability, distribution, or function.

That doesn't in any way make the opinion lesson valid, as long as the inventor understands it's rooted in the part of the process where that person has experience.

So how do we get the best feedback? We look for professionals in the industry that specialize in different areas and we asked the questions over and over. The answers should be taken exactly as they are given – as a single data point to be mixed with other data points and used to paint a mental picture of probability.

ASOTV Search - Just a few days left!

2012-01-18T15:24:00.000-05:00

The United Inventors Association of America & TeleBrands are heading to Miami to host the Southeastern ASOTV Inventors Club Product Search on Friday, February 10!

In conjunction with United Patent Research and The Inventors Society of South Florida, this unique and exciting event gives you the chance to present your new product idea to the largest ASOTV product company in the world!
All submissions are due by January 25, 2012!

1). Download the forms: http://www.uiausa.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=120466&orgId=uia

2). Fill them out, and send them to:
Leo Mazur
c/o ISSF
PO Box 6008
Delray Beach, FL 33482
mazurelectric@earthlink.net
Fax: 561-495-5362

Don’t miss this chance! Who knows, you could end up with the next million dollar ASOTV product! If you are NOT a member of one of the following clubs, you will need to ask to be an HONORARY MEMBER for this event.

Invent Alabama
Bruce Koppenhoefer
137 Mission Circle
Montevallo, AL 35115
205-222-7585bkoppy@hiwaay.net

Auburn Student Inventors and Entrepreneurs Club
Auburn University Campus
Samuel Ginn College of Engineering
1210 Shelby Center
Auburn, AL 36849
Grant Moore
hgm0001@gmail.com

Inventors Council of Central Florida
Dr. David Flinchbaugh
5635 Commerce Drive
Orlando, FL 32839
407-760-7200
Inventorscouncilcentralfla.us
drdavidflinchbaugh@bellsouth.net
Edison Inventors Association
PO Box 60972
Ft. Myers, FL 33906
(239) 275-4332edisoninventors.org
grossrdlab@yahoo.com

Inventors Society of South Florida
Leo Mazur, President
P.O. Box 6008
Delray Beach, FL 33482
561-676-5677inventorssociety.net
mazurelectric@earthlink.net

Space Coast Inventors Guild
Angel Pacheco
4346 Mount Carmel Lane
Melbourne, FL 32901-8666
321-768-1234

Tampa Bay Inventors' Council
Wayne Rasanen, President
7752 Royal Hart Drive
New Port Richey, FL 34653
(727) 565-2085tbic.us

The Columbus Phoenix City Inventors Association
PO Box 8132,
Columbus GA 31908
Mike Turner
cpcinventorsassociation@yahoo.com
http://cpcinventorsassociation.org/

Inventor Association of GeorgiaDave Savage, Point of contact
1407 Bunky Lane
Dunwoody, GA 30338
404-323-8686
GaInventors.org
dave@davesavage.com

Inventors' Network of the Carolinas
Tom Getts, President
520 Elliot Street, Suite 300
Charlotte, NC 28202
(704) 369-7331www.inotc.org
tgetts@ezclaw.com

If you've never failed… You've never lived

2012-01-18T08:08:00.000-05:00

We often hear about going the extra mile. In sports it means work harder, in business it means work longer, but in inventing it could mean many things.

To an innovator, one who is presenting a hypothesis, the extra mile may represent taking the time and effort to prove that hypothesis through the process of inventing. For an inventor, one who has proven hypothesis, the extra mile may mean developing a new product. For both the innovator and inventor the extra mile could at some point mean entrepreneurship.

The common denominator is that at a given point in time to anyone who goes the extra mile it will mean failure.

Although failure and success are often disproportionate – they are always inseparable. You cannot have one without the other. Much like the contrast between light and dark, warm and cold, and tall and short - failure and success are interdependent, for it is failure that provides us the education required to achieve success.

As inventors the education failure provides is an instrumental part in guiding us to the solution. But to be useful we cannot be scared of it. We must embrace the failure in order to learn from it. We must experience the failures in order to achieve the successes. And in our darkest hours, we must use the gift of failure as the fuel to take us that extra mile.

Do I need a UPC?

2012-01-17T08:29:00.000-05:00

As a consumer, you’ve probably noticed how nifty and efficient Universal Product Codes are. And as an entrepreneur, you may have figured out that having UPCs or bar codes on your products could be important for ensuring their success at retail.

UPCs are the unique configurations – consisting of a block of black and white bars with an accompanying numbers that appear on each individual product in the American retailing system. Because they help standardize the identities of millions of products across various manufacturing, distribution and retailing systems, UPCs have become crucial for making sure that everyone in the marketplace is buying and selling exactly what they think they’re buying and selling.

And for startups, getting UPC codes for your products has become part of the price of admission for scaling up your production, distribution and sales. Here’s what you need to know:

What exactly are UPC codes?

Each UPC Code is a set of alternating black and white bars representing numbers (12 in the U.S.; 13 in Europe) that scanners recognize as unique from every other product. These markers caught on in the U.S. grocery business more than 30 years ago after the feds instituted new standards for nutritional labeling on food containers.

Today, the not-for-profit group GS1, administers UPCs globally. This is in fact the ONLY place you can obtain an original UPC account. However there are many companies that buy UPCs in bulk and resell them to smaller manufactures and even inventors.

It’s important to note here UPCs are an inventory control device as well as a modern day price tag. When you assign a UPC to a product you assign it based on the inventory control requirments. For example if you are selling Teddy Bears to Target and the buyer could care less what colors they come in you would assign one UPC to that product. However if the product comes in 12 colors and Target is interested in tracking all 12 colors of Bear you must assign a different UPC to each color. Now you have used 12 UPCs instead of just one. The same would be said for size, or any other defining characteristic of the product.

Do I really need UPCs on my products?

If you plan on selling through large retailers, you will absolutely need to have a UPC. You won’t get far in mainstream retailing without UPCs, because chains depend on bar-code info provided by their suppliers to ensure accuracy and drive efficiency in their own sales results, ordering and logistics. You’ll also need UPCs to be able to use Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to electronically receive and send info about orders. A small boutique store may not use EDI, but it’s a standard ordering system used by almost all major retailers.

On the other hand, if you mainly sell to a handful of small B2B customers, you might never need bar codes. Or if you largely retail your products through mom-and-pop shops, boutiques, artists’ markets and other small-scale outlets that generally don’t rely on scanning equipment, you might be able to avoid the bar-code requirement as well – though you should have your own internal way of keeping track of individual products.

Tristen Sullivan recently discovered the importance of UPCs when Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s began requiring her Los Angeles baby-accessories company to supply them.

“I would have lost an order from Nordstrom’s several months ago if I hadn’t been able to get up and running with UPC codes,” says Sullivan, whose Dust Bunnies line includes baby blankets, boots and other accessories. But the $1-million company continues to ship its wares to about 600 boutiques without attaching UPCs.

So, how do you get UPCs?

There are two ways actually. You can visit GS1, The site will take you step by step through the sign-up process, asking you to answer a few questions.

You’ll pay an application fee of a few to several hundred dollars, then a much smaller annual fee. The exact amount of the fee depends on your answers to application questions, including a revenue projection for the next 12 months, and the number of products for which you expect to need individual UPCs in that time. You won’t be held to the answers, so it’s OK to guesstimate.

Assuming your application is accepted, you’ll be e-mailed a “member kit” including company-ID sub-code that will comprise the first few digits of each of your UPCs. You supply a few digits by numbering your own products. Then GS1 generates a random number for the last digit of each UPC.

If you don’t want to purchase UPCs directly from GS1 you can purchase them from a reseller. These companies are all over the place and vary greatly in how they work and how much they charge. Generally for an inventor this is a better option since the amount of product you are selling is relatively low and your market may be untested. You will pay a little more but you don’t lock yourself in to anything long term.

As you can see, UPCs are just another of the many things you have to know when taking a product to market – but if you take the time to educate yourself and ask questions you can normally eat the product development Elephant one bite at a time.

PGA Inventor Spotlight is NEXT WEEK!

2012-01-16T10:47:00.000-05:00

I had no idea....

2012-01-16T08:09:00.000-05:00

The Cell Phone

The first automatic analog cellular phone was made in the 1960's. Commercial models were introduced in Japan by NTT on December 3, 1979. They were introduced in Scandinavia in 1981, in Chicago, USA, on October 13, 1983 (by Motorola), and in Europe in the late 1980's. Early mobile FM (frequency modulation radio was invented by Edwin H. Armstrong in 1935) radio telephones had been in use in the USA since 1946, but since the number of radio frequencies are very limited in any area, the number of phone calls was also very limited. Only a dozen or two calls could be made at the same time in an area. To solve this problem, there could be many small areas (called cells) which share the same frequencies. But when users moved from one area to another while calling, the call would have to be switched over automatically without losing the call. In this system, a small number of radio frequencies could accommodate a huge number of calls. This cellular phone concept was devised by a team of researchers at Bell Labs in 1947, but there were no computers available to do the switching.

As small inexpensive computers were developed, cell phones could be produced. Motorola holds the US patents for the cell phone. Henry Taylor Sampson and George H. Miley hold a 1968 patent (US patent #3,591,860) on a "gamma electric cell," which is not a component of cellular phones.The first automatic analog cellular phone was made in the 1960's. Commercial models were introduced in Japan by NTT on December 3, 1979. They were introduced in Scandinavia in 1981, in Chicago, USA, on October 13, 1983 (by Motorola), and in Europe in the late 1980's. Early mobile FM (frequency modulation radio was invented by Edwin H. Armstrong in 1935) radio telephones had been in use in the USA since 1946, but since the number of radio frequencies are very limited in any area, the number of phone calls was also very limited. Only a dozen or two calls could be made at the same time in an area. To solve this problem, there could be many small areas (called cells) which share the same frequencies. But when users moved from one area to another while calling, the call would have to be switched over automatically without losing the call. In this system, a small number of radio frequencies could accommodate a huge number of calls. This cellular phone concept was devised by a team of researchers at Bell Labs in 1947, but there were no computers available to do the switching.

The Ferris Wheel is a large amusement-park ride that is made of a giant, vertical, metal wheel that slowly turns around. The wheel is equipped with hanging compartments for people, who ride around in a circle, going far above the ground. The Ferris Wheel was invented by the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania bridge-builder George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. (1859-1896) . The first Ferris wheel was opened on June 21, 1893 at the Chicago World's Fair. This Ferris wheel was 250 feet tall (the diameter of the wheel) - this is about the height of a 25 story building! It had 36 wooden cars that could each seat 40 people, and hold another 20 standing people plus a conductor. Each car was 27 feet long, 13 feet wide, and 9 feet tall. A total of 2000 people could ride the wheel at one time. The wheel was powered by two 1,000 horsepower engines and weighed over 4,000 tons. It cost 50 cents per ride. This same Ferris wheel was later used at the St. Louis exposition in 1904, but was scrapped in 1906. Ferris wheels are now common at amusement parks around the world - most are much smaller than the original.

Modern Day Toilet Paper

Joseph Gayetty invented toilet paper in 1857. His new toilet paper was composed of flat sheets. Before Gayetty's invention, people tore pages out of mail order catalogs - before catalogs were common, leaves were used. Unfortunately, Gayetty's invention failed. Walter Alcock (of Great Britain) later developed toilet paper on a roll (instead of in flat sheets). Again, the invention failed. In 1867, Thomas, Edward and Clarence Scott (brothers from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) were successful at marketing toilet paper that consisted of a small roll of perforated paper. They sold their new toilet paper from a push cart - this was the beginning of the Scott Paper Company.

My Little Tugger....

2012-01-13T08:55:00.000-05:00

Being professionals in the inventing industry we see literally thousands of new product ideas every year. From spatulas, to better ways to pour oil in your car, to whiz-bang new hairdryers it often feels like we've seen it all. After a while it feels like the world is a very small place seeing the same kind of gadgets over and over again. But then, then, you find one you've never seen before and it opens your eyes to just how big an industry inventing really is.

The Little Tugger – improving the world one penis at a time. http://tlctugger.com/products.htm A friend sent me this link the other day for a product designed to help a man reverse the effects of circumcision. I laughed and thought it was a joke - then I took a look at the website and realized to the people who invented it, and I'm sure to the thousands of men around the country who would like to reverse the effects of circumcision this was no joke at all

Sure, it's a little weird, but so are lots of inventions. I'm sure many people thought the automobile was weird when they first saw it because there used to the horse - or maybe electricity because they were used to the whale oil lamp.

We find in history inventing is often coupled with a required paradigm shift. Sometimes it's not enough to simply invent a function that solves the problem. Oftentimes you have to also help the consumer in overcoming their preconceived notions. Many great products have been introduced to the market but never adopted by consumers because society couldn't overcome their comfortability and mindset. Obviously it's very frustrating for an inventor to know themselves why the solution is so important, to have changed the paradigms of a small constellation of friends and family - but then take it to market and the consumers reject it because they may simply not understand it or be emotionally equipped to change.

I'm not saying that The Little Tugger is the solution to all of society's problems or even that its time has come. But when you see a product like this that catches you so off guard, it forces us to stop for a moment and question how we see things as inventors – and more importantly how society sees the things we invent for them.

I've got options...

2012-01-12T08:49:00.000-05:00

I was reading one of those inventor sites where you pay a fee and they may select your idea to be presented to companies. There are several of these sites out there and I guess in their own little way they service the people who use them.

In this case I was struck by a comment one of the users posted after being rejected many times. “Every time I felt like giving up, I thought to myself, what better option do I have out there?”

We all know there are many paths you can take in this industry and just as many people willing to take your money and walk you down their path. Some of those paths work very well, others not so well.

So what option does this person have? They have the same options that we all have - the oprtion to educate ourselves on the process of not only commercialization, but inventing itself.

You see, inventing is the process of proving a theory. In the innovation process the theory was presented, but the invention itself is an exercise in problem solving. Because it’s an exercise it will require some level of educating ourselves on what tools to use and how best to go about it.

Commercialization of that invention is very much the same. It’s a set of steps in a process that we as inventors can teach ourselves, often with the help of others. Like the exercise of inventing, this process may have many steps, and for people starting out it can be a bit daunting – but if you take the time to learn, it’s also very achievable.

In politics there is a saying “information is power” in inventing we say “education is power” because armed with education I promise you will never find yourself feeling like you have no options.

Are you finding everything okay?

2012-01-11T09:20:00.002-05:00

As consumers we're all very familiar with the term “Retail” - We go to stores, we purchase products, we go home and we use them. But have you ever given thought to the fact that retail falls into two different categories? From a product development standpoint, and consequently from an inventing standpoint, we have to think of retail as” Attended” retail and “Unattended” retail.

I learned this lesson the hard way in the very first retail product I ever developed. The product was called The Game Paw; it was a Nerf style foam fan product of a Cat Paw with the number one. After months and months of development we finally dialed the product in and packaged it in a Poly-bag with a header card – a standard way of packaging that kind of a product.

Since this was a sports fan product it was sold in regional sports stores. These stores are what we call “Attended Retail” because they have a small number of employees who can see everything going in the store at any given time. The product quickly sold thousands of units with no damage or theft issues.

Then one day we got a call from a major grocery chain. They wanted to carry the Game Paw for the upcoming football season. This was a great opportunity – or so we thought. In the discussions with the buyer we decided the display mechanism would be what's called a Dump Bin. A large cardboard or wireframe bin normally placed in the middle of the main aisle ways.

It wasn't long before we learned the lesson of unattended retail. We would always go to the retailers who carried our products and check on them once a week. It’s a good habit to get into so you can take care of any issues as soon as they come up.

Well it wasn’t long before we had an issue with this dump bin full of Game Paws. We found the product was being de-packaged and broken. Kids were taking the foam paws out of the package, putting it on their hands and fighting with each other.

In a grocery store environment the square footage to employees ratio is a hugely different than in a sports shop. There was no one to constantly take a look at the product and make sure nobody was messing with it. The packaging that had worked just fine in attended retail didn't work very well at all in the unattended retail environment.

Even though technically it wasn't our responsibility, we credited the retailer back for the damage parts and then reevaluated the packaging and the displays until we were able to solve the problem.

The lesson learned here was that we didn't think about the difference between “attended retail” and “unattended retail” until we were already in the stores.

I guess that's what we call experience, and sometimes you can only gain experience by making mistakes.

The PGA Show Inventor Seminar

2012-01-10T14:11:00.000-05:00

Be careful out there

2012-01-10T08:37:00.000-05:00

We live in a world where, as we get older we come to understand things are not always what they appear. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the industry of inventing.

The Inventing industry is an emotionally charged roller coaster from the time you get on to the time you get off. People wanting to sell you things, people wanting to take your money, people wanting to provide things for you that they have no intention of providing - the landscape is wrought with potholes and quicksand many inventors find themselves falling into.

Patent scams, trademark scams, and copyright scams, are simply a part of that landscape. This is a great example of a document sent to an inventor about a trademark registration. On the surface it appears to be a very official looking document but it is not. This is a fake registration document requesting the inventor send in the sum of $375.00 to renew their trademark. The problem is it didn't come from US patent and trademark office it came from a company banking on the fear of the inventor losing their trademark to send them money.

These scams are all too common and many inventors fall prey to them each year. If you receive letters like this and you're not sure they're actually from the office of US patent and trademark you should make a call to the US PTO and ask for verification before you send a check.

Sniffing Out Bedbugs

2012-01-09T07:20:00.000-05:00

Chris Goggin doesn’t like the title “inventor,” despite the fact that nearly two dozen patents list him as one. He prefers “innovator.” Either way, the Wilmington, North Carolina, mechanical engineer and former product developer — his résumé includes military missile electronics, the George Foreman Spin Fryer, and fuel-tank mechanisms for the F-22 Raptor jet recognizes the need for a new device when he sees one. Two years ago, as more and more people began waking up with itchy, red welts on their body, he realized the world needed a cheap and effective way to detect bedbugs.

The notorious insects, which reemerged in the U.S. about 10 years ago after a 50-year hiatus are extremely difficult to find. They can hide in the folds or cracks of nearly any object. Unlike cockroaches and mice, bedbugs don’t respond to poison-laced baits or bombs. Exterminators must deliver poisons more directly, so pinpointing the insects’ exact location is vital in stamping out an infestation. During a typical inspection, an exterminator may spend up to an hour per room seeking bedbugs out. Goggin’s Bed Bug Detective does the same job in 15 minutes.

The device replicates the way dogs pick up scents, enabling it to sniff out bedbug pheromones, chemicals that insects use to communicate with one another. Dogs’ olfactory system allows them to recognize even the faintest of scents. In recent years, well-trained bedbug-detecting pups have proven their ability to recognize bedbug pheromones with 98 percent accuracy in a controlled study. Goggin’s cocker spaniel, Nina, acted as a model by lending the device her unique “sniff cadence,” the rhythm dogs use to breathe in an odor. The snuffling pulls a scent into the smaller of a dog’s two olfactory chambers; over time, faint aromas build up in the chamber and become recognizable to the animal.

Exterminators in the U.S. currently employ around 200 dogs, a number that’s on the rise. But the training and care for a dog can run a pest-control company between $30,000 and $70,000, according to the National Pest Management Association, a cost that’s generally passed on to the customer. Since training isn’t regulated, some dogs do not learn to find bedbugs adequately. Those that do can locate an infestation to only within a few feet, which still leaves a lot of space that must be searched by hand. Dogs also don’t distinguish between male and female pheromones (egg-laying females pose the highest infestation risk) or sense other signatures such as the insects’ odorless carbon dioxide and methane emissions.

Goggin’s electronic version uses CO2 and methane sensors, as well as a proprietary pheromone detector, to pinpoint bedbugs to within one square inch, from a distance three times as far away as a dog could. The device can also tell the bugs’ sex. The handheld unit will go on sale this year for $200. Goggin says a new model that works for a wider variety of pests, including cockroaches, ants and mice, is on the way.

www.popsci.com posted by Brooke Borel

UIA Board Member Vote

2012-01-08T20:43:00.001-05:00

Remember the roaring 20's?

2012-01-06T08:21:00.000-05:00

It’s been almost 100 years since some very talented inventors worked in small sheds and basements while other people partied. It was the roaring twenties after all, and although few of us were alive to remember it first hand – there is no doubt that we still see the fruit of that labor in our modern day lives.

Here are a few of the more notable inventions from the roaring twenties that live on long after their inventors have gone.

Penicillin (1928)
Penicillin, one of the widely used antibiotics, was invented by scientist Sir Alexander Fleming after studying bacteria. Since penicillin was not approved by the FDA, it was not popular in those times. Subsequent researches had been done about the effects of penicillin on various strains of bacteria. It was only after the World War I that people started using penicillin as a life-saving drug.

Frozen Food (1929)
Clarence Birdseye, a naturalist from the United States, invented frozen food. In New York, he started a packing company called Birdseye Seafoods, Inc., in 1924. He introduced a system wherein dressed meat and vegetables were preserved in waxed-cardboard cartons, after being exposed to high pressure. In 1930, he succeeded in patenting the Birdseye system of freezing food.

Hair Dryer (1920)
Prior to the 1920s, women used to blow-dry their hair by inserting a flexible pipe in the exhaust of a vacuum cleaner. In 1920, the first hair dryer was invented. Though the machine was not efficient enough and got overheated easily, it was, of course, better than using a vacuum cleaner!

Band Aid (1920)
Earle Dickson made band aid for the first time for his wife, Josephine Dickson. Earle Dickson worked in the company Johnson & Johnson that manufactured gauze and tape. He used a piece of tape with a small-sized gauze in the middle, and put it on Josephine's injured hand. Later, he started selling these strips and after four years, Johnson & Johnson produced it on a commercial scale and called it 'Band-Aid'.

Traffic Lights (1920)
William Potts, a police officer from Detroit Michigan, invented traffic lights. He made his invention by using red, green and amber lights, and wire. The traffic lights were installed for the first time in the region of Woodward and Michigan Avenues in Detroit, United States.

A story you should read

2012-01-05T09:00:00.001-05:00

As I travel around the country I am blessed to meet some very nice people. Several months ago in the little town of Redwood Falls Minnesota I met a couple named Greg and June Amundson. Other than Greg being about 20 feet tall, he and June could be any inventor couple in the world. Their story was typical, and their journey was full of both joy and sadness.

Our paths have crossed several times over the past year and I’ve come to respect the tenacity this unassuming couple from Minnesota has for turning their product into something that can help people. (If you have ever tried to calk something you will know exactly what I mean) So here is their story of inspiration and hope.

Another new year and I’m sitting here patiently awaiting an offer from a major DRTV company to hopefully license our product. We received an e-mail yesterday telling us it was on its way and we should have it soon.

We have a product called Insta Caulk™ with SilTak™ silicone adhesive which is a “peel and stick” trim product that replaces caulking on just about anything from toilets to countertops. Currently we are selling direct on our website at www.cornerflex.com

But three years ago it was an entirely different story - I was laying awake one night because our custom home building business was going into the tank, and fast. It was a feeling that’s hard to explain unless you have had it, but it is deep, painful and foreboding worry that just about makes you sick.

For some odd reason I began to focus on the consistent sloppy, dirty caulking I always noticed on urinals in the men’s room. I tend to see things and think about solutions. I‘ve always wondered if I have some form of ADD. Maybe, due to my panicked state of mind, I designed a solution in my head and got up the next morning and drew it up on our computer. When I was done It looked cool, very functional, and if it actually worked could be used anywhere in the world. I had heard that if you can design a product everyone uses over and over again you would become rich. That may be true but getting to that point is almost impossible.

Being an Inventor is a lot like treading water. As long as you keep kicking and trying you probably will keep your head above water and continue to see and hope for success some day. Of course, once you become too tired, give up, or take on additional burdens that you can no longer handle staying above water, you sink.

We have been through far more than I could have ever imagined in 3 years. Deaths of family members, cancer, financial ruin, challenges with our children and that’s just family stuff.

The development of a product seems to follow the same peaks and valleys with days of solving a design problem and feeling elation to days of truly believing your dream has been a sham and a waste of time.

I can still remember the beginning being very naive but optimistic - believing every day this was good and it was going to work. I also remember days in my garage, or “mad lab” as I called it, where I would feel like I was having a mental breakdown and could no longer go on with our product. To help keep us going I made little stickers for all of our rear view mirrors in our cars that simply said “Believe”.

Like many inventors - during this process we burned through all of our savings just to keep the bills paid which added to the stress. We had to do everything ourselves and as hard as it has been, the process worked. We networking with all of our friends to see who knew someone that could help us, we posted questions on Facebook and LinkedIn, we called upon local business’s for free advice. We also had to design our product, develop prototypes, complete testing, set up marketing, design graphics and a billion other items that go into a new product. All while designing and building our own manufacturing setup which works pretty good considering it cost us only $300.

Our first breaks started to come well into the process as we were barely hanging on when we were able to find local suppliers who were willing to work with a startup company and give us as many “breaks” as possible. We also found great information and advice from Mark Reyland of the UIA which has saved us from many pitfalls and has played an instrumental part in getting to the point we are at today.

We have been “treading water” for years and will have to continue treading water as long as we can. But maybe, just maybe, things will change today, and if they don’t, I can still see above the water and I’m far from getting tired.

Greg Amundson, President
Cornerflex, Inc.
www.cornerflex.com

Are they really just words?

2012-01-04T08:56:00.002-05:00

Trust: The position of somebody who is expected by others to behave responsibly or honorably.

This is the single most important word we use to guide us on the journey of life. Like a rudder,we depend on it to steer us through the sea of honest, and not so honest people, places, and things that define our waking moments.

How is it that we figure out who and what to trust in a world that constantly tempts us with opportunities, desires, and promises?

I think we start with the one word that should always be used with trust, and that’s perspective.

You see, trust is a result; we can do nothing with it other than to give it out or withhold it.

Perspective on the other hand is built from the branches of data we assemble - It’s the perch from where we see all the inner actions that help us properly use trust.

Per’spec’tive: a measured or objective assessment of a situation, giving all aspects their comparative importance

I read this quote the other day from a lady who I assume coaches inventors. “I had a client that came from…... Suffice it to say that having clear evidence, I would never recommend them to any inventor”

That statement could be 100% true and this company could be the worst company on the planet. But as her conviction came ringing through her words like the sound a massive bronze bell I couldn’t help but ask myself what was the perspective? Was it a single client who had a bad experience, misunderstood, or even lied? Maybe what she read on the Internet? Or even what she may have heard at a party?

What isn’t apparent in her declaration of mistrust, is that she had ever actually dealt with this company herself. My guess is if she had, she would have quoted that experience since it’s obviously a stronger perspective.

So what is the strongest perspective we can have in assigning our most precious gift of trust to others?

It's our own perspective – a perch built from the branches of our own experience. Not what we heard, not what we think we know, not even what we read on the Internet – but those things we know for ourselves to be true because we took the time to find out for ourselves and in doing so we wrapped the gift of trust in another very important word – Integrity.

2012...Let's get started!

2012-01-03T08:18:00.000-05:00

Wow…it was nice to see some family and friends - nice to take a few days off over the holiday season. Even nice to get some work done that had been piling up. But truth be told, I’m glad it’s over.

Not because I don’t like the holidays, but because 2012 signifies the start of a great new year at the UIA.

We accomplished a lot in 2011 – we added some more dedicated professionals to our ranks, we saw a 234% growth in membership, over $30,000.00 in support of the inventor clubs, and over 8000 man hours of direct education to inventors. But 2012…well, that’s going to be even better.

These are just of few of the great new UIA programs in the works for 2012–

- We shed the last of the UIA paid inventor memberships making 100% of all UIA inventor education resources FREE to inventors.

- We’ll bring you the “Saturday Seminar” series of free one day educational seminars around the country.

- We’re adding new inventor areas at major tradeshows so you have access to those industries at an affordable price.

- We’ve started crafting relationships with major universities to give you access to the talent and equipment a university can offer.

- We’re working with QVC on a new program just for inventors due out in March.

- We’re developing relationships with Crowd Funding sites to bring you as inventors access to philanthropic money for your inventions.

- We’re developing a study to show you which service providers are in compliance with the Inventor Protection Act….and more importantly which ones aren’t.

As you can see 2012 is going to be a busy year at the UIA. As we travel from city to city talking to inventors, getting feedback on the industry and on what YOU need, then developing the programs that respond to those needs.

As inventors we don’t want your money – but we could use your support. Join the UIA, use the Inventor Education Forum and the UIA LinkedIn Groups, subscribe to the daily inventor blog, and when you do need fee based services use the UIA certified companies you find on our site.

We had a great 2011, and knowing how important it is to you, we’re ready to have an even better 2012!

It's 100% FREE

2012-01-02T12:37:00.000-05:00

Looking back at 2011

2012-01-02T10:12:00.000-05:00

In the news...

2011-12-30T17:40:00.000-05:00

In an industry where we are quick to throw rocks, it's nice once and awhile to take a moment and be happy for one of our own. Say what you will about what you may have heard. There’s no denying George Davison built a really cool place to invent.

From the Castle to the Giant Shoe, working at Davison must be a wild creative ride from the moment you come to work to the second you leave. It’s an environment tailor made for inventing and problem solving - run by an inventor whose wheels never stop turning.

Congratulations George on the History Channel show and this “Workplace of the Week” award in The Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204632204577129092223578730.html#slide/1

Calling all Florida Inventors!

2011-12-30T07:21:00.000-05:00

What is the Cade Museum Prize for Innovation?

The Cade Museum Prize is an incentive competition for early-stage inventors and entrepreneurs in Florida. The primary goal of the $50,000 Prize is to provide seed capital for projects that are moving in the direction of a product or service that has a practical application. While we accept all types of entries, the most competitive are those in the early stages that are developing a truly innovative idea. We also believe in the power of a team and favor ideas with a multi-disciplinary team (or company) formed for the purpose of advancing the idea.

The Prize is open to all Florida residents or Florida-based companies. At least one team member must be a full-time Florida resident or the company headquarters must be in Florida.

"The Cade Museum Prize provides recognition and financial incentive to encourage the work of inventors and early-stage entrepreneurs." – Phoebe Cade Miles, President, Cade Museum Foundation

Judging Criteria

The Cade Museum Prize is designed to encourage innovation by providing an incentive for early-stage inventors and entrepreneurs to move ideas and products closer to marketplace viability. The judges are asked to use the following criteria in evaluating each project:

Innovative Quality – How different is the idea from others in its field? Is it a Big Leap Forward or a Small Tweak?

Breadth of Impact – What will change as a result of this innovation? A market segment or the world?

Breakthrough Potential – How much will the Cade Museum Prize cash and publicity enable the winning team to break through to the next level of development?

http://www.cademuseum.org/experience/prize.aspx

Are you on Linkedin?

2011-12-29T19:50:00.000-05:00

Are you on Linkedin? Check out the NEW UIA Inventor Education Forum Group http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=4233326&trk=anet_ug_hm.

This is an adjunct to the main UIA Inventor Education Forum at www.theuiaforum.org Both are great places to ask questions about the industry and the process.

Did you know?....

2011-12-29T08:40:00.000-05:00

PEZ CANDIES

PEZ Candies - An integral part of the American scene since 1952, these bite-sized little candies were actually invented in 1927 by Eduard Haas III.

PEZ was first marketed as a compressed peppermint candy over 70 years ago in Vienna, Austria. The name PEZ was derived from the German word for peppermint...PfeffErminZ.

With great tasting flavors and collectible dispensers, PEZ is more than just a candy...it's the pioneer of "interactive candy" that is both enjoyable to eat and fun to play with - but it wasn’t always that way. The PEZ dispenser, invented in 1948, was initially targeted for adult smokers, Oskar Uxa an employee of PEZ Candy invented the candy dispenser to look like a cigarette lighter. However just three years later, in an effort to broaden sales, in 1955, the PEZ company placed heads on the dispensers and marketed it for children

PEZ Dispensers are a hot collectible for adults and children alike as well as being a staple and part of American pop culture. New character dispensers are introduced regularly to capitalize on current trends. Available around the world in more than 60 countries, PEZ Candy and Dispensers truly have universal appeal. Today, over 3 billion PEZ Candies are consumed annually in the U.S.A. alone.

CHEWING GUM

After he was defeated by the Americans in Texas, Mexican General Santa Anna was exiled to New York. Like many of his countrymen, Santa Anna chewed a rubbery material of the day called “Chicle”. One day he introduced it to inventor Thomas Adams, who began experimenting with it as a substitute for rubber. Adams tried to make toys, masks, and rain boots out of Chicle, but every experiment failed.

At the time Americans were chewing spruce gum and paraffin gum. Sitting in his workshop one day, tired and discouraged, he popped a piece of surplus Chicle into his mouth and was surprised by the chewable consistency of the material. He started selling the material and opened the world’s first chewing gum factory not long after - making Adams New York No. 1 in the chewing gum industry.

After success with pure Chicle gum, Adams tried to add flavor to it. He created a licorice-flavored gum called Black Jack. It was the first gum to be sold as a stick not in chunks, and was popular with the public. The gum had one drawback; it could not hold flavor.

The flavor issue was not fixed until 1880. A man named William White experimented with flavors after receiving a shipment of Chicle. He solved the problem by adding sugar and corn syrup to the mix. The first flavor he used was peppermint and it stayed in the gum during chewing.

Gum made with Chicle and similar latexes soon won favor over spruce gum and paraffin gum. It made possible a smooth, springy, satisfying chew that the others lacked, and it held flavors longer and better. By the early 1900s, with improved methods of manufacturing, packaging and marketing, modern chewing gum was well on its way to its current popularity.

By Kids For Kids...Always thinking outside the box

2011-12-28T08:53:00.000-05:00

As is the case with all our UIA corporate sponsors, By Kids For Kids from Stamford Connecticut has been a long time supporter of innovation and inventors.

In fact, The UIA and BKFK have teamed up on several youth innovation projects over the years with a number of major corporations.

With that kind of history and knowing CEO Norm Goldstein as a smart, driven advocate of supporting kids at every turn – it shouldn’t surprise any of us that Norm and Warren Buffet teamed up to bring the world a kid-centric program for teaching the innovation of finance.

By Kids for Kids, Buffett team for children's program
Richard Lee, Staff Writer, The Stamford Advocate

Teaming with Los Angeles-based A Squared Entertainment and CreditReport.com, a unit of Experian, Stamford-based By Kids For Kids Co., have launched Warren Buffett's Secret Millionaires Club Learn and Earn financial literacy promotion.

An expansion of the Secret Millionaires Club animated series that features Warren Buffett mentoring children through their own business adventures, the campaign includes the "Learn and Earn" promotion, offering materials for third- through sixth-graders.

It also offers the "Grow Your Own Business" challenge, based on Buffett's financial lessons, inviting 7- through 16-year-olds to submit entrepreneurial ideas. Finalists will present their ideas to Buffett at his Omaha office. Winners receive $5,000. Entries can submitted by Jan. 20 to www.smckids.com.

Sponsored by CreditReport.com, the "Learn and Earn" activities are offered at more than 100,000 U.S. schools, as well as by Junior Achievement, 4H, Girls Inc and Big Brothers Big Sisters.

The promotion is managed by By Kids For Kids. Materials have been developed by educational publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Since its founding in 2003, By Kids for Kids has developed relationships with Fortune 500 companies for its programs that promote childrens' ingenuity and entrepreneurship, said Norm Goldstein, chief executive officer and founder.

"Houghton Mifflin Harcourt created content to align with the TV episodes (on The Hub Network). They are grade-level specific," he said.

The material can be can be downloaded from the website www.smckids.com/learnandearn.

"We created the Secret Millionaires Club to entertain and enlighten kids about business and financial matters," said Andy Heyward, CEO and A2 Entertainment co-founder. "The intention was never to teach kids how to read a balance sheet. We simply wanted to help them understand the world they live in."

The Secret Millionaires Club, at www.smckids.com, features 26 webisodes, games and activities.

Please help us... Help You!

2011-12-27T13:02:00.000-05:00

Are you a Genius?

2011-12-27T08:50:00.000-05:00

Many times society associates successful inventors with the term Genius. I can’t tell you if that’s a correct association or not. What I can tell you is that although normally very creative – most inventors I know are not geniuses. But then again maybe I just hang out with the wrong crowd.

What scientists theorize about “genius” is that it normally applies to one area of intellect and that it’s genetically driven (at least in part) and developed through environmental exposure starting at a young age and continuing over a long period of time. That is, you may have the right genetic makeup of a genius, but without the environmental reinforcements you may never develop the mental strength to use it.

Scientists think it works something like this.

Our brains have an overflowing amount of information - think of suds overflowing from a washing machine. This is far more information than we know how to manifest verbally or physically. To offset this flood of “bubbles” our brain also has a suppression function. A gene designed to keep the brain from overflowing parses the information to us as we need it and as we can handle it.

So what happens in the brain of a genius? It’s simple really; the genetic wiring in the brain allows the person to turn down the suppression gene allowing an increased flow of information – or bubbles if you will.

That’s the genetic component, but what about the environmental influence? Well that’s all about focus. You see, when the brain is allowed to let more bubbles out it doesn’t instinctively know how to apply the additional information. You have to train your brain to focus it into action. To the observer that combination of genetics and training take on the form of what we have come to know as “Genius”.

This is starting to sound a bit familiar. I know lots of inventors that are overflowing with creativity – but many of them are also completely unfocused. They have an idea, then another, then a change, and before you know it they jump to something entirely different. This could simply be the manifestation of an overload of information without the ability to focus.

As I’m sure many of you have, I hear inventors say “It’s like I can’t turn off my brain” all the time. Could this be they have the genetic makeup to turn down the suppression gene (let the bubble flow) but they have never learned to focus all that information into a task?

What about you – do you see yourself in this explanation of Genius?

We Patented Christmas....

2011-12-23T08:53:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanza…and Happy Holidays! It doesn’t matter what you call it. It’s all a celebration of one kind or another manifested in song and symbol. Of course, where there is song and symbol, there is something worthy of protecting.

Here's a list of Copyrights, Trademarks, and Patents for those age old holiday memories we take for granted. I found it interesting and thought you may too.

Copyrights

Arguably the most famous Christmas songs of all time, "White Christmas”, was written by Irving Berlin and published in 1942. Most people don’t realize the copyright for "White Christmas" has a duration of 95 years. So if you play it or sing it in public before 2037 you’re actually infringing.

"Jingle Bells", on the other hand, was published in 1857 under the title "One Horse Open Sleigh". It is now in the public domain so feel free to sing it any place you like.

Trademarks

Many Christmas related phrases have been woven into our lexicon of language for many years, we often take them for granted as simply a phrase we are free to use, and sometimes they are – but in some cases they are actually protected and not open to public use. Here are a few examples

“KRIS KRINGLE'S” Didn’t start out as the jolly old guy; it was first registered as a service mark in 1974 for use as a restaurant name, but has since been abandoned.

“RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER” was registered in 1984 for filmstrips, coloring books, stuffed toys, and Christmas ornaments, among other goods. The registration was renewed in 2005 and is still in force.

“NORTH POLE” Has nothing to do with Christmas at all – it was registered in 2001 for magnets for therapeutic use to be worn as bracelets, arm bands, or knee bands and wraps containing magnets used for pain relief. The registration is still in force.

“FROSTY THE SNOWMAN” No one thought to register this mark until 2001, when it was first registered to cover motion picture films, videos, records, and CDs among a long list of goods. The registration is still in force.

“THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY” was actually just registered in 2005 for action figures; glass orbs, namely, snow globes; plush dolls; Christmas tree ornaments except confectionery or illumination articles; and toy music boxes. The registration is still in force.

“JINGLE BELL” was registered in 1981 for electric light sets and Electric bulbs used as Christmas decorations. The registration is still in force for those items, but you can name your cat Jingle Bells if you like.

“KWANZAA” was registered in 2010 for Bath soaps in liquid, solid or gel form; Fragrances for personal use; Household cleaning preparations; Non-medicated skin care preparations. The registration is still in force.

Patents

A search for the word Christmas at the USPTO web site reveals 8980 associated patents. Some of them went on to become well known products, others….Not so much.

An Imitation Christmas Tree is described and claimed in US Patent 255902 issued in 1882. Since then several other artificial trees have received patents.

Gas Jet powered Christmas Lights were the subject of US Patent 484304 issued in 1892. This had to be extremely dangerous, but gas lights were common at the time.

A Design for a Christmas Stocking was granted US Patent D42346 in 1912.

Imitation Snow was issued a design patent In 1916, US Patent 1192372 was issued for a combination of raw cotton, asbestos, and flaked mica.

Electrically Illuminated Fireproof Christmas Wreath was granted US Patent 1436003 in 1922. It was a circular wreath with a single radially arranged electric candle. You may still see these today, though the patent expired in 1939.

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If you want to know more about Christmas copyrights, trademarks, and patents, or you need legal work, you can contact Tom Gallagher at www.gallagherip.com

Well just because...

2011-12-22T07:54:00.000-05:00

My good friend Roger Brown recently wrote a posting with some of the "just because" lines so applicable to inventors. Take a moment to read them, and if you are a novice inventor please pay close attention to them because they could keep you from making a fool of yourself.

1. Just because you love it and can see it in every home in the U.S. does not make it a reality.

2. Just because your friends and family loves it does not mean it is a million dollar idea.

3, Just because you have a patent does not mean its marketable.

4. Just because you can make it cheaply does not mean a company HAS to sell it.

5. Just because you sent it special delivery to a company does not mean they will open it right away or that they will love it
.
6. Just because YOU KNOW it would fit well with the companies line of products does not mean they will.

7. Just because you spent a lot of money having a prototype made, paid a lot for a patent, paid more to shoot a video, paid a marketing company for a marketing analysis and are in debt over your head does not mean a company has to take that into account when they review your idea.

8. Just because you have been busting your butt for the past 3 years on this product does not make it marketable.

9. Just because YOU want it to happen you can’t force consumers to like your product and buy it.

10. Just because you got rejected does not mean THEY are stupid.

11. Just because there are 265 million people in the U.S. does not mean you put in your sell sheet that all 265 million people will throw away their current (perfectly working) product to buy your product.

12. Just because you don’t understand WHY, people will buy things you think are stupid and useless over yours.

You may not believe this, but it's true - these are all very common things novice inventors do when they first start out. It's a very emotional process, and our mind has a way of framing the situation to meet the outcome we have already convinced ourselves of. The result is often a lot of mental and emotional justification that shifts the responsibility for failure to everyone but the inventor.

Sure, sometimes companies get it wrong. However not near as much as inventors. After all, they do this day in and day out, and when you bring them a product you are a guest in their world - so try to respect that.

For more information on inventing check out www.rogerbrown.net

Look who's going to the PGA Show this year....

2011-12-21T12:52:00.001-05:00

You can register to exhibit your inventions at the 2012 PGA Show...Just click the banner above.

But even if you can't exhibit this year, come out and hear these industry experts at the UIA Inventor Education seminar

Inventions for Children or Pets?

2011-12-21T08:16:00.000-05:00

Lucrative inventions and the ones that revolutionize our lives are those that fill a common need. Everyone wants their lives to be easier and most are willing to purchase anything that promises to make daily duties quicker, smoother and therefore less stressful. Who are the most needy people? Caregivers. Those that dedicate their lives to helping others have the hardest jobs in the world. Therefore, any idea that reduces their workload is almost guaranteed to offer an impressive return. However don't count out the pet owner just yet. This emotionally driven group of consumers has deep pockets and strong will when it comes to keeping that new puppy happy.

It has been said there is no one needier than a new parent. No one. Even before the actual birth of their child, most parents are willing to drop excess amounts of money on whatever they think will make their lives easier. Without the knowledge of what they truly need, new parents will spend obscene amounts on the latest strollers, designer body suits or electronic wipe warmers. With the market this insatiable, there are countless useful (and useless) inventions being churned out every year.

But it has also been said that people will buy anything for their pets - from the most practical leash to the most impractical pet clothes. This sector of money spenders is a force to be reckoned with supporting a multibillion dollar a year products industry.

To decide which genre of invention will have the greatest return, maybe we should look to the desperation of the consumer. Although pet owners are starting to demand more products for the well being of their companions and they generally have more disposable income, there is no one as desperate as a sleep deprived parent. If it’s money that you crave, then parents are the demographic you need to acquaint yourself with. The most financially sensible people have invested exorbitant sums in products that either doesn’t work or their children reject just to get a moment of relief.

Inventions for children and pets abound – some good and some simply ridiculous. Examining what they are and why they are profitable can help to understand what people are looking for when they invest their money in ‘new fangled’ ideas. Your idea may be the next to solve one of the 20 problems experts say we face everyday, simultaneously improving their lives and the balance in your bank account.

This guest post was written by James Lander, a contributing writing for http://www.couponing.com/ a site dedicated to helping consumers save money with coupons.

Did you know?

2011-12-20T07:39:00.000-05:00

iPod ~ Tony Fadell ~ 2001
The iPod originated with a business idea dreamed up by Tony Fadell, an independent inventor. Fadell's idea was to take an MP3 player, build a Napster music sale service to complement it, and build a company around it, Apple hired Fadell in early 2001 and assigned him a team of about 30 people, including designers, programmers and hardware engineers.

Video Game ~ William Higinbotham ~ 1958
In 1958, a person by the name of "Willy Higinbotham", who was a physicist, made a working model and not even with a single transistor, but with vacuum tubes! His "Tennis" game-type was invented at the Brookhaven National Laboratory

Google ~ Sergey Brin and Larry Page ~ 1998
As a research project at Stanford University, Sergey Brin and Larry Page created a search engine that listed results according to the popularity of the pages, after concluding that the most popular result would often be the most useful. After raising $1 million from family, friends and other investors, the pair launched the company in 1998. Google has since become the world’s most popular search engine, receiving more than 200 million queries each day.

Coffee Pot ~ Benjamin Thompson ~ 1806
Coffee drinkers the world over no longer had to chew their brew. Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, invents a coffee pot with a metal sieve to strain away the grounds. The French Drip Pot is perfected by Benjamin Thompson Count Rumford, an eccentric American adventurer who settled in Paris, France

Baseball Cap ~ c1868
In the 1850s, when baseball was getting its start in America, most players wore straw hats. This all changed after the Civil War. In the late 1860s, players began wearing visor caps. The caps were imitations of those worn by Union and Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War.

ASOTV in Miami Florida!

2011-12-19T10:07:00.000-05:00

For the last 25 years the United Inventors Association of America has been about developing and presenting educational programs for inventors. But that’s not all we do… a large part of our mission is to create opportunities for inventors to meet the people who can help them with the commercialization process.

This fall we conducted a search program for members of our UIA Inventor Clubs Across America program. Local clubs sent in hundreds of submissions for their ASOTV product ideas and the nice people at TeleBrands combed through them selecting the top 23 ideas to be pitched live.

This event was such a great success we’re doing it again – this time in sunny Miami Florida. The UIA, TeleBrands, United Patent Research, and The Inventors Society of South Florida have come together to create the southeastern ASOTV Inventors club product search.

If you are a member of one of the following clubs, or you live in the area of a club and would like to join – You can participate in this chance to skip the line and go straight to the top of the largest ASOTV product company in the world.

But don’t wait too long – download the forms, fill them out, and send them to your local club. Who knows, you could end up with the next million dollar ASOTV product!

Invent Alabama
Bruce Koppenhoefer
137 Mission Circle
Montevallo, AL 35115
205-222-7585bkoppy@hiwaay.net

Auburn Student Inventors and Entrepreneurs Club

Auburn University Campus

Samuel Ginn College of Engineering
1210 Shelby Center
Auburn, AL 36849

Grant Moore

hgm0001@gmail.com

Inventors Council of Central Florida
Dr. David Flinchbaugh
5635 Commerce Drive
Orlando, FL 32839
407-760-7200

Inventorscouncilcentralfla.us

drdavidflinchbaugh@bellsouth.net

Edison Inventors Association
PO Box 60972
Ft. Myers, FL 33906
(239) 275-4332edisoninventors.org

grossrdlab@yahoo.com

Inventors Society of South Florida
Leo Mazur, President

P.O. Box 6008

Delray Beach, FL 33482

561-676-5677inventorssociety.net

mazurelectric@earthlink.net

Space Coast Inventors Guild
Angel Pacheco
4346 Mount Carmel Lane
Melbourne, FL 32901-8666
321-768-1234

Tampa Bay Inventors' Council
Wayne Rasanen, President
7752 Royal Hart Drive
New Port Richey, FL 34653
(727) 565-2085tbic.us

The Columbus Phoenix City Inventors Association

PO Box 8132,

Columbus GA 31908

Mike Turner

cpcinventorsassociation@yahoo.com

http://cpcinventorsassociation.org

Inventor Association of GeorgiaDave Savage, Point of contact
1407 Bunky Lane
Dunwoody, GA 30338
404-323-8686
GaInventors.org

dave@davesavage.com

Inventors' Network of the Carolinas
Tom Getts, President
520 Elliot Street, Suite 300
Charlotte, NC 28202
(704) 369-7331www.inotc.org

tgetts@ezclaw.com

It’s a pyramid!

2011-12-16T09:14:00.000-05:00

You see when you enter the inventing industry you enter the broad base and work your way up. You do this by hard work and educating yourself on the process.

Unlike a lawyer who must go to law school, or a doctor who attends medical school, as inventors all you have to do to become one is simply walk out of the shower one morning and say “Honey...I’m an inventor” Some industries have low barriers to entry, but we’re one of the few that has NO barrier to entry. That doesn’t mean you get to succeed without hard work and self education - It simply means that anyone can try.

As you can see in this image of the inventor pyramid you see that at the UIA we focus on the educational needs of the “center band” in the industry. That doesn’t mean we don’t care about the others, it simply means we know from experience the top of the pyramid doesn’t need to be educated and the very bottom doesn’t want to be educated.

In that hot steamy bathroom, feeling refreshed and ready to take on the world – you proclaimed you are an inventor. That’s great (now please put some clothes on) but that was the easy part. You must now figure out where on the pyramid you are….and where on the pyramid you really want to be.

NO SWIMMING !

2011-12-15T07:46:00.000-05:00

Don’t jump in the pool if you can’t swim!

I saw a product just this morning developed by a very nice lady; she did a nice job of developing it, with a nice web site, and a very professional presentation. The problem is the product is never going to sell enough to get back her investment before she grows tired and gets too discouraged to continue. Then she will be left with a garage full of product and a bad taste for the inventing process.

What won’t happen is the people who sold her all those services won’t stop trying to sell inventors like her things they don’t really need.

Taking a product from an idea to a store shelf is a series of tasks. Each of those tasks has someone wanting to sell you their services on your way to the market. So let’s look at some of the main players on that path who get paid long before you see a dime.

The Patent Attorney – believe it or not, this guy (or gal) could care less about your invention. They are there to sell patents and in the end they are one of the least qualified people to stop you from wasting your money anyway. They search, they write, they file….and they get paid!

The Drawing/Prototype company – This is where you start to get excited! You see your invention taking actual form, and these guys don’t even have to sell you. They just sit back and let you sell yourself. They know your emotion is so strong that whatever they charge you you’ll find the money someplace – and in the end, they get paid!

The Packaging/Graphics company – Here you are running around with your new prototype showing it to anyone who will stop for more than 30 seconds. But you want to see it look like a real product, so a cool logo, a great name and a real package are what you need. Good News - The graphics person is there to help…..and get paid!

The Parts Manufacturer – You have the prototype, and the cool package – and the manufacturer sees you coming a mile away. They are going to explain the cost of tooling, and then they are going to tell you about the good deal you will get if they make 100,000 parts for you instead of just 50,000 parts. At this point you have convinced yourself that everyone on the planet is going to buy your product and you run off to beg, barrow, and sell your house to make this happen – you get 100,000 parts, and the manufacturer…..well, they get paid!

You now own 100,000 pieces of your product – let the fun begin. At first your family and friends buy them, then that web site you invested in sells a few, and you contact local stores in your town and they sell a few dozen. Now what do you do? You have 99,925 parts in your garage and all those people who gave you money asking awkward questions about when they may see their share of the profits.

How did this happen? Well to be honest, it happened because you had no clue what you were doing. But the people who took your money sure did. You see, none of them are responsible (or even care) for you selling the product, and you didn’t have the experience to understand the most important part of the process is the sale.

PLEASE don’t fall into this cycle. Your family and friends are not qualified to tell you if your product will sell to the masses. The “tasks” along the way simply want your money and could care less if you sell a single part…they already got paid. It’s up to you to educate yourself on how this is done, and to make sure you know how to swim before you jump in the pool.

It's broken...but we can fix it

2011-12-14T09:46:00.000-05:00

Several years back I was asked to create a top for a soda can. Needless to say it was not the high point of my inventing career, but it did start my wheels turning. Not about how to create it, but rather why in my entire life I had never seen a person using this product I was sure had already been invented.

A little research and there it was, no less than nine versions of a reusable cap for the top of your soda can. So now I had a mystery to solve. I didn’t know anyone who owned one, I had never seen one being used, and for a product that had been on the market over 30 years that was almost a statistical improbability.

The answer came in what we call first purchase. This is a phenomenon that happens in retail products where the consumer purchases the product once, but never again. But why would someone do that? The Can Cap shows us very clearly how and why this happens.

Each consumer product lives on what I call the Benefit/Detriment scale. Think of it like a see-saw of sorts where you pile things on both sides. First on the detriment side is cost – after all, the consumer has to purchase the product so that will always be the first detriment. We start to balance this out with benefits of the solution the product offers. The name of the product design game is to keep the benefits of the product far higher than the detriments. But that’s not the entire story. The Benefit/Detriment scale often operates within a frame of reference. This frame of reference is called a product use cycle.

Let’s use this simple retail product as an example of how this works.

As you can see they are functional, however they use a manufacturing process called injection molding. This process gives you a very accurate part, but requires very expensive tooling that has to eventually be paid for by the consumer. Consequently, these caps range in price from about $3 to $5 dollars a pack. This price point by design makes them reusable since a consumer does not normally view a product in that range as disposable. This means the product use cycle will repeat itself each time the consumer uses the product.

When you first look at the benefit/detriment scale of the Can Cap, you can see it does exactly what the manufacturer said it would. But when you take a closer look at the entire retail equation, within the context of the use cycle, you find that the benefit/detriment scale is actually shifted far to one side, disrupting the equilibrium of the Benefits/Detriments scale. Let’s look at this example.

It’s Saturday morning and you are taking little Johnny to a soccer game. You grab a coke from the fridge and a can cap from the kitchen drawer. Pop it on, and immediately it starts giving you benefit back for that detriment you suffered in the purchase. Exactly as the manufacturer and the inventor said it would.

Fast forward, and its ½ way through the game, you’re done with your coke and you remove the reusable can cap and throw away the empty can. At that very moment the product starts causing you detriment and the scale starts to tip back. The use cycle marches on and you are forced to follow through to the end - you have to get this sticky piece of plastic into your pocket for the rest of the game, back to the mini-van, drive it home, take it out of your pocket and wash it off before putting it into the dishwasher, run the dishes, take it from the dishwasher and place it back in the drawer to complete the use cycle – all the while adding nothing but detriment to the scale since the point you took that last sip of coke. By this time the scale has significantly shifted with far more detriment than the benefit the product offered you back in the store. In fact the product caused you more work than it saved you. This is why you never purchased it again (first sale) and why next Saturday you will likely take your chances without it.

So now we see where the problem is – and as an inventor I have to fix it. In this case the answer was to create a disposable Twist Cap version that fixes the retail equation by making sure the cap and the can end their use cycle at the same time.

As a disposable piece costing about 20 cents, the Twist Cap has no moving parts (simply rotate to close) and accomplishes the closing mechanism by taking advantage of the natural geometry of the can itself. Simply twist the hole to one side or the other of the can opening and it’s closed. This allows us to take advantage of a much cheaper manufacturing process called vacuum forming. To add additional value, we make it from thick enough material so if the consumer chooses to, they can wash it and use it several times, similar to the reusable version. But in this case If the consumer chooses to wash it and reuse it the consumer doesn’t actually assign that detriment to the product itself, but actually assigns benefit to the product for having given them the option to re-use it.

In the end it wasn’t about the product as a concept being bad, but rather a case of fixing the retail equation so it gave us a better result when we looked at the product use cycle and how we could use that to tip the benefit/detriment scales in favor of the consumer.

Let's just ask Karen...

2011-12-13T08:02:00.002-05:00

UIA Medallion Member Karen Waksman is a professional sales rep, author, and product coach who takes the time to answer inventor questions about distribution and sales.

If you’re new to the game of selling to major retailers, then you’re probably wondering how their buying processes work. It’s a question that comes up all of the time in this business so I thought I’d take a minute to explain a few of the key parts.

Let’s start by answering some of the most common questions Inventors ask…

1) Are major retail buyers responsible for purchasing only one type of product or a variety of different types of products?

The way it works at Major Retailers is that each buyer is responsible for a particular product line - and in the retail world, a product line is called a ‘category.’ So if a Buyer is responsible for toy products, his/her category would likely be “Toys” Although it may also be Toys & Games.

So think of the major categories of retail products, and those are the most likely buyers a retailer will have. However, like most rules this one has it’s exceptions and the most noted exception to this rule is “Checkout” or “Front End” buyers. These buyers are responsible for buying the impulse and feature products you find in the checkout lanes and the front area just prior to the lanes.

2) Is a major retail buyer responsible for purchasing products for all of their stores or just a few stores?

Typically, each major retail buyer purchases products for all of their stores. This is great for you! One buyer, one point of contact!

However, there are exceptions to this rule. Nordstrom, for instance, has regional buyers. In other words, they have buyers that are responsible for purchasing products for a particular region ie Northwest, Southeast, etc. However, in each region, buyers still have their own categories.

3) Are buyers located at a corporate office or are they dispersed throughout the country?

Most major retailers have one main corporate buying office. Although in the example above, Nordstrom has regional buying offices.

Additionally, some Major Retailers have local buying programs. This basically means that they give Store Managers the ability to purchase products for their individual stores. Wal-mart for instance, has a local buying program for some of their really high-traffic retail stores or for products made in the local area.

Although this is rare for Major Retailers to offer this, some do have local buying programs! So how do you know if your local store offers this program? Just ask the Store Manager! They will tell you!

4) How do I know find the names and categories of major retail buyers that would be responsible for purchasing my product?

The easiest way to get access to a major retail buyer’s name and category information is to purchase a list from companies such as The Chain Store Guide and/or The Salesman's Guide. These company's sell buyer's contact information either in book form as well in a database form. They can be a little pricey, so one suggestion is to check out your local library to see if they have these books available for free!

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Karen Waksman is a seasoned product sales rep who teaches inventors how to approach retail buyers and position their products for the market. You can ask Karen questions about retail sales at Karen@productforprofit.com http://www.productforprofit.com/

You do the Math....

2011-12-12T08:38:00.001-05:00

So much of business can be boiled down to a simple math problem – and since the process of successful inventing always ends in the process of business it just stands to reason that in the end, your invention is going to end up as a set of numbers.

With that in mind I thought I would take a few moments and explain how a manufacturer takes your great idea and uses objective math to take out all your subjective emotion.

This image is a representation of the pricing and cost worksheet used in evaluating a product for market. The math adds to itself from the left of the chart until you get to Fulfillment and subtracts from itself from the right of the chart starting with Sell-In Price.

MFG Cost (+) Display (+) Freight (+) Fulfillment =

Sell In (–) License Royalties (–) Discounts (–) Sales Commissions =

Now that we know how the equation works, let’s take a look at each individual area so you can better understand what goes into each number.

MFG Cost – This is the basic manufactured cost of the good from the factory dock. It includes the product, packaging and freight packing.

Display Costs – This is exactly what it sounds like, the cost of a display you would provide to a retailer. If the display holds 20 parts, each part is responsible for 1/20 the cost of the display.

Freight Tariffs & Taxes – We use all 3 of these values in this space because it allows us to accommodate importing. Basically, this cost is from the factory to your warehouse. It is NOT the freight cost to the retailer – they normally pay that themselves.

Fulfillment – This is the cost warehousing, billing, coordinating the manufacturing, reporting, auditing, and disbursement of funds.

Sales Commissions - Most professional product reps will get between 5% and 15% of the Sell-In price as commission.

Discounts – Not used on every product, but often a retailer will require manufacturers to offer a discount for shipping or advertising when they place large orders.

Royalties – This amount can vary between 1% and about 10% based on a number of factors. Either way it’s a cost, so it has to be factored in.

Unit Cost – All those things accounted for, it’s the final cost to the manufacturer

Sell-In (also called Wholesale) – The price the product sells for to the retailer.

MFG Gross Profit – The delta between the Developed price and the wholesale price

MSRP (Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price - also called Retail Price, or Consumer Price) – The price the manufacturer recommends the retailer sell the item to the public for

Retail Gross Profit – The delta between the wholesale Price and the Retail Price – keep in mind this is the gross profit for a retailer. It’s not actually the number they use in figuring out if they should take on the product. Retailers use “Net Profit” and they have a very strange way of calculating it. MSRP (-) Sell-in (/) MSRP = Retailer Net Profit

It all looks a bit more complicated than it really is, but it’s the mathematical equation every manufacturer uses to decide if the product they are developing can make money or not.

So next time you have that great idea you just know will make tons of money – Do the math. After all, it can be the greatest product in the world, but if you can’t get this math to work properly it’s never going anywhere.

They’re like popsicles.

2011-12-09T08:22:00.000-05:00

I in no way want to demine the industry of law when I say attorneys are like popsicles. What I’m really saying is that, like popsicles, they come in many flavors.

Most inventors are familiar with the patent attorney because they often run down that road first with their shinny new idea. Within this austere group of professionals there are vast spreads of price scales. These scales are based largely on the level of clients the attorney normally works with and the price the “market” of those clients will bear.

For example – an inventor recently contacted a university for help. She was referred by the university to the attorney who does their patent work. At $70,000.00 for three utility patents it’s safe to say the attorney was at the top end of the scale. In fact, some attorneys gouge universities with fees far above the normal market value. This attorney was not about to change the fee structure for this inventor, they simply billed at their normal rate and although the lady was trying to help –what she did was start the inventor off on the wrong track.

Those same patents in a 25^th floor firm downtown would have been about $45,000.00 and from a single person shop maybe $8,000.00 to $10,000.00 – still expensive, but not the $23,000.00 each the inventor paid.

It’s the excitement and validation that often keeps the inventor from acting on the common sense that guides us through life. Emotions are the blinders an inventor wears that allows us to spend $70,000.00 without comparing the services and prices the way we would if we were buying a new computer.

In the end no one did anything wrong, not the lady at the university, not the inventor, not even the attorney. It was simply a convergence of miss matched circumstances that made a difficult process much more painful.

Who Knew?

2011-12-08T08:14:00.002-05:00

Every time a person crunches into a potato chip, he or she is enjoying the delicious taste of one of the world's most famous snacks – a treat that might not exist without the contribution of black inventor George Crum.

The son of an African-American father and a Native American mother, Crum was working as the chef in the summer of 1853 when he incidentally invented the chip. It all began when a patron who ordered a plate of French-fried potatoes sent them back to Crum's kitchen because he felt they were too thick and soft.

To teach the picky patron a lesson, Crum sliced a new batch of potatoes as thin as he possibly could, and then fried them until they were hard and crunchy. Finally, to top them off, he added a generous heaping of salt. To Crum's surprise, the dish ended up being a hit with the patron and a new snack was born!

Years later, Crum opened his own restaurant that had a basket of potato chips on every table. Though Crum never attempted to patent his invention, the snack was eventually mass-produced and sold in bags – providing thousands of jobs nationwide.

It's a Sack...Sorta

2011-12-07T07:55:00.000-05:00

The story of a mom, an invention, and a messy laundry room...

After eighteen years in the Executive Search business it was time to dial back and spend time with my family. It only took a few months to realize that my new life wasn’t necessarily easier. Presented with new and different challenges like housework, laundry and carpooling, the issues were unchanged – still missing a lack of quality time with my family.

There had to be a more efficient way of managing a day. The first order of business was to identify the most time-consuming task. With a house full of kids, lists were never short, but the chore that occupied the most time was laundry – piles and piles of laundry. So much of the day consisted of carry, sort, wash, fold, carry, sort, wash, and fold.

I needed to put my efficiency skills to work to minimize this task. I began with the idea of saving time by sorting the laundry before it went to the laundry room with two hampers – one for whites and one for colors. That worked fine, but I still wasn’t satisfied with lugging heavy and awkward baskets to and from the laundry room. So, determined to come up with a better solution, I made a list of my objectives for a new laundry creation:

It has to eliminate the sorting step
It has to be space-efficient
It has to be easier to tote
It has to be simple enough that my kids will use it

And then it dawned on me – it’s a bag! A space-efficient, easy to use self-sorting bag that saves time.

Sortasack - Divide and launder. http://sortasack.com/

Join Terry at the International Home & Housewares Show in the Invention Home inventor's pavilion March of 2012 - http://www.uiausa.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=128672

Do it for the Children....

2011-12-06T08:19:00.000-05:00

We often get wrapped up in the inventing process, in the money, and in the recognition. It’s okay if our invention doesn’t have some higher level purpose. But at some point in our inventing careers we should all take a moment and ask the question - Does my inventing have purpose?

Inventing is an interesting endeavor. For most of us its part puzzle, part creativity, and part business. But for an inventor from Utah named Mark Viau, it’s also about helping children.

By all accounts Mark is a serial inventor. Items from kids backpacks, to hospital artwork, it’s obviously a passion of Mark’s to make life for kids just a little easier. Take a look at his Imagine It Skins product for decorating hospital rooms. It’s a great example of how you can take technology, ingenuity, and creativity, and invent a smile on a child’s face.

Our mission is to help children (of all ages-and every stage of their lives) heal faster and feel more positive during the difficult medical challenges they face and provide a solution to the emotional and physical stress on the children and their families by producing bright, engaging and fun images that can be added to their environment.

These removable images can be applied to almost any surface and be reused again and again. We want to bring these images into hospitals and clinics throughout the world that serve children as a low-cost, aesthetically rich solution to creating a more fun and friendly environment. Moreover, recent scientific studies articulate how critical it is for children to have a brighter hospital environment to have a better healing experience. http://www.imagineitskins.com/

Last Chance 2011 Tax Deduction

2011-12-05T23:23:00.000-05:00

That's a great question.....

2011-12-05T09:09:00.000-05:00

I received this email from an inventor in India who emails me with some regularity. Instead of sending him back a response directly I wanted to take a moment and address this question here on the UIA blog because it’s an important question to be asked – and I know he will read it.

To: Mr. Mark Reyland, Executive Director of the United Inventors Association of America.

Dear Sir,
In your blog of UIA of 1st Dec 20011 you have given information about Invention home and recommended us to approach for any help for inventions.

Today I just surfed on web sites about Invention Home and it appears, lot of messages are written against this company, so I am confused and do not know whether to approach them or not for my patent.

I think you must be aware of it, however what is your final advice to us, whether we should go with them or not.
Please therefore clear my doubts.

UIA is a standard Association for Inventions, and your opinion from this platform, will be more authentic and responsible to us

Hope to receive your advice.

Regards,
D.P.Parkhe

You see what, in a broader sense, Mr. Parkhe is actually asking in his email is – How do we know who to trust in an industry that has such a wild reputation and in a world where people post whatever they like all over the internet? It’s a great question and his question about Invention Home makes a nice example of this phenomenon that affects us all.

The short answer is trust what you know personally to be true. In the case of Invention Home I can recommend this company to inventors because I know personally that they are good people. I know the CEO Russ Williams, I know many of their staff, and I know the culture of the company is one of helping inventors. I also know that when they do make mistakes (and all companies do) they fix them.

In contrast, I don’t know the people who may have posted the negative things you read about Invention Home (or any other company for that matter). I don’t know why they may have posted those things; In fact I don’t know that they were even real people – they may have been business competitors – or even more likely inventors that simply flew off the handle before understanding the facts.

This is the reality of our situation, of our industry, and of our world. People say what they want, often with blatant disregard to the facts or even the truth – and they do it for any number of reasons.

As one who’s been the target of stalkers, lies, and intentional smear campaigns, I have a real sensitivity to the old adage “every coin has two sides”. You may never know what side of the story is entirely correct, but your character as a person demands that you base your opinions on a preponderance of those facts you know to be true – and that you not form an opinion on what is written before forming an opinion on who wrote it.

MSRP?

2011-12-02T09:01:00.000-05:00

If we think back the first time we heard the term “MSRP”, or Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price, was probably when we purchased our first new car. In retail we don’t really think of MSRP in the same terms as in new car sales because in retail you don’t customarily negotiate price for the product like you may if you were buying a car.

Make no mistake the MSRP is every bit as real in a standard retail product. Sure, sometimes you see it placed just above the store’s own price tag to show the savings. Other times it’s simply a random number the retailer asked the manufacturer to place on the pull tag so they can illustrate that difference to you the consumer – showing you what a great savings you are getting with the store price.

But in almost all cases of a retail product the MSRP starts off as a very real number presented with the product to the buyer. It’s the manufacturer’s responsibility to do the research in understanding what the market will bear by taking stock of all the similar products already on the market.

This exercise is part of what we call a “Market Audit”. In a market audit we’re finding every product that can functionally accomplish the task of our product and mapping out the price structures. We then calculate the median price in the market and add or subtract value based on the things our product functionally does better or worse than those already being sold.

This process will tell us both the high and low end of the market, and allow us to mathematically find our place. In the end we have a well researched MSRP to present to the buyer. That doesn’t mean they will use it – but it does mean we at least did our job in researching it.

It’s official!

2011-12-01T09:36:00.000-05:00

Invention Home is the Official Inventor’s Area sponsor at the 2012 International Home and Housewares Show.

Over the years I’ve met some not so great people in this industry, and frankly it gets a little disheartening watching as so many inventors are taken advantage of by the ever creative ways people come up with for taking their money.

But being a student of Physics I have every faith that for each one of those – not so good people – there is an equal and opposite really good person. I found the proof of my theory in a quiet, unassuming man named Russ Williams - a very common name for a not so common person.

You see, Russ is the CEO of Invention Home, and like the best CEO’s he guides his company based on his own core values. A set of tools his parents must have taught him for helping people, caring about people, and doing what’s right. Values he learned long before those years as a Carnegie Mellon business student.

At Invention Home Russ has taken those skills and built not only a successful company, but a successful team. A set of people who share his passion for helping, his integrity, and his business savvy to work hard for the inventors who bring them their hopes and dreams.

I’m proud that the Inventors Area at the 2012 Housewares Show is lead by Russ and his team at Invention Home. Not because it’s a nice logo on a pretty sign. But because they are great people and we at the UIA know we can always feel good about sending an inventor to them for help.

So come out this March to the 2012 International Home and Housewares Show and meet Russ and his team of inventor professionals. Get to know them like we have and I’m sure you’ll see what I’m talking about.

That's a pretty picture...

2011-11-30T08:08:00.006-05:00

There are graphics every ware we look in life, packaging, billboards, clothing, even in places we don’t expect to find them – there they are. But all that imagery doesn’t mean we need what they are selling or that we care about the message they send.

As inventors we need to understand there is a huge demand for the graphical communication of the ideas and concepts we are presenting to the world - a world who may not share our ability to visualize those ideas in their mind. But when it comes to graphics, just because it’s available doesn’t mean we need them or that when we do, they are telling the right story.

So what’s an inventor to do? Educate yourself on where you are in the inventing process and then figure out what the graphic needs are for that particular place on your journey. Don’t just run off and get graphics because they make you feel good, or because they are cool looking. Make sure you need them and then make sure they work for you.

Below are the most common graphics needs for inventors. Read through them and then figure out where in your process they best fit.

I want to license my product idea to a company, what are my graphics needs to accomplish that?

- Manufacturer’s Sell Sheet: This simple one sided 8X10 is a basic illustration of your idea along with some benefit claims and contact information.

- Basic Product Illustrations: This can be as simple as a single 2D drawing of your idea in its final form, or as complicated as a set of 3D Illustrations of your idea in several different views - either way they are basic renderings designed to help people see what you are talking about.

I want to build a company around my idea and present it to manufacturers for development and to retailers for distribution, what are my graphics needs to accomplish this?

- Full Product Illustrations: These renderings are drawing of your idea in its final form normally presented as a set of 3D Illustrations of your idea in several different views. You can use these to find investors, or to see how the final product will look, but make sure if you invest in these they show enough detail to be able to explain the manufacturing processes to a factory.

- Glamor/Use Shots: Not unlike the place in your local mall, these are renderings designed to show how pretty your product is or your product "placed" graphically into a retail setting.

- Virtual Prototypes: This is a relatively new graphic in the industry; it’s a set of 3D drawings capable of being used for machining parts. On the surface they appear the same as 3D renderings however when you pay to have these done they MUST have the code embedded in them to run the prototyping equipment or they are just a pretty picture.

- Company Identity Graphics: In communicating with a retailer it’s very important to look professional. Take some time to build an identity for your new company that includes a nice logo, maybe a basic website, and even a professional sounding name.

- Retailer Product Sell Sheets: Nothing like the sell sheet used to present an idea to a manufacturer, a real product sell sheet includes several parts that are customary in the industry. Things like the “Glam Shot” or image showing your product on the front page, the “Use Shot” showing your product in a store environment, and the product information. These are all very important to developing a sell sheet that not only looks professional but gives the buyer the information they will need to actually place an order.

- Product Price Sheets: These simple but important documents contain information vital to the process of commercialization. They include information such as – the number of units in a case, the number of cases on a pallet, the UPC code, and of course the unit, case, and pallet pricing.

- Product Order Form: It’s just makes sense. You want the retailer to place an order, so you have to give them a way to do that - obviously that’s an order form. This form includes the contact information for both the retailer and the fulfillment company. It also included the payment terms, references, and order volume.

As with most things in this business there are always more than one way to do things – but when it comes to graphics don’t scrimp. Use a professional who knows what they are doing and make sure you do your homework so you can guide them on the proper information needed to make sure the entire story gets told – not just the pretty pictures.

The Keystone to Inventor Education

2011-11-29T10:04:00.001-05:00

Just a couple of hundred miles from Pittsburgh is the bustling town of Williamsport Pennsylvania. Like many towns of its kind I’m sure you will find a vast assortment of history, culture, and kind people willing to help however they can.

However - Something you’ll find in Williamsport you won’t find in many other towns of its kind is the Keystone Innovation Zone.

The Keystone Innovation Zone, or KIZ as it’s called - is designated by the state of Pennsylvania to encourage creativity, foster innovation, and provide entrepreneurial opportunities within geographic areas and industry concentrations. The Williamsport/Lycoming KIZ works with local entrepreneurs and start-up companies to develop their innovative ideas through individual step-by-step coaching in order to bring those innovations to fruition.

But that’s not all – In Williamsport they took that model a step further by developing the “Inventor’s Club”. Under the volunteer leadership of David Stone, this unique subset of the KIZ has been a key player in the education of local inventors while providing a sense of community among the local inventors.

As a nonprofit Educational Foundation – at the UIA we know how important it is to educate people on the process of inventing and commercialization. We applaud efforts like the KIZ Inventor’s Club for taking the time and expending the effort needed to help inventors on their journey.

If you live in the Williamsport/Lycoming PA stop by so you can find out more about how the KIZ Inventor’s Club can help you! http://wlkiz.com/resources/inventors-club

The Road to Inventing leads to Canton Ohio!

2011-11-28T20:05:00.000-05:00

Fargo…Not just in North Dakota anymore

2011-11-28T08:45:00.000-05:00

Here at the UIA we are always on the lookout look for people to help in our never ending quest for inventor assistance.

Not long ago that help came in the form of a tall, thin, quiet, lady with a thousand watt smile. Her name is Lisa Fargo, and she’s a graphic artist. Not just any graphic artist mind you – but one who specializes in the graphics needed by inventors.

Sitting in a quiet little coffee shop on the outskirts of Pittsburg a few weeks ago I found myself listening intently as Lisa’s passion for helping, and knowledge of our industry, effortlessly flowed from this 100 pound frame like a river of much needed help.

Much needed, because the graphics needs of the inventor are so misunderstood by most people that it’s an area of the business where inventors often get scammed. From Sell Sheets to Web Sites, Packaging, and even Product Logos – it often appears any person with a copy of Photo Shop is selling some graphic product to an unsuspecting inventor and neither have a clue what they actually need.

I think what made my conversation with Lisa Fargo so unique was the ability to talk about the graphic needs of the inventor without having to explain them first. After all, Lisa has almost 20 years in the industry working for companies large and small creating the very graphics products that inventors really need. Not just some graphical representation of what the inventor thinks they need, or what the graphics person thinks they should be selling. These are the documents; drawings, images, and packaging the people on the other side of the conference room table are expecting to see. Sell sheets built using the information a manufacturer is actually looking for, or the data a buyer needs to make a decision about placing an order. Not just pretty pictures that make you as the inventor feel proud, but usable, professional, and accurate data the industry expects to see.

So, as often happens in situations like these, I found myself that morning recruiting Lisa to work with the UIA in helping you – the inventor- make sure you have not only great graphics, but more importantly the right graphics mixed with the right information to show the world your innovations and inventions.

If you get a moment join me in welcoming Lisa to the UIA as the latest in a long line of good, trustworthy people, who can help all of us do a better job presenting great ideas to the world.

If you have questions about inventor related graphics just take a look at the Fargo Design web site or shoot Lisa an Email at lisa@fargodesignco.com

That's brains ..Not luck

2011-11-23T07:58:00.002-05:00

As inventors we normally have great ideas pop into our heads 24/7 – But at dinner? Even I found it a little strange that in the middle of a meal you could invent something. But it happens, and it sure did happen to Ken Ahroni of Seattle Washington – at Thanksgiving dinner no less.

While sitting at the Thanksgiving table with friends and family something struck me

Why, at traditional Thanksgiving meals, served all across the country, when there is a bounty of food, is there but one lonely wishbone?

The days of fighting over that dearly beloved wishbone with my two sisters were long gone. Experiencing the joy of somehow letting my son win the break when he was young was also but a fading memory. I realized that there seems to be this unspoken law, almost like a rite of passage to the next Generation that arrives one year without warning. Yes, the simple truth is that the wishbone belongs to the young. I couldn't even remember the last time I was lucky enough to get my hand on one. Maybe a half dozen times in 47 years.

The feasts throughout the land would soon be over. The wishbone would be left on the windowsill to dry and then one day, unceremoniously, without the presence of most of the dinner guests on that festive night, wishbones would be challenged. There had to be a better way!

So, I invented Lucky Break® Wishbones for the masses so everybody, including vegetarians, have a chance to make a wish — with grandma AND grandpa AND mom AND dad AND friends, etc. etc. on Thanksgiving and every day throughout the year!

Find out how you can order this cool little Turkey Day invention at http://www.luckybreakwishbone.com/

This is why we do it...

2011-11-22T08:00:00.000-05:00

I received this email from a guy named Mike forwarded from my good friend Roger Brown. For those who don't know, Roger is another professional inventor in South Carolina who works with me and a handful of others to help inventors on the path to achieving their dreams..

I am an inventor in need of some expert advice!!.I have gone from website to website trying to find ways to submit my invention to companies and cannot find the right companies or the companies that are looking for new ideas. .I have been doing this for about 4 months now, everyday, for at least 2-3 hours. My wife is really getting tired of me being on the computer. I really believed that I would find that right person or company to help me. I have been contacted by many offshore companies that are willing but I don’t know who I can trust and what their intentions are. So as I was doing my search today I came across you and you had mentioned that you would go into stores and pretty much do this on your on instead of going to an invention firm. Well that is where I had started and they milked me for $22,000 or more, I did get my patent though. so this thing means a lot to me and I have lost all support from everyone, without saying it to my face they just gave up on me. I know that this will work out, got to have faith, I have been in the US Air force for 10 years and am wanting to get out and enjoy my life with my wife and 4 beautiful kids. Can you help me?

People like Roger and I often get asked why we are so passionate about helping inventors find their way through the maze of processes and people required to get to the market - This is the reason.

It's ironic, because we often help people in the face of so much criticism, it gets very difficult sometimes to keep going, and like this inventor, our family and friend don’t really understand why we put ourselves through it.

Roger will make sure Mike gets the help he needs – and without ever knowing it, Mike has recharged the batteries of hope for those willing to help

Did you know....

2011-11-21T08:32:00.000-05:00

"Congress shall have the power...to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." - U.S. Constitution Article 1. Section 8.

On April 10, 1790, President George Washington signed the bill which laid the foundations of the modern American patent system. The U.S. patent system was unique; for the first time in history the intrinsic right of an inventor to profit from his invention is recognized by law. Previously, privileges granted to an inventor were dependent upon the prerogative of a monarch or upon a special act of a legislature.

Young or old, most inventors are thrilled when see their name on a patent issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in Arlington, Virginia, near Washington, D.C.

In 1790, one Samuel Hopkins of Pittsford, Vermont, was granted the first U.S. patent, for an improvement in the making of potash (a substance derived from the ash of burned plant life and used to make soap and other items).

The reviewer of this patent was Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State and himself an inventor, whose work area was filled with gadgets he had devised (perhaps he examined the patent on the famous portable desk that he invented in 1775). Jefferson next passed the document to the Secretary of War for his review and then obtained signatures from the Attorney General and, finally, from President Washington.

So began something bigger than the Founding Fathers had ever dreamed. During that first year, Jefferson received two more patent applications, both of which were granted after due deliberation and signature-collecting. But sometime during 1791, as he scrutinized models and sorted through stacks of designs, Jefferson realized that patent-examining was too much for busy Cabinet members. For as little as four dollars, American inventors could seek patent protection for their inventions under provisions of the Act of 1790. And seek it they did.

Jefferson found himself overwhelmed by an outpouring of American inventiveness. By 1793, patent examining duties had been reassigned to a State Department clerk, until the Patent Office was formed in 1802. Today there are more than five million patents that have been issued to Americans and other nationals by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Prior to the Patent Act of July 4, 1836, patents were issued by name and date rather than number. The Patent Office had already issued nearly 10,000 patents, when a fire destroyed many of the original records in December of 1836. Using private files, the office was able to restore 2,845 patents. The restored records were issued a number beginning with an "X" and called the "X-Patents." Thus the first patent ever issued was actually designated patent X1. The patents that could not be restored were cancelled.

http://www.ideafinder.com/history/of_inventions.htm

Shhhhh...That's Secret

2011-11-18T07:06:00.000-05:00

I was recently asked about why, when an inventor tells a company about his/her invention and the ask the company to sign and NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) why the NDA should not last forever. The reason is actually pretty simple....

Do you remember back in grade school when your best friend broke that lamp and you promised you would never tell anyone?…. well fast forward 30 years and here you are. You have not seen your friend in 29 years and he found you on face book, invited you to his mom’s house and now you are having a beer with your friend and his mom. The subject comes up and you say…”wow, remember when you accidentally broke that lamp?” He looks at you and says…”Hey. You said you would never tell anyone!” and the first thing that comes to mind is ….”That’s been 30 years ago…what does it matter?”

The fact is it may or may not matter – but you were expected to keep that secret no matter what -even 30 years later. Reasonable? Maybe, Doable? Maybe….as a single person.

Now apply that to a company with 100 employees that come and go over those 30 years. Because of the job they held at the time they were given access to your invention. But then they left and 30 years later they told someone. You can’t go after them because the NDA you signed is with the company, not them.

So is it reasonable to think a company could keep that secret for 30 years when the “company” is simply a collection of people who come and go. No, it’s really not. So when a company signs an NDA they try to keep it to a time frame that is manageable. Normally 3-5 years, buy I have seen companies sign them for 10 years before.

In the end, it’s a legal document, so because it makes them liable they have to be reasonable about their ability to fulfill it faithfully.

That's a little Wacky!

2011-11-17T08:24:00.000-05:00

We all dream of having the next big thing, and we all want to have a wildly successful invention. But sometimes inventing something that has little or no practical use is actually more fun.

I’m sure the inventors in this clip were proud of their accomplishment – even if those around them may have thought they had finally lost it

Enjoy this look at the wacky side of our industry… and I think you will be as surprised as I was at the answer to the question about “Backrub”

It's Addicting...

2011-11-16T08:34:00.001-05:00

There are things in life we enjoy doing. There are things in life we really enjoy doing, and then there are things in life we do with such vigor that we suspend the practical side of our brain and trade away the logic that normally guides us - we do this in the pursuit of an emotion. That emotion is excitement – and when we feel it our brain turns on the flow of adrenalin.

Like drinking a case of Red Bull the adrenalin starts flowing and provides us the energy we need to do things we normally may not do, think in a way we normally may not think, or even dream in a way that our logical side may have always prevented.

Below is a great example of this phenomena applied to the process of inventing. These are excerpts taken from an inventor forum where for $25.00, you can submit your idea and watch a “dashboard” with red and green lights show your idea go through a set of eight selection phases over many months. The idea can be discarded at any point and the game is over - but if it’s selected the company will buy the idea from you and then they submit their new idea to companies.

“Yesterday morning I browsed through this website. Last night I submitted an idea. This morning became an Insider. Now for about the last 6 hours that I have been sitting at my desk at work, I think I have checked the progress of my idea about a hundred times.. LOL.. It’s still in the submission completed stage.. lol… I’m usually a patient person, but this website and the idea of the website is pretty exciting”… “Everywhere I look i’m thinking of how something can be re-invented or trying to come up with new ideas.. I wish I can go back 20 years knowing what I know today.. Anyways, happy inventing everyone and i’m sure all of you are addicted to this site as well…”

“Nothing like the prospect of an idea bringing great wealth”

“The entire concept of this site and what it could mean to the well being of your family rocks!”

“And yes, the term ADDICTING is a perfect description!”

“I do the same thing I’m still on a green 4 ???. I heard I need to get green all the way to 8. so now I am really watching, it :)”

“I predict you will soon have a dozen dashboards to totally consume your life”

“I have bad news and good news. The bad news is that you are, indeed, addicted. You’ve got the itch. The good news is that the way to scratch the itch is to keep coming back. Welcome to the cycle.”

The common thread here, like in most cases of companies selling things to inventors is Hope. In this case Hope wrapped in Excitement with a side of adrenalin to keep you going.

The good news for these “inventors” is that time has shown us it will eventually wear off. The amount of success compared to the thousands of submissions is so out of whack that at some point the logical side of the brain starts to take over and the person fades off into the distance. That may not be the “Good News” this guy was talking about, but even if they don’t realize it now – it’s good news.

A clear winner at the PGA Show!

2011-11-15T15:59:00.000-05:00

I’m Screwed….

2011-11-15T08:48:00.000-05:00

As I travel around the country talking to inventor groups I am often asked about invention submission companies. It’s a fair question and unless you are from another planet you have no doubt heard some horror story about how an inventor has been fleeced by an unscrupulous company.

But you know it’s funny. We know there are some really bad companies out there, and we know there are some that are marginal, and some that are actually really good. Much like the front page of a newspaper or the lead story on the evening news, we tend to fixate on the bad companies and forget that they comprise a surprisingly small sector of the whole.

But even with that prospective, bad companies are not the problem in our industry. In fact, for every inventor that you show me who has been screwed by an invention submission company, I’ll show you ten inventors that screwed themselves far greater than a company could have ever screwed them

It’s true! From the inventor who spends $3000.00 on a web site, to thousands on drawings, and prototypes, and consulting. In one case I even know an inventor who had a jingle produced for his invention. A Jingle?...Really? -- It’s true.

We never tell those stories when we talk about inventors being taken advantage of. Maybe because they don’t allow us to fixate on a single perpetrator or maybe because it’s embarrassing to think we did it to ourselves. Whatever the reason, being screwed in a lump sum or being screwed one bad purchase at a time the end result is still the same – and the person responsible is still you.

How do you avoid this happening to you? it’s easy – EDUCATE YOURSELF about the process and the parts you need to accomplish it. Then educate yourself on the companies that can help you get there and those you should stay away from. Don’t get caught up in the emotion and the hype of seeing your great idea on a store shelf – slow, methodical study will always win the day.

So if you have a storage locker full of product that everyone told you was great but no one wants to buy, and you got there on your own. Think long and hard about the journey you took to get there – in the end it may have been much cheaper for you to get screwed by even the worst invention submission company.

Back from sunny Florida

2011-11-14T09:58:00.000-05:00

I spent last week in sunny Florida – not to take in the sights or to enjoy the warm weather (although both were very nice) but to spend time with two of the most active inventor clubs in the UIA Inventor Clubs Across America program.

First it was off to Tampa where Wayne Rasanen and his team of dedicated club officers run the Tampa Bay Inventors Council. http://tbic.us/index.html This well established club has been serving the needs of inventors in the Tampa Bay area for many years. Under Wayne’s leadership they have brought in great speakers, developed annual events, and for the first time ever in 2012 they will be having an inventor pavilion at the Florida State Fair. So, if you are an inventor from north Florida contact Wayne and his team, join the club, and get started meeting other inventors just like you!

Then it was off to sunny south Florida for an afternoon with the Inventors Society of South Florida. http://www.inventorssociety.net/index.htm This is another well run group of inventors under the leadership of Leo Mazur and his team of dedicated mentors - a standing room only crowd of great folks with deep insight into the community of inventing and valuable experiences to share.

Like the Tampa club, the Inventors Society of South Florida holds an annual event called the ISSF Expo. This day of educational presentations, exhibits and fellowship has grown to be one of the eminent inventor events in south Florida. It’s a great way to get seen, find out new information and make new friends with inventors who share your passion for this industry.

The entire UIA leadership would like to thank Leo, Wayne, and the hundreds of inventors who attend these clubs each month for having us as their guests and for the time, talent, and treasure they dedicate to helping other inventors.

MOM...MOM....Where's Mom?

2011-11-11T16:12:00.000-05:00

Did you know you could get up to $15,000 dollars to help you with your Mom Inspired product?

Well, it’s true.

The Huggies brand from Kimberly Clark has created an ingenuous program called the Huggies^® MomInspired™ Grant Program - it was so successful in its inaugural year of 2010, they did it again in 2011, and you guessed it – it’s happening again in 2012.

In early December the UIA will help Huggies announce the winners from the MomInspired class of 2011 and give you details on how you can submit your great idea for the 2012 program.

But don’t burn up the phone lines just yet, but stay tuned and we’ll make sure you get the information just as soon as it’s available. Until then, take a look at the the Huggies^® MomInspired™ Grant Program winners from 2010 because in 2012 that could be you!

Tune the Knobs

2011-11-11T09:27:00.001-05:00

The sector of inventing that works in retail products (and it’s actually just one sector of the industry) has a tendency to fixate on the “Product” itself – and maybe that makes sense. Or does it?

You see, try as you may, you can never actually control a “product” itself, because a product is actually just a byproduct of a process.

Think of it this way. You have a radio and it has knobs for Base, Treble, Balance, and so on. No matter what song is playing, how well you adjust these knobs will dictate the quality of the sound you hear.

Like the radio, developing a product is like tuning the knobs. You adjust the knobs of “quality” “size” “cost” “color” and “function” (to name a few) and the result changes as you make each adjustment. The result is the byproduct of a product itself.

That’s the easy part, the hard part is to understand that just like the radio, not everyone in the room will like how you tuned the knobs. Some will like more Base, while others prefer more Treble.

In the end all we can really do is attempt to tune the product to its widest range of audience by understanding the knobs and what effect they have on the final sound.