How do you actually turn a million-dollar idea into a million dollars? From scribble-on-the-napkin to product-on-the market, The Independent Inventor's Handbook explains everything a potential inventor needs to know and the tools he or she needs to use to take a raw concept and turn it into reality. Written by Louis J. Foreman, creator of the PBS series Everyday Edisons and a holder of multiple patents, together with patent attorney Jill Gilbert Welytok, here's a book that speaks directly to the inventive American—the entrepreneur, the tinkerer, the dreamer, the basement scientist, the stay-at-home mom who figures out how to do it better. (over one million of them file patents each year.) Here is everything a future inventor needs: Understanding the difference between a good idea and a marketable idea. Why investing too much money at the outset can sink you. The downside of design patents, and how best to file an application for a utility patent. Surveys, online test runs, and other strategies for market research on a tight budget. Plus the effective pitch (hint: never say your target audience is "everyone"), questions to ask a prospective manufacturer, 14 licensing land mines to avoid, "looks-like" versus "works-like" prototypes, Ten Things Not to Tell a Venture Capitalist, and how to protect your invention once it's on the market. Appendices include a glossary of legal, manufacturing, and marketing terms, a sample nondisclosure agreement, and a patent application, deconstructed.

The road to licensing a profitable, innovative product or technology is riddled with curves, holes, and rocky cliffs. The President of the United Inventors Association shows inventors, innovators, and makers a better path towards monetizing your creations and how to avoid the get-rich-quick scammers. Every year, hundreds of thousands of eager inventors around the globe spend millions of dollars seeking assistance from inventor service companies and individuals claiming to be experts in the innovation and licensing fields, though their actual success rates are poor in relation to the dollar amounts they charge. The reality is, according to Inventors’ Digest™, while 78% of new inventors believe they will make over a million dollars with their inventions, less than 1% actually do. Marketers prey on this scenario for their own financial gain. In Inventor Confidential, inventor advocate Warren Tuttle tips the odds back in the investor’s favor, helping them: Gain a much broader picture of the many current challenges that inventors face these days. Understand the red flags to watch out for when individuals or companies charge up front for their coaching or help-to-market services. See how inventors can improve their odds of licensing success by following a thorough product development protocol, creating working prototypes, and filing U.S. patents. Get the insider perspective on how companies determine the quality of a product submission and if they want to work with the inventor. Learn the 30 steps to market if you want to go it alone. For anyone who has a great idea or invention and wants to monetize it but are not sure who to trust, Inventor Confidential will show them where to best spend their hard-earned money to maximize their odds for success.

The vast majority of inventors (97%) do not make a penny from their inventions despite their hard work, efforts, time, and expenses. It costs more than a year and a lot of money to develop one patent and it requires more money to maintain the patent during its lifetime. Yet, many inventors will get a nice patent that can be framed and proudly displayed without making a single buck out of it. This book is intended to give inventors, corporations and engineers, a helping hand to explore the systematic techniques and venues that can fulfill every inventor's dream. No one can tell you how to become a billionaire; however, this book will teach you how to create/get innovative ideas that may sell; and hence, it may lead you to be a very successful inventor. This book can also be used as a reference for executives, leaders, employers and employees, practicing engineers, professionals, and technicians to become more effective, more productive and more successful in their workplace. It is also a great reference to faculty and students at all levels and from all fields and majors. Consequently, this book will prepare the readers to become leaders and mentors of modern systems innovation and design. The readers may also find opportunities to develop their own successful enterprises in today's competitive market. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: M.H. Hassan, PhD, PE has over 25 years of experience as a professor and consulting engineer specializing in the field of Electrical Engineering with specific knowledge and expertise in the areas of: Creativity, Innovation, Microprocessors, Microcomputers, Systems Engineering, Electrical Systems, Electronics Engineering, Computer Engineering, Microelectronics, Analog Integrated Circuits, Digital Integrated Circuits, Mixed-Signal Integrated Circuits, and Programmable Chips. Dr. Hassan is a research scientist with a large number of peer-reviewed scientific papers. He is also an inventor with three granted US patents and a member of the Inventors Council of Central Florida. Dr. Hassan is a senior member of IEEE, a member of Sigma Xi, a member of Tau Beta Pi, and a member of Eta Kappa Nu, . He is the recipient of the IEEE Outstanding Engineering Educator award and many other awards and recognitions. Dr. Hassan had courses on Creativity, Innovation, and TRIZ theory with Dr. G. Graham Allan and Zinovy Y. Royzen (University of Washington) and Dr. Sidney J. Parnes (State University College at Buffalo).

How America's individual inventors persisted alongside corporate R&D labs as an important source of inventions. During the nineteenth century, heroic individual inventors such as Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell created entirely new industries while achieving widespread fame. However, by 1927, a New York Times editorial suggested that teams of corporate scientists at General Electric, AT&T, and DuPont had replaced the solitary "garret inventor" as the wellspring of invention. But these inventors never disappeared. In this book, Eric Hintz argues that lesser-known inventors such as Chester Carlson (Xerox photocopier), Samuel Ruben (Duracell batteries), and Earl Tupper (Tupperware) continued to develop important technologies throughout the twentieth century. Moreover, Hintz explains how independent inventors gradually fell from public view as corporate brands increasingly became associated with high-tech innovation. Focusing on the years from 1890 to 1950, Hintz documents how American independent inventors competed (and sometimes partnered) with their corporate rivals, adopted a variety of flexible commercialization strategies, established a series of short-lived professional groups, lobbied for fairer patent laws, and mobilized for two world wars. After 1950, the experiences of independent inventors generally mirrored the patterns of their predecessors, and they continued to be overshadowed during corporate R&D's postwar golden age. The independents enjoyed a resurgence, however, at the turn of the twenty-first century, as Apple's Steve Jobs and Shark Tank's Lori Greiner heralded a new generation of heroic inventor-entrepreneurs. By recovering the stories of a group once considered extinct, Hintz shows that independent inventors have long been—and remain—an important source of new technologies.

Learn how to take your idea for a product to the market yourself. Taught by a proven independent inventor with products on the market since 1987. There are several books on the market from authors that developed products for their employer with unlimited resources, they really can't relate to the independent inventor on a more limited budget. As an independent inventor I developed my products while working full time and my full time job had nothing to do with what I was inventing. I invented products on my own just as many of you will be doing. What I have to share with you is relevent from an independent inventors point of reference. Learn about patents, packaging, prototypes, drawings, marketing, distribution, selling price and much more. This is my second edition inventor book with years of inventing and teaching inventor seminars at local colleges and evening classes. The information contained in this book will help you develop your idea and most importantly, without wasting your time and money. I help you get started and I share experiences of 'lessons learned' since 1987. Remember that all products on the market today are the result of an idea realized. Here's a tip when seeking a patent attorney: Be careful to select a patent attorney with lot's of experience and achievements in your product category. Try to get a cost limit included in any contract that you sign, so that extra costs don't suddenly appear just before your patent application is approved..it has happened to me. A shifty attornery can write a patent application knowing full well that the U S patent office examiner will reject some claims and object to other claims.Then the attorney will ask you if you want to answer these rejections and objections sent to him / her from the patent examiner ..for a fee of course. So a cost limit should hopefully motivate the patent attorney to write the patent application with limited risk of added fees. Read my book and learn more safety tips and suggestions, all for your benefit.This book is 22 years in the making. I continue to invent new products for retail and industry. Please take a look at my most recent new product named "Wristalk". It is available for sale at:www.amazon.com/dp/b004rhodqe. Best wishes for your next new product idea !

Based on hundreds of invention evaluations, counseling sessions with inventors and negotiations with marketers and manufacturers, Marketing Your Invention dispels the myths and clearly communicates what inventors need to know to successfully bring their inventions to market. Topics include: protecting an idea, characteristics of a successful new product, invention positioning, finding money, and licensing.