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.

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 !

"Previous published in 2006 as The inventor's pathfinder."

"The World Class Inventors Handbook" is a truly a one of a kind mentoring tool. It is the definitive inventors guide written by an Inventor for inventors. It was specifically crafted for those individuals who believe that they have a valuable idea that they both want to protect & profit from. Get the right advice before you begin your journey!