Patent It Yourself - PDF Archive

ChaPter 4 | Will Your INVENTION SELL? | 87
62. Youth Market. Young people have substantial
discretionary income and tend to spend more in many
product areas than the rest of the population. If your
invention is something that will appeal to children
or young adults, it may command more sales than
something that is not attractive to this age group. In
other words, a portable digital music player will sell
better than an arthritis aid.
63. Part of a Current Fad. If your invention is part of a
current fad, such as a low-carbohydrate product, a lowfat
product, a spam filter, an identity-theft preventer,
a bottled water, and so forth, it will be far easier to
sell. For example, a few years ago when the lottery
was legalized in California, a spate of lottery-number
selection products appeared and sold briskly until the
public’s interest simmered down.
64. Will a Contingent Fee Litigator Take Your Case?
Before filing, consider whether, if your issued patent
is infringed, will there likely be enough sales of
the infringing device (or process) by a financially
responsible manufacturer to get a litigator to represent
you on a contingent-fee arrangement. If there aren’t
enough sales, or if the infringers are fly-by-night,
irresponsible operators, most litigators won’t take your
infringement case on a contingent fee basis. This is true
even if you have a strong patent that is clearly infringed.
In other words, the law is far more accessible when
substantial amounts are likely to be recovered.
Now that you have a grasp of the factors that can influence
the commercial viability of an invention, complete Form 4-1
by assigning a weight to each listed factor, either positive or
negative. Also list and assign weights to any other factors you
can think of which I’ve omitted. Then compute the sum of
your factors and determine the difference to come up with
a rough idea of a net value for your invention. I suggest that
you continue to pursue inventions with net values of 50 and
up, that you direct your efforts elsewhere if your invention
has a net value of less than 0, and that you make further
critical evaluation of inventions with net values between 0
and 50.
The list has many other valuable uses:
• Using the list may cause you to focus on one or
more drawbacks that are serious enough to kill your
invention outright.
• The list can be used to provide a way of comparing
two different inventions for relative value so that you’ll
know which to concentrate more effort on.
• It can be used to “sell” your invention to the Patent
and Trademark Office, a potential licensee, or a judge
if your patent is ever involved in litigation. With
respect to the PTO and the courts, as we’ll see, an
invention must be unobvious to be patentable, and
unobviousness is best proved by new and unexpected
(superior) results of the type listed above.
You now should extract all factors on the list of Form
4-1 that have any value other than 0 and write these factors
and their weights on Form 4-2, the Positive and Negative
Factors Summary Sheet. (A copy is in Appendix 7.) This
sheet, when completed, will provide you with a concise
summary of the advantages and disadvantages of your
invention. You can use it in at least four valuable ways:
1. To provide you with a capsule summary of your
invention for commercial evaluation purposes (this
chapter);
2. To help you prepare the “selling” parts of your patent
application (see Chapter 8);
3. To help you to sell or license your invention to a
manufacturer (see Chapter 11); and
4. To help you to get the PTO to grant you a patent (see
Chapter 13).
Don’t hesitate to update or redo Forms 4-1 and 4-2 if
more information comes to mind.
E. Check Your Marketability
Conclusions Using the Techniques
of Consultation and Research
Once you reach some tentative conclusions about the
commercial viability of your invention, it’s time to get a
reality check.
1. How to Go About It
If your evaluation of the above positive and negative factors
affecting the marketability of your invention gives the
positive side the edge, I recommend that you extend your
investigation by doing some consultation and research. If
you continue to get positive signs, extend your search still
further until you’ve learned all you can about the field of
your invention. This knowledge will also be of great benefit
when you make your patentability search, prepare your
application, market your invention, and deal with the PTO.
Tip
In Section 2, below, I suggest a number of procedures
to use when you’re disclosing your ideas to others so that
they won’t be stolen and so their trade secret (TS) status will
be maintained. Here, I simply warn you at the outset that you
shouldn’t disclose ideas and information without utilizing appropriate
safeguards; otherwise you may lose them to others.