shop4patents Blog

Hello to our Inventors:

We at PatentHelpBlog.com read your comments from this post about the “experiences” you had with PTI, and decided to become more involved and do our best to assist.

As a first step, in order to be more organized and more efficient we suggest moving ahead as a “group” of inventors and combine our efforts.

We suggest you all email us your basic contact information: Name, email, phone#, address and brief description about your “case”. This info will be presented to a lawyer (and in case requested also to the New York Attorney General), who will advise you on what should be the next step/move.

Please email us above mentioned info and any other idea you might have on how you suggest we proceed on this matter.

Email Dan at blog@shop4patents.com

In this series (4 parts) Don will tell stories of inventors who have had to sell their idea, only for someone else to make a fortune, and the steps they should have taken to avoid that from happening. His fourth article will be the exception, showing a very creative inventor with no money who successfully brought a product to market.

How to Succeed with No Money
Part One: Investments (next month, Part two: Partnerships)
Copyright 2007 by DonDebelak.com. All rights reserved

Inventors are often struggling with little or no money to bring their invention to market. This often leaves inventors broke looking for anyone to pay them anything for their idea. When someone else takes their idea and makes millions of dollars, this often leaves those inventors heart broken. Does it need to be like this? Absolutely not. There are many ways for inventors to make money from their idea, even if they have no money to invest. (more…)

Don Debelak is a new product marketing specialist who has been involved
with inventors and inventions for over 20 years. Don has experience
working with all types of products, from small novelties to medical
innovations for both consumers and industries.

His website, DonDebelak.com, is an inventor assistance site run by Don
Debelak with the help of other marketers and product engineers. The site
is dedicated to help inventors who want to market their own product, find
cost effective ways to make prototypes, prepare complete engineering
drawings and documentation, and manufacture low volume production.
(more…)

Over the past few months, we published the first three parts of his four part series on his 13 Rules of Invention Success. Here is Part 4 of his 4 part series, (Copyright 2006 SunZag Creative Products. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from the author):

I made a few more prototypes and spent the next few months looking for licensees and was able to demonstrate my prototypes to the few that were interested. Licensing is difficult, most companies will not look at outside ideas. They will not be as passionate about it as you are, and are very slow and difficult to negotiate with (they want your product for free, and don’t want to pay you anything upfront). It’s like talking to an elephant to move. You are the small guy. I could write a long article sharing my struggles and experiences of licensing, but that is another story, and without pictures. Therefore I decided to manufacture it myself.
(more…)

American Inventor has announced dates for tryouts for the upcoming Season of the hit show on their website. The venues have not yet been announced. The dates are listed below

LOS ANGELES – MARCH 19TH

SAN FRANCISCO - MARCH 25TH

CHICAGO – MARCH 30TH

NEW YORK – APRIL 4TH

ORLANDO – APRIL 9TH

HOUSTON – APRIL 13TH

Many of you will remember the last year’s hit show the AMERICAN INVENTOR which was won by Janusz Liberkowski for his invention, the Anecia Survival Capsule. Season Two of this primetime reality show from Simon Cowell and the producers of American Idol will be returning to search for America ’s best new invention.

From ABC’s Website:

An embodiment of the ultimate American dream, the show will uncover the hottest new product and make a struggling inventor’s dream come true. The show will celebrate the best in homespun American ingenuity and will turn one person’s idea into the next big thing.

If you missed out on being part of Season One and are interested in taking part in the next season of the AMERICAN INVENTOR please visit www.americaninventor.tv to find out more information. They will visit many cities with their panel of judges for open casting calls to meet inventors from all over the country. The Auditions are scheduled to take place starting March 2007.

If you are participating we’d love to hear your story.

shop4patents.com and YouInventIt.com are proud to announce the creation of the Patent Help Blog. The Patent Help Blog will be a way for us to help answer your questions about the patenting process. If you have a patent related question click here and your question can be the subject of our next post.

Question: Hello, I have an idea/invention for a tool I want to patent but I know nothing about patents and I need help designing the tool… can you help me or now who can? Thanks

Answer: We suggest Don Debelak, www.dondebelak.com.

The Season of ABC’s  AMERICAN INVENTOR, a primetime reality show featuring You, America’s Inventors brought to youfrom Simon Cowell and the producers of American Idol.

Once again, the show will travel through many cities to undertake a national search for America’s best new invention.  If you have an invention and want to get some quick publicity and a chance to make your dream come true you can visit www.americaninventor.tv to find out more.  If you will be attending the open tryout we would love to hear from you so please comment.

The Auditions are scheduled to take place starting March 2007.  Currently, here is a  list of cities:

LOS ANGELES – MARCH 18TH

SAN FRANCISCO -  MARCH 25TH

CHICAGO – MARCH 31st

NEW YORK CITY – APRIL 4TH

ORLANDO – APRIL 9TH

HOUSTON – APRIL 13TH