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    Inventor's Workshop: How to Develop and Market your Inventions
    Inventor's Workshop: How to Develop and Market your Inventions
    Inventor's Workshop: How to Develop and Market your Inventions
    Ebook81 pages1 hour

    Inventor's Workshop: How to Develop and Market your Inventions

    By Bob Schmidt

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    About this ebook

    Inventor’s Workshop is a practical guide showing inventors how to develop, prototype, protect and market their inventions to make passive income from license royalties. The tools and steps in this book will help inventors to successfully develop and market their inventions without breaking the bank. I am an engineer with over 25 years experience developing and marketing products. I have used my corporate and entrepreneurial experience to develop this step by step guide to help fellow inventors develop their products using a "boot strapping" approach.

    In the book I detail some of the products I have invented and tell you what I learned along the way so you don't make the same mistakes I did. Some of the products I have invented are: an automatic fire extinguisher, a low cost snow plow for trucks and SUV’s that costs < $1000, a trailer hitch alignment device that allows you to hook up a trailer without getting out of the vehicle, and a pint glass that keeps your beer cold without diluting with ice.

    One of the biggest questions you need to answer is whether your invention is unique. I show you how to do that with patent and product searches. I then explain how to document your product development progress and how to prototype your invention to make sure it works and to improve the functionality. I then discuss options from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to protect your invention intellectual property and how to find companies to license your invention. This book also includes several inventor resources as well as details on companies looking for new products.

    Just having an idea is the easy part. Taking it from an idea to a licensed product has many steps to make sure that you have a marketable product. The process detailed in this book also helps you determine whether you should abandon your idea before spending too much money. You want to spend the least amount of money to develop, protect and market your inventions. That way you can make sure your royalties go to your bank account instead of going to pay off loans for expensive prototypes or legal fees.

    Inventor's Workshop is a "take action" guide to turning your ideas into successful products that can make passive income from royalty fees you receive from manufacturers that license your product.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBob Schmidt
    Release dateMay 20, 2014
    ISBN9781311642745
    Inventor's Workshop: How to Develop and Market your Inventions
    Author

    Bob Schmidt

    Bob Schmidt has a BSME from Lawrence Technological University, an MSA from Central Michigan University, and has over 25 years experience in development, sales and marketing of fuel & propulsion systems for powersports, automotive and military applications. He currently uses this experience to represent several companies to market their products and services in the US and Europe under Schmidt Products, LLC. Bob also develops new consumer products and has five patents, several patents pending and three trademarks. Products developed by Bob include: Hitch 'N Plow®, Spot 'N Hitch®, and PolarPint®.

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      Book preview

      Inventor's Workshop - Bob Schmidt

      Inventor’s Workshop: How to Develop and Market your Inventions

      Bob Schmidt

      Inventor’s Workshop: How to Develop and Market your Inventions

      Published By Bob Schmidt at Smashwords

      Text Copyright © 2013 Bob Schmidt

      All Rights Reserved

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems – except in the case of brief quotations in articles or reviews – without the permission in writing from its author.

      Disclaimer and or legal notices

      The information presented in this book represents views of the publisher as of the date of publication. The publisher reserves the rights to alter and update their opinions based on new conditions. This report is for informational purposes only. The author and the publisher do not accept any responsibilities for liabilities resulting from the use of this information. While every attempt has been made to verify the information provided here, the author and the publisher cannot assume any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies or omissions. Any similarities with people or facts are unintentional. It is recommended that inventors seek the advice of a patent attorney to determine patentability of their invention.

      Table of Contents

      Why Take Advice from me? My background

      My Inventions

      -Automatic Fire Extinguisher

      -Hitch ‘N Plow®

      -Spot ‘N Hitch®

      -PolarPint®

      The Invention Process

      Step 1: Is Your Invention Unique

      Step 2: Documenting your Invention

      Step 3: Prototyping your Invention

      Step 4: Protecting your Invention

      Step 5: What about Trademarks & Copyrights

      Step 6: Marketing your Inventions

      Final Words

      Companies Looking for Inventions

      Invention Resources

      About the Author

      One Last Thing

      Why Take Advice from me? My background

      I decided to put together an ebook to outline what I have learned in over 25years as an engineer and inventor to help other inventors make money from their inventions. I am an engineer but you don’t have to be an engineer to be a great inventor. My inventions are very simple and did not require advanced skills to design, prototype and market. Most inventions are simple solutions to everyday problems.

      Now for some history of my education and work experience to give you some background on how this ties into the inventing process. I went to Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, MI for three years for my Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (BSME) in the early 80’s. I ran out of money after my third year and hired into a fuel system company (Walbro) as a technician. They had a tuition reimbursement program so I finished my BSME degree in two and a half years and was promoted to engineer.

      This actually worked to my advantage because the US was in a recession in the mid 80’s and if I would have completed by engineering degree in 4 years, there weren’t many companies hiring engineers. You had to have an excellent GPA (believe it or not I graduated with a GPA of 2.6) or co-op work experience. I had neither, so getting into a good company like Walbro at a lower level was actually a blessing. Walbro was also within a 30 minute drive from my home so I didn’t have to move. And once I got my degree I was promoted to engineer.

      While at Walbro, I worked on automotive programs including throttle bodies with integrated mass air flow sensor, plastic intake manifolds, and fuel pumps. As a technician I worked in the automotive development group, and my responsibility was air flow testing throttle bodies with integrated mass air flow sensors. This experience helped me understand the process of making prototypes and testing impact of design changes. It also showed me how to record data and write test reports.

      After I completed my BSME and was promoted to engineer, I transferred to their fuel pump division and worked on new fuel pump development programs. I was lucky to work with one of the biggest inventors at Walbro. A man who had over 100 patents on fuel system products and he didn’t even have an engineering degree! He just had lots of practical knowledge on how things worked. While working in the fuel pump group I helped launch a new fuel pump which gave me experience on validating a new product and working with suppliers to get components produced. It also gave me experience working in a cross functional team (quality, manufacturing, engineering, and purchasing) to insure great product went out the door.

      During my career working on fuel pumps, I continued my education at Central Michigan University and obtained a Master of Science in Administration. My goal was to be a career engineer and eventually become an engineering manager. I was at Walbro for 11 years and was an engineering manager. I even did a short stint as an expat at Walbro’s joint venture facility in France.

      My experience at Walbro (now owned by TI Automotive) helped me to understand the design, development, validation and production of high volume automotive components. I also learned the patent process, because for my final project for my MSA degree, I completed a patent application for an automatic fire extinguisher invention. More info on this

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