The Independent Inventor's Handbook: The Best Advice from Idea to Payoff » (Original)

Louis J. Foreman is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for innovation. He started his first business from his college fraternity room and for the past 20 years has been starting and building successful companies. Louis is the founder and CEO of Enventys, a product-development firm working with major consumer product manufacturers and leading retailers. He is the publisher of Inventors Digest magazine and executive producer of the Emmy ® award winning PBS show Everyday Edisons. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Jill Gilbert Welytok is a registered patent attorney and a founding partner of Absolute Technology Law Group LLC, specialists in helping independent inventors reach their entrepreneurial goals. She has written several books on legal, business, and technology topics, and lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Have a million-dollar idea? Make it real.

From a sketch on a napkin to the finished product, Everyday Edisons creator Louis Foreman and patent attorney Jill Gilbert Welytok show step-by-step how to be a prosperous inventor: how to harness your imagination and follow the systematic process of problem solving that’s required to convert a raw concept into a profitable business venture. Includes a glossary of terms, a sample NDA (nondisclosure agreement), and how to perform a basic patent search and read a sample patent.

Library Journal

Foreman, publisher of Inventors Digest magazine and producer of PBS's Everyday Edisons, and patent attorney Welytok (Sarbanes-Oxley for Dummies) aim to walk inventors through the product-development process from the moment the proverbial light bulb appears over their head to the moment their brainchild arrives on the market. The authors cover product market research, design, developing prototypes, manufacturing, and distribution. There is an excellent chapter on what a patent is and how to obtain one and another section on funding an invention. The book is packed with anecdotes and case studies, including how the BlackBerry handheld device was named and how Tupperware came to be a household name. Appendixes include a sample nondisclosure agreement and an example of a patent, and a glossary. VERDICT This clear, thorough, and entertaining guide will be sought out by those who need practical help to bring their ideas for inventions to fruition. It's a good companion to David Pressman's Patent It Yourself. Highly recommended.—Joan Pedzich, Harris Beach PLLC, Rochester, NY

Introduction: The Entrepreneur & the Attorney vii

Chapter 1 Eureka! Turn an Invention into a Venture 1

Chapter 2 First Define the Market, Then Design the Product 25

Chapter 3 Prototyping, Manufacturing & Distributing: A Crash Course 47

Chapter 4 Protect Your Invention (with as Few Lawyers as Possible) 83

Chapter 5 Make Your Mark: Branding, Pitching & Selling 121

Chapter 6 Doing the Math: Licensing vs. Manufacturing 145

Chapter 7 Money Matters: Finding the Funds to Bring a New Product to Market 169

Chapter 8 Protecting & Defending Your Invention in a Global Marketplace 187

Epilogue: Becoming the Next Edison: Your Personal Road Map 203

Appendix A Confidential Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA) 209

Appendix B Performing a Basic Patent Search 210

Appendix C Excerpts from a Sample Patent 213

Glossary 228

Acknowledgments 235

Index 237