Don’t underestimate the power of prototyping. Too often the benefits of prototyping an invention idea are either played down or completely ignored when “experts” take to the issue. But turning your idea into a product sample is probably the most important part of inventing. And if you’re not convinced here are five reasons why you should prototype your invention:

1. It makes patenting easier

For nearly 100 years, our culture has seemingly indoctrinated us in TV, books and movies to believe that we must patent our ideas immediately, lest they fall to the wayside or be stolen. It’s an expensive and complicated process to take a rough idea and turn into a patent, so you wouldn’t want to enter that $10,000-plus arena without being prepared, right?

Prior to 1880 you actually had to have a prototype built before it could be patented. While it’s not required now, a prototype is a great way to show that you built it first. Also, building your idea flushes out the benefits and features that may not have been immediately evident in the rough idea stage. Now, you can patent that too, which may offer the best protection in the long run.

The whole process of building a prototype will greatly help you in writing, drawing and preparing your patent papers, which can save you a lot of money.

2. Smooth out your invention’s design

Once you build your idea into a prototype, now you can actually test it in real life situations and look out for design or concept flaws. Some may want to go down the route of building a “virtual prototype.” Now, there are a lot of benefits to having an artist create a 3D rendition of your product — you can easily present it to potential buyers, you can get a low-cost idea of how it will look when it’s built and you can decide on visual features of the product — however, a “virtual prototype” can’t be tested in real life. Remember, the real world and the virtual world are completely different and 3D drawings don’t account for everything.

In addition, this is a great time to work out the aesthetics of a product, creating it for the right user. For example, you want to ensure its size isn’t too big or threatening, if the user will be a child. Alternately you want it to be durable enough if the user is a mechanic.

Again, all of these tweaks and such will help you out when patenting, because you know what to draw up and what the benefits are of these features, which didn’t exist when it was in its conceptual phase.

3. Prototypes determine the manufacturing process

Eventually, whether it’s you or the person you manage to sell the idea to, someone is going to have to manufacture your invention. Prototyping helps you determine what manufacturing processes will be required. Will it be injection molded, ultrasonically welded or die cut?

Perhaps you even have to determine a new manufacturing technique to build your invention, but you’d need to know all of this before a manufacturer or a corporation will get on board with your project.

4. Determine the right price

The only way to truly have an understanding of what the product will really cost to manufacture is by prototyping it. As with understanding how it will be manufactured, you’ll know what the materials to build it will cost or at least what types of materials you’ll use.

When prototyping, think about the price point you want to meet. Of course, this should probably have started in design, but later you may realize you need to build it at a lower cost. It’s a good time to analyze the design and find ways it can be changed to meet a better cost of manufacturing. And, since you’d be doing this before you patent, you’ll save yourself by not having to file an amendment or a second patent.

5. It makes it easier to license or sell

With a prototype ready, you’ll not only be able to explain what the features and benefits of your invention are, but also be able to get into the numbers to explain the costs of manufacturing, how it will be built, etc. This shows professionalism and companies respect it. For too long, a lot of well-meaning people have submitted ideas as just paper drawings or hard-to-interpret patents, but having the prototype ready to go — a bonus if you have sample packaging — means a lot.

There is also the fun factor when presenting a real, working prototype. Now, they have something to talk about, look at and interact with. This gets marketing people going when thinking about how to advertise and showcase it. It also lets everyone handle it and determine for themselves the validity of your project. Demonstrations sell.

So, don’t underestimate the power of prototyping your invention. Not only is it at the very heart of inventing, but it will greatly benefit you in the long run.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/464509

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OK. So you’ve got great invention ideas for a product and you’ve asked a few people about it and they think it’s great. And you’re starting to see the dollar signs flashing. Great!

You’re pretty sure you’ve never seen anything like your invention idea before, but how do you know that no one’s producing it and you just haven’t seen it? Or maybe someone invented it already and patented it but it never made it into the marketplace.
Here are some simple tips on how you can find out so that you can finally start moving from idea to profitable product:

1) STORE RESEARCH
• Go to a store where your product would be sold and search for your product.

• Ask the sales person if they have a product that performs the tasks that yours would.

• When describing your product idea, always remember to be discreet and somewhat vague.

• Ask the sales person about buyers for your product category. You could say, “I’m doing research on this product category, would you know the name of the buyer who purchases this product category for you store?” If the sales person doesn’t, ask them who would know.

• Call buyers in your product category. When calling a buyer, you could say, “My name is ___________ from _______ company (you need to make up a company name). We are considering developing a product in your buying category and we (always use “we”) would like to know if you’ve ever seen anything like it?” Then give a brief description of the way your product works.

• It is a calculated risk to describe your product idea to store buyers since they have not signed a confidentiality agreement, so keep it as general as possible. However, store buyers are generally so busy that they have no desire to run off and make your product.

2) PATENT SEARCH
Of course a more immediate and thorough way to find out if your product idea already exists is to do a patent search.

• Sooner or later you will have to do a patent search if you intent to patent your invention. Contrary to popular belief, a patent does not protect “ideas,” it protects the specific mechanical way you carry out that idea (Utility Patent) or the specific way any product looks (Design Patent).

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5401647

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As far as modern invention ideas go the iPod is defiantly up there with the best of them and has infiltrated many of our homes. The ‘iPod’ is the name giving to a series of music player manufactured by Apple Inc. The iPod itself has evolved to its many forms since it market debut around a decade ago.
The invention ideas around the Apple iPod made its launch extremely successful and it is now considered the best music player in the world today. One of its main attractions is its ability to store thousands of songs and the sound quality.

Who invented the iPod?

The iPod originated from a business invention idea dreamed up by an independent inventor, Tony Fadell. Together with his concept he got together with Apple to create the iPod which launched in 2001 and changed the world of MP3 players overnight. The iPod was an immediate success overnight and laid down Apples mark as a market leader in the sector as well as paving the way for the success of the iPhone and iTouch.

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All great invention ideas seem to come to their benefactors either at the strangest times or in the strangest places. For Krug, it was 1999 and he was sitting in L.A.’s Universal Studios Hilton talking urine with Ditmar Gorges, a German engineer who wasn’t too thrilled about the amount of water a single flush of a urinal wastes. Of course, Gorges had already invented a waterless urinal that relied on gravity (when we said he wasn’t thrilled about the water waste, we meant it). So Krug figured he could put his VP experience to work and sell Gorges’ flush-less invention along with the replaceable cartridges that sat in each of the waterless receptacles. And it just so happens that cable tycoon Marc Nathanson, Al Gore, and Jeff Skoll (the first president of eBay) dug Krug’s sales pitches and were down with waterless flushes.

view more invention ideas

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Shield your fresh invention ideas

When you ever find yourself in court over your invention, you may need definite proof when you thought of your idea. Throughout america the actual rightful owner of the patent would be the one who thought of it initial, not one that patented it first.

So what it requires to do is to write down your new concept as simply and plainly as possible, and then have three or four reputable non-relatives are witness to your doc saying that they recognize the inventions and dating his or her signature. It really is usually a good idea to include blueprints or sketches also.

So in the future, if there is any dispute as to when you came up with your idea, you have witnesses that can testify in court, as to when you showed them your idea.

You might want to consider writing it in an approved inventor’s journal – a book specially designed with numbered pages so that it is difficult to add information later. There are numerous sources, just search the internet for them.

Once you’ve established the date that you thought of your idea, you have to follow a few simple rules to avoid losing your protection. If you do not do anything to develop your idea within one year, then your idea becomes part of the public domain and you lose your right to obtain a patent.

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Sometimes we know there must be a series of limitations around us, then being obstructed, entangled, trapped, finally sunk. Many of them are obstructions such as family disagreement, social restriction or the wrong national institutions, but the critical element is about how you treat them? The only way to get rid of them is get rid of yourself. Once you are worry about too much, the first limitation is built by yourself, not something bad around you. You must go your own way and break everything there really exist but not happen yet, and then use your own succeed to prove that: you are the unique one that can work like you’ve done.

We must make sure all of the invention ideas generated that way. Anyway, talent is also layfolk, but once a layfolk made a breakthrough, at that momnet he is the talent. We need continuous breakthrough because we need continuous invention ideas to produce new inventions continuously, but remember, the key is human forever, not new inventions.Everyday we are talking about something inspiring, original, fresh, maybe it’s not likely everyday, but surely, there exist a period of time when our brain need something different to gratify our curiosity. Actually all these new stuff can be reduced into a big classification that is new inventions, which mainly depends on our invention ideas, but please make sure first, without the later, we can’t build the former.

Then how to produce, or once we have some invention ideas, how to keep them up, this is the key why we are talking about invention ideas here, what we really need is a continuation ofinvention ideas, not a sudden impulse, even if it’s impossible for all the invention ideas to become ture.

Sometimes we know there must be a series of limitations around us, then being obstructed, entangled, trapped, finally sunk. Many of them are obstructions such as family disagreement, social restriction or the wrong national institutions, but the critical element is about how you treat them? The only way to get rid of them is get rid of yourself. Once you are worry about too much, the first limitation is built by yourself, not something bad around you. You must go your own way and break everything there really exist but not happen yet, and then use your own succeed to prove that: you are the unique one that can work like you’ve done.

We must make sure all of the invention ideas generated that way. Anyway, talent is also layfolk, but once a layfolk made a breakthrough, at that momnet he is the talent. We need continuous breakthrough because we need continuous invention ideas to produce new inventions continuously, but remember, the key is human forever, not new inventions.

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We are made unique, we think, we response and we discover such things that not yet exist in this world. We became well known for what we did or discovered, making new things with our own ideas or discovering such things with our own are called inventions. Inventions are new compositions of making unexisting things like, poetry, objects and structure. Through these ideas, we can extend the boundaries of our knowledge as human. Some inventions are base on our pre-existing ideas, means as we are living in this world we have this unique thinking to discover one simple or radical things. With inventions, there are different things exist, and these things help us to have a better life. Inventions also help our economy cycle, it helps our county to be known if we have our own inventions. Invention ideas our knowledge that no one can steal it, if we have this knowledge, we may be able to share it to others. There are people who are now known for their inventions, because of their ideas to discover things, their names were written in the history.

Because of inventions and ideas our own ideas, our world became higher in technology, it is proving that our ideas are infinite, theres no limitation in discovering and making new things. Inventions also required a highly creative process, which makes your inventions more creative and unique. Even we are a just simple people, if we have our own ideas in making new things or so called inventions ideas, we can be called the inventor.

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Everyday we are talking about something inspiring, original, fresh, maybe it’s not likely everyday, but surely, there exist a period of time when our brain need something different to gratify our curiosity. Actually all these new stuff can be reduced into a big classification that is new inventions, which mainly depends on our invention ideas, but please make sure first, without the later, we can’t build the former.

Then how to produce, or once we have some invention ideas, how to keep them up, this is the key why we are talking about invention ideas here, what we really need is a continuation of invention ideas , not a sudden impulse, even if it’s impossible for all the invention ideas to become ture.

Sometimes we know there must be a series of limitations around us, then being obstructed, entangled, trapped, finally sunk. Many of them are obstructions such as family disagreement, social restriction or the wrong national institutions, but the critical element is about how you treat them? The only way to get rid of them is get rid of yourself. Once you are worry about too much, the first limitation is built by yourself, not something bad around you. You must go your own way and break everything there really exist but not happen yet, and then use your own succeed to prove that: you are the unique one that can work like you’ve done.

We must make sure all of the invention ideas generated that way. Anyway, talent is also layfolk, but once a layfolk made a breakthrough, at that momnet he is the talent. We need continuous breakthrough because we need continuous invention ideas to produce new inventions continuously, but remember, the key is human forever, not new inventions.Everyday we are talking about something inspiring, original, fresh, maybe it’s not likely everyday, but surely, there exist a period of time when our brain need something different to gratify our curiosity. Actually all these new stuff can be reduced into a big classification that is new inventions, which mainly depends on our invention ideas, but please make sure first, without the later, we can’t build the former.

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Since the first signs of intelligence of humans we are proud of our inventions that allowed us as a specie to evolve to the first place of the nature chain.
I would like to remember some of the most important inventions that really represented a turn around in our human history.
Since the early ages when humans still lived in caves comes the first big invention: the wheel, which more used today than ever.
The big civilizations had there big impact on inventions as well: the Romans invented the bridge building and the aqueducts, the Chinese invented the gunpowder, the Greeks invented maps and the coins that we are still using today.
More recently other great invention made possible the level of technologies that we achieved today: the light ball by Edison, the telephone by Bell, the car by Henry Ford, and the right now used Internet by Tim Berners-Lee. This last invention still hasn’t reached his glory peak which is probably still to come.
Besides this technological inventions let’s do not forget the huge progress made by humans in the medical domain with lots of plagues being totally erased.
Our days everyone is trying to find ways to make our living better and easier with lots of small but useful inventions. My opinion is that the humans must turn their faces to the nature and try to come up with inventions that will protect more the environment and will keep our planet just the way it is now.

Invention ideas will be always an open chapter in humans history as long we will continue to evolve.

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Invention may not be materialized without being a great idea behind it. Creativity and imagination are the proven qualities we are all born with. In some people these qualities grow faster than the others. If we say these are God gifted qualities, it may not be wrong. Imagination is the power through which we can overcome obstacles and improve the quality of different tools and equipment we have available today, creativity on the other hand helps us create and workable the invention ideas we have developed.

The idea of invention is pleasant and rewarding too but without getting the patent rights your invention idea would not have any worth. For other inventions you might want to check first to see if it is already patented. You will also need the help of a professional patent search done by a reputable patent attorney. The next step is to look for an organization which helps inventors develop and market their invention ideas, which ultimately launch your product full force into the market.

Who can argue that the cell phone has not changed our lives remarkably? Now cell phones are popping up everywhere, providing a service we take for granted. There are many inventions which we can predict in the near future will take place like development of the military weapons, non-lethal weapon that uses some kind of microwave radiation.
In this race medical devices can not be left out. Perhaps medical devices are the top most in this type of the categories. Pace makers, insulin pumps artificial hearts are keeping patients alive long enough to find donors. We will definitely see a rash of artificial organs, and better methods of control arrive on the scene in the near future. The energy sector is also very important sector and it will change in its shape in the future. Some headway is being made with wireless power transmission. Who would not want to get rid of the cords for all those table and floor lamps? Imagine doing away with all the power cords in your home and office! Perhaps wireless power transmission is the next big thing!

All these great inventions of the future can only take place because of the great idea behind all thes

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