Over on the Inventor’s Mentor Library Forum, I answered the following question: “What are the main things I should think about when “designing” my idea into a product?” My answer was well received so I thought I would share it with the Invention Addict readers in case they are not on the forum yet. I [...]

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Recently I encountered two people with different situations but the same goal. They want to commercialize their inventions. One person has a prototype and issued patents. The other inventor is not as far along, he has a proof of concept and not sure where to turn. My first question to either person is what is [...]

Have you ever heard a designer say, “form follows function”. What does that mean anyway? I had someone ask the question “should my part be injection molded or vacuum formed?”. Great question and it really comes down to the form of the design and the desired function. Let me explain … Form follows function. If [...]

Setting up shop is easy. For around $16 a month you can host a site with eCommerce and not have to pay any commissions. It’s offered by a company called Wix. No, not the oil filter guys! Wix has been around since 2005 and they are starting to gain traction and they keep adding new [...]

I came across this video. OK, the guy is a bit odd but he has some good tips on how to get you product into companies for licensing. He mentions the toy industry but it still applies to most consumer products. Sometimes you need to ge through the back door. Salespeople love to talk and [...]

Feeling Quirky? You’ve heard of outsourcing. Companies ship jobs off to areas with lower costs of production. Have you heard of CROWDSOURCING? Crowdsoucing is like Wikipedia. The public contributes (usually for free) to create something bigger and better that a single person or single company could do on their own. A site recently launched called [...]

I found a helpful directory called DMOZ. www.dmoz.org Rather than a keyword search like Google, it groups similar content in categories. It has a category on Inventions and here are a few sites on self help. From Patent to Profit – Book that guides inventors through the invention process including information about patents and invention [...]

Your tax dollars at work well spent for a change. Have you ever visited the USPTO website, that’s the United States Patent and Trademark Office for those new to the innovation biz. There’s lots of good information, but not so easy to find what you need. They really need to study up on web site [...]

Photobucket.com is a FREE site to store images like this that you can add to websites and comments on blogs. Not every blog will let you embed the HTML code. Set-up a free account, upload the picture or graphic, and select share. I just highkighted and copied the HTML code and voila!, the image shows [...]