Paying for Patent Protection

August is National Inventors Month. In 1998, the United Inventors Association of the USA (UIA-USA), the Academy of Applied Science, and Inventors' Digest magazine initiated a month long event to celebrate invention and creativity.

I found it interesting that during the month that honors inventors, I got a Google alert about a backlog at the US Patent Office that is thwarting inventors' ability to protect their ideas. According to an article on CBS News "the current wait for a patent is, on average, three years, or 36 months."

The consequence of this backlog is that many inventors find their ideas "knocked off" by large prosperous companies. When we interviewed women for The Right Sisters, nine of the ten women had dealt with knock-offs or copies of their products.

The CBS News article goes on to report that the patent office is self-funding, meaning that it operates on the fees charged for patents. The charge for a patent application is around $1000 with a discount for small enterprises. One theory suggests that if fees were higher, thereby increasing the operating budget of USPO, the process would speed up and protection would come more quickly.

This is a crucial IF for independent inventors who operate on a shoestring budget. While we are anxious for protection, we are often dealing with tenuous financial constraints. It's important to recognize that the increase in patent application fees would be added to patent attorney fees that are often necessary to write a strong patent application.

The dilemma this creates for inventors is confusing and difficult to sort out. If you are an inventor, would you be willing to pay higher fees for quicker protection? Why or why not?

Inventor Beware!

Did you know that 1 in 3 inventors have spent from $8000 to $12,000 on scams that claimed they would help the inventor get his/her product to market? Such scams, traps, and raw deals are rampant. Of the 8 women I interviewed for my book, The Right Sisters: Women Inventors Tell Their Stories, four of them told stories of buying into such scams.

So inventors BEWARE!

My friend Louis Foreman, the Executive Producer of the award winning program “Everyday Edisons,” offers this advice: “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”



The most important thing you can do when you first get started is lots of homework! Always carefully research anyone offering to assist you in getting your product to market. Check out the reputation of any person, company, or organization BEFORE you spend a penny.

I’ve found the United Inventors Association (UIA) to be particularly useful. They offer a terrific 10- part miniseries entitled “What Every Inventor Needs to Know” in which the first episode is all about avoiding scams. Obviously, UIA recognizes what a problem scams are for inventors.

Check out UIA. You can subscribe to UIA for free and get a monthly newsletter as well as access to the mini-series.

And remember to always do your homework!

Michael Jackson, Inventor

Yesterday, millions of people said good bye to Michael Jackson. His death was shocking, especially to those of us who spent years listening, dancing, and working out to his music.

For several days following his death, stories about Jackson filled the airways, revealing many shocking, as well as amazing, details of the man’s life. As people gathered for his memorial service, I followed the story on NPR and learned this surprising fact: Jackson had a patent. He was an inventor!

Of course, we know he created extraordinary music as well as dance steps, but he also invented and patented a system related to dance. According to “Discovery News,” the title of the patent was: “Method and means for creating anti-gravity illusion.”

It's a system that consists of a special shoe that has a hitch designed to attach to a projection in a stage. When the shoe engages with the component in the stage, the performer can lean forward beyond his or her center of gravity. (To see a video of the shoe in action, click the link above.)

The creative mind comes in many forms: scientific, practical, and artistic—and clearly the boundaries are fluid. Having always appreciated the creativity of the man, I can’t help but feel a sense of satisfaction at having this small connection with Jackson’s legacy.

Talk About Patenting

This week I head to Washington D.C. with my son Joe. I’ve been invited to be a guest speaker at the 13th Annual Independent Inventors Conference which is sponsored by United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Inventors Hall of Fame. The USPTO leads the way in creating and supporting a market-driven intellectual property system for the 21st Century.

There is nothing more daunting to a new inventor than trying to get an idea patented. There is no one to hold your hand and walk you through the process unless you have a patent attorney. And although it is an important step in the inventing journey, it is not the first step. An inventor has to know as much as they can about the product, the industry, the costs, and the potential customer before they even think about getting a patent or a patent attorney.

That’s why I’m delighted to have an opportunity to speak to inventors. I’d love to help them avoid some of the problems that I faced in the beginning. I’ll be talking about my story as a successful independent inventor and the things I have learned along the way, including:

• the importance of doing your homework,
• how to better position yourself for a successful launch,
• what you can do to protect yourself and avoid pitfalls,
• how to get your product into the right hands,
• where you can go for reputable resources.

You can watch a live web cast of the general sessions of the conference on Friday and Saturday at the USPTO’s website, www.uspto.gov. Log on Friday morning at 8 a.m.EST and follow the instructions to access the web cast.

The truly exciting part of this trip is that my son who is a video photographer will be following me around with his camera throughout the conference to document my adventure so I can share them with you. Look for a follow up next week when I’ll be posting segments of my speech and hopefully some video footage.