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  • 08/01/2012 1:32 PM
    Message # 1028019
    Deleted user
    I'm new to inventing and the Forum.  I learned at the first IF meeting I attended, that "nothing is new, it's already been patented".  Very true, so I'm sure I will end up with a design patent.  In order to finalize a design, I've been going through existing patents....there's alot.....to nail down a patentable design.  I need help understanding what to look for as I'm searching....PLEASE!!  

    Would love to find an experienced inventor to mentor me through this process.  My product has to do with the pharmaceuticals industry.

    Thank you in advance,
    Patty Buxton
    949.443.9185
  • 08/07/2012 6:22 PM
    Reply # 1041535 on 1028019
    I disagree that nothing is new.  It's true that the patent office is taking "obvious" more seriously but don't give up.  We have had some great patent search seminars and we will probably have another. In the meantime come to a members only meeting and get some help with your project. 
  • 08/13/2012 1:25 PM
    Reply # 1046068 on 1028019
    Anonymous
    Hi Patties!

    Yes, I too disagree with the literal interpretation. In our box of mindset tools we should throw out the statement "Nothing is new, its already been patented" and replace it with something Mike says at his lectures "If you haven't found anything similar or related to your idea, you haven't searched far enough." Mike emphasizes this at his "Inventing 101" lectures, and points out that so many people immediately conclude that "it has been done yet" when they see it isn't on the shelves at their local Home Depot down the street from their house.

    You may yet end up with a utility patent. Also keep in mind that a patent isn't always necessary to launch an invention onto the marketplace. Another of our Patties has invented a new type of umbrella for artists. she did this without any patents. Check out her YouTube video under Best Brella. Also, go to her website and read how she did it.

    There is still plenty of room for "new". "New" doesn't have to be a big "new". It can be a little tiny "new". Did you see the lecture by the Texas sisters? Here were two housewives who developed a new kind of posterboard and it had only two very tiny innovations in it. These "new" innovations were so basic and simple as to seem frivolous or silly and not worth the bother of researching, and yet no one had applied them to posterboard up to that point. These new innovations consisted of
        1. printing lines on the boards and
        2. making the lines so fine ( and of such a color) as to make them virtually invisible once anything (like lettering) was added to the board. In other words, they were lines so light that they didn't need to be erased. So if you wanted to print lettering or place artwork onto a posterboard, you didn't have to bother drawing your guidelines, nor bother erasing them later.

    Go check out the website of the Texas sisters at asktheinventors.com and read how they did it.

    Now people have been printing graph paper and engineering pads with grid lines for over a hundred years. The same is true with blue lined notebook paper. But in all this time, no one applied this to posterboard. The sisters got a utility patent on it! They did this with tiny little innovations. They didn't have any technical background. However, they did do their homework.

    Go to the inventors forum meetings. Listen to the lectures. Go to the members assistance meetings. Hang out with the inventors. Steven Key himself said that we need places like this to hang out and talk with each other, otherwise we will drive our families nuts! The whole club is a mentoring nest. Be patient, do your homework. Have fun, one step at a time.

    By the way, there are some classes on plastics coming up. Professor Terry Price gave us a lecture on plastics and he has classes at Cerritos College. You might want to consider attending and attempt building a few prototypes. (I'm not sure if your invention is a new drug or a medical device). A bunch of us took one of his plastics classes a few months ago and got a good opening introduction to the world of plastics. I got motivated enough to go to the Plastics Depot in Torrance and I bought some silicone mold making materials, then drove around and bought some plaster of Paris, several types of clay and a couple little childrens' mold making kits. All of these materials can be used for making molds, patterns, and protoypes. Yesterday I bought some of that expanding foam stuff from the Home Depot, the insulation that comes in a spray can. I'm going to use that for mold making too.

    As for my experiences inventing, I must confess that aside from attending the meetings, most of my adventures have consisted of scribbling down notes as the ideas come up, later to scribble sloppier and sometimes detailed mechanical sketches for contraptions on my note pads, eventually to tear the sheets out and shove them into my overstuffed file cabinets for safekeeping. I have actually built a few prototypes, but most of my activity has been scribbling and discussion. My theory is that if I keep going to these Inventors Forum  meetings I will eventually get motivated to get off my duff and follow through the complete process.

    I don't know if you saw the lecture on 3D printing by the guys at Growit, but you should probably get familiar with 3D printing.  Go to their website at growit3d.com and read about them, then click on "videos" and watch their videos, then call them and see if you can attend one of their upcoming free lunch seminars (they provide sandwiches). I think they hold them once a month. Its like an all day thing. They show you the machines, they show you their shop, they lecture you on the 7 systems of 3d technology they have at their disposal. They are in Lake Forest.

    You need someone skilled in SoildWorks (a type of computerized drafting program) to put your plans into a SolidWorks file, then these guys can take it from there and rapidly produce an actual physical part, "grown" in a machine. Some of our fellow members are draftspeople (yes, some are girls) skilled in SolidWorks and familiar with the technology.

    Happy Inventing!

    David









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