When you first come up with your invention, it can be exciting! That’s normal- you’re feeling the possibilities in your spirit of what could happen, and you have a lot of energy when you first come up with a new idea.
But as important as that energy is, it’s even more important that it’s allied to the correct THINKING, because you need the correct STRUCTURE for how to move ahead.
What makes that even more important is that there are lots of ‘invention help’ companies who have extreme low success rates in terms of getting financial success for inventors like you. But many of them have their marketing and ‘sales funnel’ set up to seem very tempting for new, excited inventors.
With that in mind, I’ve listed what I think are the seven worst mistakes that inventors tend to make. If any of them apply to you, there’s a link below each one for you to find out more about them. I’d be very, very surprised if at least one or two of them don’t jump out at you as hugely relevant to your situation right now, even if you’ve literally only come up with your invention concept today!
Worst Mistake #1: Using One of The Pirates of The Inventor’s Journey™
At SHIINE®, on The Inventor’s Journey™, we call ‘invention help’ companies that have extreme low success rates at generating more money for inventors than what inventors spend with them ‘The Pirates’ of The Inventor’s Journey™. The two biggest ones we know about are Davison and InventHelp.
Davison were found guilty of deceptive business practice in US courts in 2006 when they were taken to court by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). On average, they turnover more than $50 Million per year from inventors/customers like you, and their latest figures we have at time of writing this post, for the 5 year period up to May 26th 2023, show that, for their service where they typically charge you $8,000-$16,000, they have a less than 1 in 3000 success rate of inventors making more money than they spend.
InventHelp had a run-in with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 1994, where they apparently reached an out-of-court settlement with the FTC for $1.2 Million, (as mentioned on NBCnews.com). Our most recent figures we have for them, (in the period of 2021-2023), show that they signed ‘submission agreements’ with 3529 inventors/clients, and that 9 of those inventors/clients made more money than they paid InventHelp as a direct result of their services. That’s a success rate of 0.255%, or around 1 in 392.
And World Patent Marketing were fairly recently SHUT DOWN by the FTC.
Obviously this is stratospherically important for the inventor, (you), to know about. If you’re worried, and want to find out more about this information and perhaps other companies you were thinking of using to help you with your invention, this is the focus of Deadly Mistake #1. Access Deadly Mistake #1 freely here.
Worst Mistake #2: Getting a Bad Patent Search
Not all patent searches are created equal!! (I always say that, and it’s really an understatement!). As someone who’s effectively been a patent practitioner for the last 13-14 years, I cannot tell you how important it can be to get an ultra-high quality patent search. It can really help to give precision and clarity as to what the best patenting strategy should be for your invention when it comes to filing a patent application for it.
But getting a bad patent search is not only in-and-of-itself a bad thing- it can have the REVERSE effect. Without finding that crucial ‘prior art’ as early as possible that could block your patent, it can lead to huge wasting of time, money, and resources. It just defeats the whole purpose of getting a patent search. Access Deadly Mistake #2 [GETTING A BAD PATENT SEARCH] freely here.
Worst Mistake #3: Trying to License Your Invention Too Early
Many places will tell inventors something along the lines of this:
‘’Developing and patenting your idea can be very expensive- why not just do the minimum possible, and then try to secure a licensing deal with a company that will manufacture the invention themselves? That way, they’ll cover nearly all the costs for developing, patenting, and launching the product themselves, and you can make money from the profit!’’.
I can see why that sounds good(!), but unfortunately, this has been proven to be a stratospherically unsuccessful way to try to get success with your invention. One of the obvious reasons for this is that your invention, (if it’s truly commercially viable), becomes more attractive THE MORE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT YOU HAVE DONE ON IT, (if the product development is done right). In essence, if you want to license your invention, you need to stop looking at it as a ‘short-cut’, and get as much of the process done as you can, exactly as if you were trying to release the invention yourself. (You may not want to hear that, but it’s true).
If you want to find out more about this, access Deadly Mistake #3 [TRYING TO LICENSE YOUR INVENTION TOO EARLY] freely here.
Worst Mistake #4: Thinking a Provisional Patent Application Protects Your Invention
Many inventors think that filing a ‘provisional patent application’ in some way gives them some patent protection. In fact, you’ll often see start-up inventors use the term ‘provisional patent’, saying something like ‘’I have a provisional patent’’. There’s no such thing. A ‘’provisional patent’’ is not a thing that exists. (I’ve drafted, filed, and prosecuted more than 40 patent applications to grant, mostly at the UKIPO, but around a dozen or more at the USPTO, so you can trust me).
The actual correct term for ‘provisional patent application’ is ‘provisional application for patent’, and you may be surprised that even filing a full NON-provisional patent application doesn’t get you any patent protection. You only get actual patent ‘protection’ once your patent is GRANTED. Filing of a provisional (or non-provisional) patent application merely gets you ‘patent pending’ status.
If this confuses you at all or you want complete clarity, watch this video I made. It’s a good video:
If you like this video and felt it helped you understand, it’s part of the Patents Untranslated™ Video Series, and you can also get free access to all the Patents Untranslated™ Video Series videos on the Free Trial aboard SHIINE® ENTERPRISE. Fairly soon, I’m going to be looking to add a video a week to the series. They should be really helpful ion helping you get to grips with some patenting subjects.
Worst Mistake #5: Getting Expensive Services Before a Prototype
This is a mistake I made back when I was a start-up inventor with my first invention, Discshine™. I went to a company who did a fairly expensive graphics and presentation package for Discshine™, (approximately £1500/$2000), and then sent me to a patent attorney, which, at the time I stopped the process, had cost approximately £2100/$2500. They then did a fairly inexpensive (£500) prototype attempt, which proved that the design the expensive graphics and patent application had been based on was not technically feasible. It effectively meant that money spent on the graphics and patenting was wasted. It was actually what got me started in this industry because I was then out of money and lost my health, forcing me into a corner to patent my first invention, Discshine™, myself. (It also got me started on creating a system where steps were done in the perfect order, to make sure this type of problem couldn’t happen).
What you really need to do is come into contact with a high quality product designer, get your invention designed/converted into the ‘perfect version’ of the product and have a proof-of-principle prototype done of that ‘perfect design’, and only then file the full patent application once all the new features/learnings from the ‘perfect design’ prototype have been taken into account and can be included in the patent application. (It’s fairly rare that inventors come to me with a fully completed design- it happens, but it’s rare. Usually high-quality product design is needed).
This is an important one, and I go into detail about this (and how it went wrong for Discshine™ when I went to an ‘invention help’ company), in Deadly Mistake #5 [GETTING EXPENSIVE SERVICES BEFORE A PROTOTYPE]. You can access that freely here.
Worst Mistake #6: Getting a Bad Patent From a Patent Attorney
Many inventors make the mistake of putting their patent attorney on a pedestal, ‘assuming’ that the patent attorney will get the best possible patent protection for their invention. The truth is, (and I can say this having been on both sides of the fence since I used a patent attorney when I was a start-up inventor, before I became a patent specialist myself), this is mostly borne out of ignorance and wishful thinking from the start-up inventor.
Basically, patenting can seem ‘scary’ for start-up inventors, and very hard to understand. (It was exactly the same for me, when I started). It’s often just ‘easier’ for the inventor to put the patent attorney on a mythical pedestal, and think that the patent attorney is just some kind of ‘genius’ that will definitely get them the best patent protection possible. (I think the fact patent attorneys cost a lot of money only re-enforces this ‘unconscious wishful-thinking’ in the inventor- after all, if the patent attorney costs so many thousands of pounds/dollars, they MUST be amazing at what they do, right???). Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.
Watch this video, and take the patent attorney off the pedestal. (That’s an order):
(P.S. I speak quite slowly in this video, so if you want the video to go faster, just click on the gear/settings icon in the video player and select x1.5 speed):
PPS I have a lot of content that can quickly get you to a point where you can actually check the independent claim(s) your patent attorney drafts, to check for any mistakes. Whilst we’ll be helping you with the best patent practitioners possible when you take your invention through The Inventor’s Journey™, I really believe you can play an important role in stopping mistakes happening with your patenting. (The program ‘iPerfectPending™’, which is available as part of the Patent Pending Package video programs, focuses on the ‘claim 1’ (independent claim) and will help you a lot with this).
And if you want even more info about the problem of getting a bad patent from a patent attorney, (and how to stop it happening with your invention), that’s the focus of Deadly Mistake #6, which you can access free, here.
Worst Mistake #7: Not Mastering The Art of Invention Development
As you can see, there’s quite a bit to take in here.
What it all comes down to is that you’re in a much better position to make the right decision in terms of how to move forward with your invention when you actually understand what Invention Development is, and how it works. If you DON’T, you could be highly persuadable by companies/individuals who are not in your best interest to use, but who know how to market to your hopes, dreams and fears, to make you part with your cash.
I would love to see a future where every single start-up inventor, (like you, and like me when I started), can quickly and effectively learn (and therefore KNOW) exactly what Invention Development is, and how it works, before even moving forward with any company. I’m trying to sort that out as we speak, and put things in place for us to get closer to that, and I’m soon going to have the Invention Mastery Video Series completed, which will put you in that exact position of full ‘soft mastery’ of Invention Development, before you even start Ther Inventor’s Journey™.
In the meantime, I would say start with The 7 Deadly Mistakes That Inventors Make™ Video Series. It’s fun, reasonably quick, and FREE! It’ll immunize you against the worst mistakes possible, and acts as preparation for the Journey if you end up wanting to take your invention through The Inventor’s Journey™ 8 step system afterwards.
It would be great if this program stops you losing/wasting money. That’s why I made it!