You’ve been thrown a curve-ball
(IDEAS vs PRODUCTS)
Here’s the bad news- (but I have to tell you this to protect you against The Pirates of The Inventor’s Journey™)- This idea that you can skip getting a lot of things done and paying for a lot of things, (like patenting, high quality product development, etc), and just have a great ‘IDEA’, and get a licensing deal with a company that will then just take on all the costs for you is almost as close as can be to a FALLACY. It’s just NOT how the real world works.
Below, I’ll give you some of the main reason why this is, but before that, you might be asking ‘’Captain- If what you say is true, why have all these ‘invention help’ companies told me that the way forward is just to file a patent application and then let them try to promote my invention to get me a licensing deal?’’. And here’s what I THINK the answer is
IT’S AN EASY WAY FOR THEM TO GET YOUR MONEY
Think about it- if they get you EXCITED about getting a licensing deal, (which might be your DREAM and DESIRE, then they can get you to part with a lot of money, very quickly, if you think they’re the SOLUTION for that. So what you’ll often find is that they’ll charge you for a relatively inexpensive service first, and then they may go very quickly after that into a service where they’ll charge you anywhere from $5000-$15,000+ perhaps, (ie a lot of money). If that’s their model, I can GUARANTEE you, they will have EXTREME LOW SUCCESS RATES, because as someone whop understands product development, (and other aspects of the Invention Development process), your product concept will likely be woefully under-developed, and just in no way ready for you trying to license yet.
Despite what you’ve heard in the press, (or in some magical fairy-tale of quote from someone famous), IDEAS HAVE NO VALUE. PRODUCTS HAVE VALUE. Remember that. In this game, IDEAS HAVE NO VALUE. PRODUCTS HAVE VALUE. And going through companies that run models like that, it’s highly unlikely your invention has been developed into a product in the way it will be when you go on The Inventor’s Journey™.
But here’s another problem that’s very important to understand:
Companies that won’t entertain a licensing deal with you until after your patent is GRANTED
Nearly all really big, good prestigious companies will not allow you to disclose/present your invention to them until AFTER you’ve got your patent GRANTED
OOPS! I guess that company who want to charge you for ‘promoting’ your invention for a licensing deal didn’t tell you that! Please watch the Deadly Mistake #3 video above from 8:43 where it talks about how DANGEROUS it is for companies to allow invention disclosures from random inventors like yourself. It’s literally a ticket to them being (possibly unfairly) sued by individual inventors who could allege that their invention has been ‘stolen’ by that company, and signing an NDA (confidentiality agreement) is also just something almost none of these companies will do, partly for the above reason, but also for another reason, and that’s that there’s a danger that signing the NDA could possibly restrict them from developing products similar to what you disclose, even if those products were not invented by you. For many reasons, it’s very likely that they will consider it’s just not a chance worth taking. And that’s why they don’t.
For this reason, many of these companies will only allow you to disclose/present your invention AFTER you’ve actually got your patent GRANTED. (ie After you’ve gone through the whole patenting process). So that destroys your dream that they’ll pick up the patenting costs for you!! They do this because once the patenting process is OVER for you, (ie once you’ve got your patent granted), they know the exact SCOPE of protection you have. This makes it far less likely that they will get into trouble for developing products similar to your invention concept, because if the products they develop are OUTSIDE THE SCOPE OF PROTECTION OF YOUR GRANTED PATENT, then you have no case anyway. So they probably will not only require that you’ve already had your patent granted, but they will also likely refuse to sign an NDA.
But this causes a slightly scary problem from YOUR point of view- If this company you disclose to know the limitations of your patent protection, is there a chance they could pretty much COPY your invention concept, but by DESIGNING AROUND your granted patents. In some cases, this may well be possible, especially if
1) You (ie your patent practitioner) had to narrow/limit the scope of the protection you were trying to get during the examination process, due to the patent office examiner finding prior art that blocked you being able to get broad patent protection for your invention concept; and/or
2) Your patent practitioner did a bad job and failed to get you the best patent protection possible for your invention.
In either of these cases, it’s very possible that the company you disclose to, to try to license your invention to, could just design around your granted patent and release products that, from your point of view, make it look like they STOLE your invention concept, but which, from a LEGAL point of view, you’d have absolutely no ability to stop them moving forward with.
I’m sorry if this information isn’t nice to swallow. But I feel it’s important for you to understand this because I need to snap you out of the DREAM of getting success, and get you aligned with the REALITY of how to get success as an inventor.
Advanced Prototype (Step 6) + The Inventor’s Journey™ Loan
Here’s the solution. And it’s very important you listen to this if your ideal is to license your invention.
I’ll give you the bad news first. Then I’ll give you some very good news.
The bad news is that, if you want to optimize the chances of licensing your invention, the truth is you have to do exactly the same steps/services that an inventor has to do if they’re trying to self-launch, (eg by crowdfunding). In other words, you cannot skip steps.
This means you will have to go through the product development process fully, and you will have to go through the patenting process fully. But there’s some good news.
The good news is that, if you get through the first half of The Inventor’s Journey™, (ie complete step 4, where you’ll hopefully get PerfectPatent™ protection allowed at the patent office), it unlocks The Inventor’s Journey™ loan. This means you can take out a loan with SHIINE®ENTERPRISE, and that takes care of your charges for the final half (ie the final 4 steps/services) of The Inventor’s Journey™. In order to cover our costs on our side, there is a 10% charge on top of the amount of the loan, but we may lower that as we intend to run The Inventor’s Journey™ loan at close-to-non-profit.
But the real solution, when it comes down to highly optimizing your chances of licensing your invention, is both The Inventor’s Journey™ system itself, but more specifically step 6, (advanced prototype):
Step 6 is the KEY to you being far more likely to being able to secure a licensing deal, because if you have a truly commercially viable product concept, once you have an advanced prototype that looks and functions as close as possible to a sales-ready version of the product, no-one has to make a leap of imagination any more to understand the full value of your invention that you’ve always known it has- it’s there for all to see.
And that’s why, at SHIINE®, we use your advanced prototype at step 6 as the BASIS of your presentation to try to license your invention. But its gets better than that- Before trying to license your invention at step 8 of The Journey, we create an explainer video of your advanced prototype in action at step 7 (Launch Video). And if you want to try to crowdfund your invention, that option is there as well.
So the path for you to license your invention is clear- get through the first half of The Inventor’s Journey™, hopefully getting PerfectPatent™ protection allowed at the patent office at step 4. Then, if you have any issue funding the next steps, activate The Inventor’s Journey™ loan to take care of the rest of the steps/services of The Inventor’s Journey™. Get your advanced prototype made at step 6, get your Launch Video made at step 7, and then let’s try to LAUNCH your invention via licensing at the final step of The Inventor’s Journey™!!!!
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