Hello Christopher,

I can only speak from my own experience: I designed a product in 1999, received the patent in 2002, found a large sewing company and had 1000 units made. I have sold a little over 3000 since 2002 with only three returns and many of the customers are repeat buyers. The product has been in 3 catalogs (with very little profit) but they did not pick up the product once their supply ran out. My product fits into a niche market: very, very difficult to market to a smaller audience – especially if you have to educate the consumer.

Currently, I am still in the running for the BB&B search and if I get to license the product and take less profit per unit but have a chance for volume, that will be great for me after years of struggling.

Only you can answer your questions but, hopefully, others will tell you of their experiences. Good luck.

One word of advice: Tenacity….

Hello Christopher:

I’m going to try to license / assign my invention. With health issues and no business experience, that’s my best bet…

I’m more than happy to turn the idea over to someone and let them have all the headaches in return for a small percentage of profits.

If I were younger, and had lots of energy… I would be considering other options.

Just remember this isn’t necessarily an either/or decision. You can manufacture and license, manufacture then license, etcetera. Licensing and manufacturing yourself are just two separate ways in which a product can be introduced to the market, and are independent of one another where exclusive agreements don’t exist. The options you choose depend on your strategy. An optimal strategy depends on your competitive environment, your budget, the amount of free time you have, your purely personal preferences and objectives, and a variety of other factors. You simply cannot expect to get a meaningful answer from a basic message board post.

Anyways some quick notes. It does not sound like you are currently selling your invention. Therefore, you CAN NOT POSSIBLY have a trademark. Trademark rights are created by use. You can file to register a trademark, which can temporarily reserve the rights to a name under certain circumstances. Yet your filing must be maintained properly and you have no rights until you have actually began to use the trademark in commerce. Also – it sounds as if you have filed a provisional patent application. Keep in mind that provisional applications are never examined by the USPTO, a large percentage of inventor-filed provisional apps do not meet the necessary specifications, meaning they confer absolutely no advantage other than allowing for the phrase patent pending, and keep in mind that most professionals that regularly
deal with inventors are perfectly aware of this from the get go. If you tell them you have a provisional patent, it is a give away that you likely do not understand how patents work.

Concerning my product, I am not selling it yet. As it is still a prototype, I am considering some minor design changes before moving to production. For those who have previously licensed a product to an inventor friendly company, I was interested in hearing about their experience, good or bad.

This product has a provisional patent (patent pending) and I filed to register a trademark as of late June 2009. If I am correct, I have a year before the product must be sold to retain the rights to a trademark, and file a design patent. I have designed products for other companies, so I am familiar with the process from design and prototyping to manufacturing. The other aspects, such as getting a product into a retail store, is what I am still learning about.

I have tooling quotes, which are higher than I would like. All the part surfaces have adequate draft angle applied, so ejecting the part form the mold should not be a problem. I may need to consider replacing the overmolding with in-mold decoration (IMD) or hot-stamping as the product aesthetics must be maintained, and the cost needs to be reduced.

Christopher, If you will go to the ‘search’ button which appears in the upper right corner of every forum and type in “provisional patent” or “trademark” or any other words which best describe you area of interest, messages about that topic will appear. Also, you will find that, in some cases, there are whole forums dedicated to that particular subject, i.e. Provisional Patent.

Good luck.

“This product has a provisional patent (patent pending) and I filed to register a trademark as of late June 2009. If I am correct, I have a year before the product must be sold to retain the rights to a trademark, and file a design patent.”

For the trademark – I am assuming you filed on an intent to use basis – to preserve the registration you must either submit to the USPTO a “statement of use,” or you must request an extension for more time within 6 months from the date a “notice of allowance” is issued. The purpose of a “statement of use” is to document use of your trademark in commerce. More info here – http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/tmfaq.htm#....

For a patent, a provisional patent app can be used to establish a filing / “priority” date for an eventually resulting utility patent. A provisional application cannot serve as priority for a design patent.