There are a number of factors that can cause a product to be slow to market. Lets say you approach a company with your product idea and they love the concept. That does not mean your functionality is correct. They may have to do redesigning to get the proper functionality. Take my Pizza Scissors for example. If you look at the sell sheet on my website http://www.rogerbrown.net/help/ and look at the final product you can see we had to angle the neck a little to make it more ergonomic. Then you have molds made and samples and tweak it more if needed.

Companies have to look at the raw materials they will need and their availability. The cost of the units and how many they need to make to drive their costs down. They have to look at their distribution. Do they own their own chain of stores they plan on selling this in or do they have to get buyers interested in picking up the item for the chains they represent? What are they going to do to get the public aware of the product or are they relying on word of mouth? If it sells well can they meet the demand for orders? It is not good to tell a company wanting your product you don’t have any and going back to them later does not always mean they will now buy it. Running out of stock can be the kiss of death for a product, but at the same time flooding the market with your product can cheapen its value to the consumer.

The carrot farm analogy is a good example. I would add one more issue to that mix. You have to factor in that consumers will accept a less quality product for a cheaper price if they feel it still meets their needs. High quality is not always the best indicator of what will sell well. Consumers go to Wal-Mart primarily for the ability to find the majority of what they want in one place instead of driving around town going to several stores. Consumers also know that Wal-Mart will normally be cheaper on most of these products because of the high volume they buy from those other brands.
You also have to look at the target consumers budget. If your target market is the group making from $25,000 to $80,000 a year you will need to price items lower than if your target maket consumer is $200,000 to $500,000. It follows the logic of the person who can afford the $250,000 car. Are they really concerned about the price of gas the same way the general public is?

A solid NDA gives contractual protection; Roger has some solid NDA examples on his website: http://rogerbrown.net/help/ . If I approach a company with or without an NDA or PPA, I’d still be the inventor of the product and able to file. Without the NDA then I’m disclosing the item and I’d presume I’d need to file a patent within the year and may have lost patentability in other countires. With a PPA and without an NDA, then I’d figure I’m still disclosing it, but can say “patent pending” and may be able to patent in other countries.

In concept an NDA sounds great in many ways, because I would assume it is many, many times easier to sue for breach of contract than for patent infringement.

The key to the no IP approach is that the intent is still to get IP if it isn’t a short shelf-life item. It’s just you negotiate with that company to pay for it as part of the license agreement. Next part is pure speculation, but if they are paying for it I’d imagine I’d be assigning the patent to them as part of the licensing agreement.

Whereas Edison Nation is the assignee here. They have the internal legal resources to lower the functional cost of patenting and can negotiate targeted and narrower licenses which gives more market opportunities. A number of writers out there talk about using segmented licensing to either leverage up the royalty of the first license, reach new licencees with geographic/functionally narrower licences, or using tighter timespans. I’m not sure that leverage exists if your initial licensee is paying for the patent.

I just read today’s blog article, “Royal(ty) Flush” written by Mike Drummond I think what the viewpoint of not having a patent is that there are avenues to take that can bring a product to market through licensing that the inventor himself/herself does not have to pay for the patent, but in turn lets the manufacturer who licenses the product do this. I am not sure if this is how it is done or not.

I would think that the correct Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) would be very helpful in this case. I myself have always felt a little disadvantaged with the legal side of contacting and negotiating contracts with companies and therefore have always stopped at some point mainly for this reason when contacting companies myself in the past.

It has worked (for example Roger Brown cited in this article), but I am wondering if this type of individual negotiation without any sort of patent protection is more for those with some legal background? Maybe I am mistaken?

If I have a carrot farm and the next Joe sees a profit in farming, he can’t grow my carrots. He can grow his own crop better (or less) in quantity or quality. However he can not use my seed crop unless he pays me for it. If my seed is of greater value because it grows better quality, a better yield, or for it’s unique color, then I have a market share worth protecting and being compensated fairly for it and characteristics it provides. If I don’t have those types of qualities, then there is no need for extravagant measures to protect it. It’s not that unique and I might as well just go to market like Joe decided to. But, since my carrots are so excellent that there is a market for them, then I’ve found my market and I can produce to fulfill that market demand whether it be large or small. If someone has a red carrot rather than my blue carrot, then he has a market that he gets to fulfill and I have no rights to his carrot or his market share… Everybody else can grow the standard varieties, but to think that the profit margins would be the same or that there will be no competition in the orange variety is the decision and risk of every farmer. But if there is a hint of blue or red, the mega farmer just might have lost his bumper crop several times over.

Great points, so far from everyone. However it’s not a matter of rabbits eating our gardens, but rather other farmers putting their own gardens in that compete directly with yours. Patent protection (as in PPA’s or even Utility) overall does not take that long. Market research, finding specifics things for specific sponsors (in other words catering specifically to clients exact wants) does. Back to carrots:
You can have your own farm and grow the best, organically grown beautiful carrots ever, but you are but one small farmer. When Mega industrial Corp moves in and grows 1000 times the volume you do (organic or not), they can sell them for a fraction of the cost based on sheer volume. They flood the market places with their lost cost- low quality carrots…and guess what- Your market share just took a major hit. You may be able to retain some loyal customers but will have a hard time earning the lions share… because the lion just took it from you.

I totally agree with IP protection and know it has its uses, but in the end it is only as good as your claims and your ability (read: resources, money) to defend it. Roger Brown brought up some excellent points in many of his posts that illustrate that exact issue. Real example: Eggies already has knockoffs and copycats, and it didn’t take them a year to do it either- they move fast. This is an emerging, real threat from anyone’s point of view and is a force to be reckoned with. As the markets change and the world economy continues to shift power to nations like China, it is only going to get worse. There is one original you, but many of them. Think Star Trek Enterprise vs. the ‘Borg’- Resistance is very futile and at some point you realize that, but it may be too late.

The analogy with ocean liner, well it has lots of fuel to make the journey, food, people, repair parts, etc… it’s a planned journey. The little attack crafts look impressive, but they try to beat the ocean liner in a foot race, not in an effort to sink it, thus they end up with very little cargo and it may never get to port in a race against the other attack craft. The ocean liner has all it’s cargo deep inside the hulls and only when it gets to port do people realize it’s cargo. Little attack craft have it out for everyone to see and also “take at will” because they have no ammo to protect their cargo.

Well Said Pegman.

Opportunistic rabbit(s) will eat everything in the garden if there is nothing to protect it. If your garden is weeds, who cares. But if your garden has blue ribbon carrots, they need time to grow. A fence and a shotgun will protect your carrots and over time rabbits will find other feeding grround. IP, USPTO, and the courts protect your invention. In either case, take away the protection and you can still have a garden. The rabbit infested one will always need to be reseeded and the crop will be minimal at best. The prized garden will reseed itself. But the prized garden also needs to be tilled, sown carefully, watered, weeded, thinned, but in the end and all the hard work, those carrots will have value and feed for decades. The other garden, well it might have something at the end of the year, might even make one meal. Oh, it might have one fine carrot in there, but it never had a chance to mature. By the way, carrots must grow two seasons before you get any seed (just in case you aren’t a gardener).

Hi Ralph,

I can see where the process of putting an innovative product on the market (from conceptualization to market analysis to production) is time consuming… On the other hand, I can as well see your point of view in the advantage of getting a product to market quickly in order to be competitive.

One thing that comes to my mind is the PPA, provisional patent application, so that a product can have a ‘patent pending’ product on the market. As someone who has not applied for a PPA before, I can say that the process is a little or more than a little daunting to me in regards to only having a one year time frame to do market research, licensing or production then if one does not commit to a patent, it is my understanding that the idea is up for anyone to produce.

I like the new possibility for the new patent legislation to be put into place for small entities because it has a lower fee (I hope even lower than what was quoted) and possibly a longer (2 year) time period for the PPA, if I am not misunderstanding.

I think that your point of taking a product to market without intellectual property protection may be a good alternative, especially considering less time and initial cost, but possibly only if one has a strong product that would dominate the market, otherwise I personally am afraid of others copying the product.

The ‘crowdsourcing’ invention options of putting ideas out for others to view, to me seems only viable if there is protection for the inventor in those situations. (As an aside, I have read that companies do like to see that a product has a money making history in order to invest in it. So how does one balance this without having a patent, I wonder?)

One thought that has popped into my own mind just now is for EN to have a completely separate fast track search that would allow inventors to put their product ideas into a specific company’s fast track search where EN would not have to take on so much of the prototyping or whatever is the most time consuming part of the process for EN and give that portion over to the manufacturer running the search. EN would thereby have the same contracts, revenue generated, etc…, but not have as much time wrapped up in the process. The main risks would be taken by the manufacturer running the search, not by EN. This may speed up the process, but would it really be better for all, I don’t know. Maybe I should not even say the prior, but it was just a thought that crossed my mind as I was writing. I really think that EN knows what the whole process looks like and they are so helpful to us all. I have read the blog off and on that they have provided and find it a good resource. EN really does try to help educate and connect supportive businesses for inventors.

I do care about the US as I know you have expressed as well Ralph. I do also know that as a country producing products of value on the homeshore is probably, if not definitely, going to be very helpful to all here.

I hope that what I just wrote made some sense, but if not I apologize as it is late.