Hi, Rosa.

What kind of great idea do you have? Is it an original product or an improvement on an existing product?

I believe the first step is to try to create a prototype on your own. It doesn’t need to be perfect. You just need to make sure the design is functional. You may find that what you have down on paper needs to be altered in order to work. You should also do some research to see if there are similar products on the market.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’ website includes a lot of helpful information. You can find them at http://www.uspto.gov.

I would also search this site for recommended books to read. Many people have been in your place, so why not learn what steps they took and hopefully learn from them. Good luck.

Rosa, congratulations on having a great idea. Your first step is to make sure it is a great idea and not already on the market. I get items to review from Inventors all the time that swear there is nothing else out there like their idea. They swear they have searched everywhere and they have not found anything even close.
In most cases it takes me less than 10 minutes of looking online to find their exact idea. Save yourself some money and take the time to REALLY research your idea and make sure it is unique before spending the first dollar on it. Look on that patent office website, Google.com/patent, online catalogs, general searches in Google and Bing, look at websites that would sell the type of item you have.
I always caution Inventors when they say all their friends love their idea. You want people that will be brutally honest with you to give you their opinion, not those that would love your idea because they love you and don’t want to hurt your feelings. All that does is give you a false sense of hope. Inventing is a business and needs to treated like one.
I wish you the best of success with your idea.

http://www.rogerbrown.net

Roger,

You are right about research, I have a BBQ item that I designed 6 or 7 years ago. It worked OK, and came up with a great name for it. It hit the back burner since I have much more important things to conccentrate on. Last night I met with some other inventors, they all wheeled out their products.

Saw some pretty cool ideas, ideas I can see really going places… one was a very similar idea, so similar that I can forget that old idea I back burnered. A comment from the host said that my simpler idea is so old that her grandmother had one. It’s a product that you couldn’t buy today anywhere that I know of, but if I looked in depth I would at least find the newer version that is being sold.

Many really good ideas that are crazy simple were thought up a long time ago.

I have a tendency to complicate my needs, but I try to simplify my products.