Gallery, Projects and General > How do I??

what to do with ideas you cant realise?

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shipto:
I have had an idea in my head for months now for a engine, I have searched and searched but cannot find any existing engine design that uses the idea. Of course this could mean its been tried and failed and thus been lost to all mankind as a way not to do it until the next idiot thinks of it again.
Anyway assuming for a while that my idea is unique and never been tried, my first thought was to get some parts make other parts and build a prototype however this for me with my limited resources (not to mention skill level) is a daunting task.
Second thought was to do some drawings and apply for a patent, once again limited resources and skill would come into play. My technical drawing is only just readable by me and I dare say anyone else would struggle to make sense of my scribblings.
Third thought was to contact a existing engine manufacturer and offer to take them through the idea possibly after visiting a law type person so that if it turned out that the idea is as good as I suspect I could get the benefits and kudos that were due.
If I go for option 3 I would prefer to offer it to a British manufacturer first (no offence to the rest of the world)
So.... Thoughts, ideas or whatever would be welcome.

ieezitin:
Shipto..
I have been there and done that! 

I answered an ad in a prominent engineering magazine in the late eighties for Rank Hovis Flour co where they had problems with 50Kg flour bags and sealing them where they would not come apart through vigorous shipping, plus they needed to be swung 90 degrees and shoved down a chute, I designed and built a bag stitcher and oreinter for them on the promise my machines would be installed in every mill in the UK…. They lied, they reversed engineered and had someone else do it. 

Simular thing happened with a electric coil manufacturer in Wales where they made a layered leaf two piece coil design and wanted to crimp a built in dove tail joint and have them squeezed together at such a force it did not disturb the current flowing through it after joining, I built the machine in my shop and assembled it on my kitchen table, I took it to the meeting to show them and never heard a word again, I found out their own shop copied the design.
Moral of this story… keep your thoughts and designs to yourself …. There gonna steal it.

Patents don’t mean nothing to you, they are not in place for you, they are there for two reasons, the government keeps tabs on what's being designed and they get first dibs and industry gets second, they see the submittals. You don’t have enough money to patent; you don’t have the resources to inforce it. People have to realize having a patent in England just covers England, you need patents in every country to protect your product, that’s if you have the legal wherewithal at your disposal.

Your problem my friend is not the design, nor the product, your problem is not what you think it is, your dilemma is marketing, marketing a design to a manufacturer who under license will make your design, sell and distribute while slicing you off a percentage over a given length of time, this is ten times easier to keep under control from a legal origin with the added benefit of no capital outlay to you.

Not knowing your design, I don’t need too, my advice is just the idea may be sufficient to make a sale… Moral of the story is you're in the sales business my friend.

Hope this helps.

Anthony

John Stevenson:
Could not have said it better.

Seen those self contained hydraulic power packs that work a breaker for ripping roads up ?

JCB came out with the first commercial one, guess who thought it all up and designed it ?

Believe it or not but I have had more money and royalties off the Chinese than any western country.

Long short, an individual cannot do it on their own. you have to sell the idea to a design consortium or just do it, publicise it as much as possible so later when, not if, it gets ripped off you can say "That was mine "

vtsteam:
I read this years ago, it's 25 years old, and it's truer today than it was even then. While it applies to U.S. patents and practices, I bet it has a universal truth for everywhere else that profit prevails. Don Lancaster, by the way was a computer and electronics guru here back in the late 70's -- I read and used many of his computer "cookbooks" to build my first computer and modify a TV set into a non-RF (direct connected) monitor for my RS color computer. He's fun to read, even if cynical. But I believe he's telling it like it is. He's also a blatant opportunist. But then he says he is....

http://www.tinaja.com/glib/casagpat.pdf

shipto:
Thanks all, though it makes for grim reading especially vt's link. So much for my cash cow  :lol:
I will think on it a little more but there every chance it might appear in the "design shop" area in the near future.

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