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Getting a USB Peripheral Idea to Market?
WillAdams asks: "I have an idea for an almost embarrassingly simple USB device, which I believe would be fairly popular --- no hardware or device driver development skills though. Ideally I'd like to approach a company, hand the product idea off and just collect a small royalty. Unfortunately the most obvious choice doesn't accept product submissions. Any suggestions?"
Submit for a patent... then go to a business. Otherwise, they could steal it from you when you show them the idea.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)... oops
The idea hasn't already been patented and some company is just waiting for someone else to start producing it so they can sue them.
Go and find some USB products that are similarly 'innovative' and contact their manufacturer.
See here for some examples. Companies already producing an USB aquarium or coffee warmer may be a good start.
Keep open minded - but not that open your brain falls out...
USB is so 2002.
How much would the final device sell for? If your quantities are in thousands of units and require additional R&D, you can produce the device in the United States, provided you supply the factories with the board design, casing, cabling and all the other components. But in that case consumers might be expected to pay $100-200 per device, which doesn't work if the device is simplistic.
You can outsource manufacturing to China and get the same device for pennies on the dollar, but Chinese won't talk to you unless you place an order for a million. Depending on the complexity of the device itself, the price might be around $1-5, so you're looking at initial order of $1 mln to $5 mln, which few companies have budgeted for the outside ideas. Unless it's pretty obvious that they can sell it in the United States for $20 a pop and get a million of them sold within reasonable amount of time.
If all you want is royalties on something you invented, consider filing a patent application with USPTO, final cost - $15K-$30K, depending on the patent lawyer. That would be a fairly quick way to establish yourself as the inventor of this paricular technology and would invite all the companies to participate in production and paying you a small royalty fee.
Yet another way to market it is to approach a startup in Silicon Valley. There're always some guys on the lookout for a new company, and they're willing to start a new company, but are looking for technical smarts to build the company on. Contact those guys, and you get access to the venture capital, management and marketing skills, plus a title of co-founder, if the device itself is expected to sell well, so it's worth creating a company behind this product idea.
Step 1 - Give them away for free at Radio Shack.
Step 2 - ????
Step 3 - Profit.
Actually create a company and start making them. You can do this for about $200 and a bunch of your time. Even if it's a mockup. A working model thrumps any threat of theft of IP. Would be competors are lazy, they won't try if there is one actually on the table and they can more easily invest in it. Then rush to get your patent. Even if your company is a cardboard cutout, a working unit will get you investors.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
I always wished there were a way to shop an idea around before getting a patent just to simply find out if it's worth spending that much on a patent.
.. etc.
I'm an arm-chair inventor myself and I have around 50 ideas I think are probably 'patentable' (would have to do research on prior art, existing patents, etc) but I'm not even willing to spend 1k on a patent for any of them because I have no idea if they're commercially viable or not.
And if you read articles, or advice for individual innventors all you read are gloom and doom about how 99% of innventors fail, 99% of patents fail
I'd love to hear some ideas of how to 'bootstrap' my inventions with minimal capital.
Signed,
Surley Inventor in Omaha
How can I do this for $200 dollars? Can you point me to resources? How can I start a 'cardboard cutout' company?
if you'd tell me the details of your idea, first.
;>
Just between us, of course.
But the iBrator has already been developed.
If you have no hardware or driver experience how do you know it's amazingly simple? What looks simple to a layman could actually be amazingly complex. The reason I point this out is because - as the sole programmer for one of my company's most critical systems - I'm constantly being bombarded with "amazingly simple" enhancement ideas from non-programmers. They'll even go so far as to write programming time into their proposals as "1 day", never haven spoken to me and having absolutely no idea what they're talking about. I'm sure this happens to the readership here as often as it happens to me. I'm just pointing out that it sounds highly probable that you are one of these people.
My advice is to pick up a few books and learn at least a little about the implementation of your idea. Who knows, you might even learn enough to develop a prototype on your own. Armed with even a very crude example, you'd have much more luck selling it. "I'll sit back in my house, spend no money, spout off ideas, and other people will throw cash at me." is a great dream, hell I've had it myself, but don't count on that happening. You are most likely going to need to do a lot of work, spend some money, and talk to a lot of people before you see a cent.
Is worth almost nothing. Before you go into flame mode, I've spent the last 10 years building my own business from the garage up without VC money so I kinda know what I'm talking about. I have good ideas all the time. Getting the good ideas is the fun part. Turning them into products, regardless of how 'simple', is the hard work.
Here's a tip, go over to comp.arch.embedded newsgroup and post your request over there. There's a bunch of talented people there and someone might be interested.
Believe it or not, you would have had a better chance a couple of years ago. Back then, there were lots of hardware engineers out of work and looking to partner with others. Now most everyone is back to work.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Ideas themselves are not as valuable if you are not willing to take any risk with them. The first step you could take would be to get it patented as somebody already suggested.
Another step might be to invest the money to see it designed and manufactured. Each step you risk more time and money, the value of your idea grows because its profitability is closer to reality and there are less unknowns.
I think that the belief that an idea by itself is has monetary value without risk is somewhat of a myth. Chances are, somebody else has already come up with a similar idea and it was shot down for as too risky or not profitable enough. There are lots of people with good ideas, but few willing to do the hard work to realize them. I think the value is more in the work than the idea.
But if you are actually willing to put your time and money behind your idea, more power to you!
There are companies that can help you...
Try nytric.com (just an example)
They will do hardware design, FPGA, programming, plastics, housing, &etc (marketing, offshoring). For a percentage, of course.
Make sure you get NDA & legal protections with them.
Ratboy.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
I've been down this road.
In the USA, for about $500-$2000 (depending on your location and willingness to do your own busy-work), you can get a patent atty to help you with an expedited (less paper-work) "provisional patent", which protects you for a year or two while you get your act together.
Search the web for patent attys in your area -- as far away as possible from an expensive big-city downtown location.
I'm sure that there are online directories (by specialty) of orgs such as the state bar assoc, assoc of IP lawyers, etc.
Some will even have emails, which you can shotgun to ask their minimum charge (for provisional) and initial consult.
That's how I found mine, in the fall of 2001.
btw, you might even get it done cheaper with a "patent agent".
I've done this from the developer end. I've made prototypes of a few devices for independent inventors, including some simple USB devices. The difference between a typical private inventor's cost estimate, and the realistic cost of development, is about a factor of ten. Same for the time estimates. Real companies are usually closer to realistic figures, since they've done all this before.
And that's just for prototyping. It takes a lot of money, time, advertising, and infrastructure just to bring one device to market. That's why you see very few companies out there who only have one product...you just can't sell enough of one thing to recover your costs. So I would definitely agree that taking the self-starter approach is not realistic. You will have to find a company that will adopt your project, or else come up with an entire product line and develop a business plan for a company worthy of investment.
I don't know of an actual company that is based solely on bringing inventors' ideas to market, but I think it would be pretty neat.
Prior art, from the standpoint of a patent, only counts if it is published. Writing something up, and keeping it in your safe deposit box will not serve as prior art, even if you fully describe the idea.
Now, if you are to write your idea up in a letter to some company, and have a notorized copy of the letter, you might then be able to use that letter to prove that you discussed the idea with that company in the event that the company shafts you.
However, let us go to the more fundemental question - are you REALLY sure your idea is that great? Perhaps the reason nobody else has acted upon this really simple idea is that everybody else who as had it has found out that it has had problems.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Oh, wait. You said embarrassingly simple, not simply embarrassing. My bad :-)
(The link is to an amusing Apple spoof ad, worth checking out. Just don't do it at work.)
... if all you've got is an idea.
There was a recent series on Australia's national television about inventors. If I learnt anything from the series it's that ideas are a dime a dozen but turning ideas into a marketable product is a lot of work.
Put some effort into your idea. Write down a design. Make it work. Build a prototype. Get a patent on the working invention. The point of a patent is to reward the person who turns the idea into reality. If you don't know how to build it then LEARN HOW. If you don't want to put in the effort then you don't deserve to profit from the idea. Simple as that.
In any event, I would bet dollars to donuts that your idea is not unique. If you can think of it somebody else can think of it too, and they probably already have. But you will probably find, like many of the inventors on the afore-mentioned television series, that the original idea would never have worked. Through the process of building the invention they refined the idea until it does work. That's the valuable part of the invention. That's what makes them special people. That's what you should be doing, rather than thinking about royalty payments.
PS: I have no encouragement or sympathy for any person who expects to "hand off" their idea to a company and wait for the royalty cheques. I think it's disgusting that you are madly keen to start receiving royalty cheques yet so disinterested in being involved in the creation of the invention.
Not to rain on your parade, but...
Just how simple is your device? Will you be able to use existing chipsets or microcontrollers? Even a very simple ASIC can quickly cost you $175,000 in engineering and die costs. Low-gate FPGAs may be an option, but the larger models will drain too much current to run off USB power alone, especially if connected to a bus-powered hub.
Even the plastic enclosure for the device will cost you significant money. Expect to pay for CAD work, molds, and factory setup.
Then there's the USB vendor ID registration, device driver, packaging, sales, support...
I'd call that an 'embarassingly' simple USB device.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
1. Contact manufacturer of innovative product 2. Contact silk screening company 3. Bulk order 1000's of innovative product 4. Silk screen your logo on it 5. Reap the profits At least thats how most companies work.
USB is so 2002.
Nah, USB is so 1998. Ahh, the days when you could count the number of popular USB devices on one hand... Umax 1220U scanner, Epson 740 inkjet printer, Iomega Zip250...
It seemed like every USB "early adopter" had the exact same suite of USB peripherals back in late 1998 / early 1999.
" have an idea for an almost embarrassingly simple USB device, which I believe would be fairly popular --- no hardware or device driver development skills though. "
1. Get some books or use the Internet and get those skills.
2.Find some one with those skills and partner with them.
An idea is worth next to nothing. Until you convert it in to reality. Basically you want to get money for this "brilliant idea" you had while putting no real work, taking no risk, and making no investment. Good job if you can get it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Three things.
First, if you feel this is a good idea, then write it up and file a provisional patent. It only costs $80 to file a provisional and it will provide you with one year of protection before you file an actual patent. You don't have to have any legal knowledge to file a provisional. The only thing to realize is that your full patent filing will have to match up with the concepts written in your provisional in order to be valid. The only person who will ever look at the provisional is the patent examiner. Diagrams go a long way here, because they can be interpreted more liberally than words.
Second, if you have any affiliation with a University, you may want to talk to the tech-transfer office. At my university, students, faculty, and staff can bring ideas to the tech-transfer office and they will help you with a provisional (for a percentage of future royalties, of course.) If you can find a company to license the idea to after the provisional is filed, they might even help you file a full patent.
Third, the average cost of litigation for patent infringement (assuming you get a patent) is around $750,000. This is a lot of loot to shell out for infringement, and they usually get settled out of court by arranging for licensing.
At the end of the day, you want to make sure that you have this thing wrapped up before you go around telling companies about it. Even if you want to go around and make companies sign NDA's, you will still need a lawyer to write those up for you (if you expect the NDA to hold up), which could cost quite a bit as well.
-grando
I'd be happy to design a working prototype for you. My consulting fee starts at $5K. Email if interested :)
You might be surprised how much time and effort goes into getting a product idea off the ground. Like other posters here have said, having the idea is the easy part. Even a "simple" idea has issues.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
WIN Enterprises provides design, manufacturing, and fulfillment services (even box/package design and shipment to your end customers, if you'd like) for embedded designs. *plug* www.win-ent.com We've done many of Intel's reference designs, and we're now doing similar things for AMD. We have a Taiwanese sister company that can handle your manufacturing to keep it economical. We can build both customized motherboards and chassis to fit your application. Even at 500 - 1000 per year quantities, we can usually work something out. Sorry for the shameless promotion, but I check /. every day... What can I say, heheh
Check out the bookm
http://www.mousedriver.com/book/excerpts.ht
Written by a couple of MBA's with a 'great product idea' who documented their experiences getting their new mouse to market.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Many people don't realize that patents don't offer much protection unless you're prepared to fight the litigation in court. Also a patent can take up to 5 years to go through the patent office. I should know - still waiting on a patent to go through for 4 years now. A company can come along and 'steal' your product or idea even while in the patent pending stage. The patent pending lets them know that the patent is still in process and they may be sued if they steal your idea. What helps is being first in the marketplace and having a coherent marketing plan.
I work too hard for my illusions just to throw them all away.
Let's say you don't have an idea of a whole new product but rather a new process or way of doing things. Kind of like drinking some milk and realizing, "This would totally rock with some chocolate syrup!" Or if that's too much like an actual product, "A process by making a cassette tape translucent, thereby enabling the user to have a more acurate assessment of how much tape is left on the cassette." Or how about the genius that got tape counters to count in human readable time instead of 0000-9999? What do you do with an idea like that?
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to go with your USB hotplate and USB phone charger. It may not *need* a driver...