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Getting a USB Peripheral Idea to Market?

Posted by Cliff on from the turning-possibilities-into-realities dept.

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?"

3 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Patent Submission... by MadWicKdWire · · Score: 5, Informative

    Submit for a patent... then go to a business. Otherwise, they could steal it from you when you show them the idea.

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    1. Re:Patent Submission... by beegle · · Score: 5, Informative

      The parent post has the right idea: get a patent.

      A bit of advise, though: there are people through this article claiming that patents cost $20k or more in legal fees.

      Bullshit!

      Sure, you can spend that if you want to. Just visit a patent lawyer with a nothing more than a vague idea about something that you'd like to patent. At several hundred dollars an hour, the bill adds up quickly.

      The alternative is to go to the patent database, read a few patents to get a feel for the format, buy a few books, and write up your own patent. Then, search for prior art yourself and flag anything that's even remotely close. After you've done this work, visit a patent attorney with your patent and research notes and ask him to review it. If you've done your homework and have a reasonably well-written patent, the attorney won't have to do much more than read it. The total cost will probably end up at $2000-$3000 after filing fees.

      A bit of warning: good technical artists are -expensive-, so think about ways to minimize the number of diagrams.

      My father has several patents, and this is the method that he used.

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  2. Simple? by digime · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.