New invention

[Highway Man]

Well its a van with a telescopic ladder that allows anyone with little training to change bulbs in street lamps...

OMG, I am in. I will offer you all of the money and get a route to market whilst looking great and I only want 97% of the business.

 

[catlad]

What area is it in

Lighting.

 

[Justin Passing]

Do a patent search. If the Victorians didn't aready invent it, the South Koreans or Taiwanese will have.

I have two ideas. You would use both many times a day.

Have you made one of yours, to prove it works??

 

[Mottie]

After years of helping Mrs Mottie to clear up after dinner and load the dishwasher, I had an idea to take to the den. Not fully worked out the practicalities but it will be a combination waste disposal/dishwasher…..

 

[motorbiking]

Basic steps.

1. Check if anyone has had a similar idea.
2. Think about how you might stop other people from copying your idea by design.
3. Is this something you can manufacture or scale up yourself?
4. Avoid wasting money getting lawyers to do patent searches, creating NDAs etc. early on, these are all things you can do yourself. Any serious VC will not accept your NDA anyway so let them do the work.

Patents and trademarks are expensive to enforce. If your idea can be copied then you are really on a search to find someone who will take your prototypes with design protection and scaling it quicker than you.

 

[carmanmemoranda]

Having been through this idea in a similar way, my NDA was worth a lot.

Don't dismiss it out of hand.

 

[diy_fun_uk]

I could easily afford to be a dragon on dragons den, I would be the best looking dragon ever, anyways enough about me, what's your idea?

I think the idea is probably to start a Highway Man fan club. Membership will be set at £10k pa and for that, members get a quarterly one page newsletter on what you've been up to (sent through the post, old school). They'll also get a signed full sized cardboard cut-out of you and an invite to an annual dinner dance with you in attendance. Members won't be allowed to speak to you, however they can look at you and one lucky member, if winning the raffle, will be allowed to kiss your ring.

 

[Highway Man]

I think the idea is probably to start a Highway Man fan club. Membership will be set at £10k pa and for that, members get a quarterly one page newsletter on what you've been up to (sent through the post, old school). They'll also get a signed full sized cardboard cut-out of you and an invite to an annual dinner dance with you in attendance. Members won't be allowed to speak to you, however they can look at you and one lucky member, if winning the raffle, will be allowed to kiss your ring.

I like it

 

[motorbiking]

Having been through this idea in a similar way, my NDA was worth a lot.

Don't dismiss it out of hand.

It's not worthless, for sure, but they are easy to find and a high street solicitor will not have the required specialisms to add much value beyond one you could generate with a template or even AI.

The main issue with NDA's drafted by a lone inventor is the enforcement and the ability of a corporation to listen to your idea, via one division and then invent something which is substantially similar, or simply tell you in disclosure that they found out they are already working on it with another.

 

[carmanmemoranda]

It's not worthless, for sure, but they are easy to find and a high street solicitor will not have the required specialisms to add much value beyond one you could generate with a template or even AI.

The main issue with NDA's drafted by a lone inventor is the enforcement and the ability of a corporation to listen to your idea, via one division and then invent something which is substantially similar, or simply tell you in disclosure that they found out they are already working on it with another.

And that is the important bit.

Via a solicitor you have some come back. Highly worth it if the idea is valuable.

 

[ReganAndCarter]

invite to an annual dinner dance

I think I know what will be on the menu.

 

[Deluks]

Lots of people have ideas for inventions, that turn out to be rubbish.

 

[catlad]

Thanks for all the contributions so far! I have knocked up a proto type and it does work, the problem I can see is it will be very easy to copy, nothing on the market like it as far as I can tell, I have done a bit of searching.

 

[Highway Man]

Thanks for all the contributions so far! I have knocked up a proto type and it does work, the problem I can see is it will be very easy to copy, nothing on the market like it as far as I can tell, I have done a bit of searching.

Explain briefly why it is different/? I have seen every kind of light in my job, even some super secret ones.

 

[catlad]

Well, this light is very different; it allows you to see if people are real or not...