Yes, you too are an inventor!

The title of “inventor” often carries with it a hallo of unreachability by common folks.  When we think of an inventor, we often think of Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Samuel Morse, or Henry Ford.  We don’t usually think of the modern researchers in the labs, the professors in the universities, and the internet entrepreneurs.  We certainly don’t think about ourselves.

Several years ago, we had a house renovation project.  The workers put up wood window frames all over the house.  The dust generated by the sawing and drilling flew all over the house.  One night, my then 10-year old asked me “why can’t they have an electric drill with a built in vacuum tube?”  He even drew a drill with a built-in vacuum tube extending through the main body of the drill with an opening just under the drilling bit.  That was a great idea!  I told him that I would do a search for him.  If the idea was not patented, I would write and file a patent application for him.  I did a search in the patent database.  It turned out that a patent application covering almost exactly the same idea was filed just over a year earlier and the filing company is Boeing.  So close for a 10-year old inventor!

Yes, I call him an inventor—he saw a problem and came up with a solution to solve the problem—that is the very definition of an inventor.   What about you?  Have you encounter a problem and come up with a solution to solve that problem?  A few years ago, a client of mine became frustrated with her bra strap keeping slipping off.  She came up with a simple decorative clip to keep bra strap in place.  We filed a patent application for her and she started her own company. 

I am a big fan of “Sharp Tank” show.   A recent episode featured a woman who enjoyed a manicure party every Friday with her four daughters.  Tired of assembling bottles of nail polishes, colors, polish removals, and cotton pads, the woman came up with a convenient nail color kit.  The kit has a nail color bottle on top of a screwed-on bottom container; and the bottom container houses cotton pads presoaked with nail polish--a simple and elegant solution for the problem.  The sharks loved it!  So, did I.

In another “Sharp Tank” episode, a mom noticed that her baby daughter became frustrated with the traditional Sippy cup, which usually has a straight and rigid straw and cannot reach the liquid at the bottom of the bottle.   This is a problem that has probably frustrated every parent I knew.  This mom set out to solve the problem: she came up with a Sippy cup having a weighted straw.  The straw will bend and reach the liquid when the baby tilts the bottle.  What an elegant solution!  Unfortunately, there is only a design patent covering the product.  The mom probably should have tried to obtain a utility patent covering a Sippy cup having a weighted straw.  In my next few posts, I will talk about patenting strategies if you have a great idea like this.

These inventors are just a few examples of inventors who are common folks like you and me.  I bet, if you think back about the stuffs that you’ve done, you might realize that you too have a few of these great ideas floating somewhere or prototypes lying around in your garage.  Physically speaking, human species is weak—however, we thrived and dominate all other species on the planet earth.  Why? because we invent to make up for our weakness.  We cannot out ran a tiger—fine, we invent cars; we cannot fly like bird—fine, we invent airplanes; and we don’t have sharp claws and teeth—no problem, we invent weapons that would defeat the sharpest claws in the animal kingdom.  By giving us this incredible creativity, God created us to invent.  We as a species are destined to have researchers who will come up with solutions to awful diseases, the professors who will come up with new energy harvesters, and the internet entrepreneurs who have changed and will continue to change the way we live our daily life. 

We are all destined to invent.  So, yes, you too are an inventor!

Thanks for reading!
Connie
connie@patentonomy.com
www.patentonomy.com