Hi Pete, Mat, Guy, and everyone,

> Check your area for Inventors Clubs (Ask at
> the library, or Chamber of Commerce).

I agree with this - you can learn a lot from an Inventors' Club.... And if not, you can at least enjoy the coffee. :)

I used to attend the Inventor's Club in Sydney, Australia. They'd arrange for successful inventors to come to our group and give a talk.

One guy who came and talked to our club was a guy named Joe Viglione. He had invented a tent which you can "erect" in 30 seconds or less - he called it the "Oztent". You can read a bit more about him here....

Joe couldn't get anyone interested in licensing his product, so he created everything himself. He borrowed tens of thousands of dollars from members of his family, to create his "Oztent" company. He now has a patented product and a successful company built around it.

You may be able to get companies to license your products, though. One way to protect yourself while you are talking to companies about licensing is to first get a provisional patent. This gives you 12 months to put in your real patent application. The main advantage of a provisional patent application is that it's very inexpensive ($80 to $160 in the USA) - in contrast to a full patent application, which can cost thousands of dollars.

You can also use non-disclosure agreements, but I understand many companies are hesitant to sign non-disclosure agreements. You can find a sample non-disclosure agreement in "Secrets from an Inventor's Notebook" by Maurice Kanbar (which I mentioned earlier), or in "Making It" by E. Joseph Cossman and William A. Cohen. You can find some examples online too if you search around....

Unfortunately, as Pete said, there are also a number of companies which target inventors and promise to market your invention, etc., but all they do is take your money. There are some legitimate companies around too, but the key here is to be cautious.

Hope that helps! :)

- Dien Rice