Protecting Your Ideas

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Researching Your Ideas

are ongoing. Conducting a search on an inventor's name will reveal

all of the patents for that particular individual.

TIP:

If you know the name of an inventor who has

worked on a particular technology, conducting a

search on his or her name may be helpful.

Another item to search is the name of a particular assignee (or

company name). If the subject technology of the search is currently

manufactured by a particular company, searching the assignee's

name will reveal patents (if any) that may be relevant. For example,

suppose the invention is for a shoe, searching on Nike as the assignee

will result in a listing of all the patents owned by Nike.

TIP:

Company names are useful to include in a search.

A Brief Word about

Prototyping the Invention

Once the literature search has been completed, the inventor

should have a good idea of how others have attempted to solve the

problem. Alternative solutions described in the references are useful

for designing and prototyping an invention. If a reference is found

that is on-point with the original invention, ways to design around

that which was disclosed should be considered. The design and fabri-

cation of the invention should be recorded in the laboratory note-

book in such a way that someone else working on the same problem

can reproduce the work. Ideally, making the invention using the

same materials that a manufacturer will use to make the final product

is best. However, if funds are limited or the materials are not readily

available, the invention may be prototyped using low-cost substitu-