Marketing Your Invention to Manufacturers

The definition of an inventor

An inventor may be anyone who has an idea for a new and useful product or process; or who imagines or envisions a new and useful product or process. Inventors are “idea” people. They are oriented to configure their “ideas” to create new and useful products or processes. I continue to use the words “new and useful” because that is how the U S Patent Office defines what is patentable.

Sometimes inventors become inventors because they work for large companies doing research in well-budgeted development departments. Sometimes they work alone. Sometimes they are highly educated people with degrees in their field. Sometimes they are just people who have a better idea for a product that would solve a problem or that would make life easier. The Lemuelson Center, located in the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, collects information about inventors, how they came to invent a product, and information about the product itself. They do not have much information about how these products were marketed or about any kind of marketing process. I think that they are remiss in not recording the details of how the products in which they are interested were marketed. I would like to see the commonality of the marketing process of these various products.

To be called an “inventor” is an after the fact title. Once you have invented, you are an inventor. However, you will need to market that invention successfully to be recognized as an inventor.

What is an invention?

Every invention begins with an idea in your head. By itself an idea cannot be called an invention. In order to qualify as an invention it must conform to the U S Patent and Trademark Office’s definition of a patent; i.e. an idea must be developed into a product, process or design that (1) is new, and (2) is useful.

“Newness” may include the result of bringing together parts, which have already been invented. “Newness” may also include the new use of a previously established process. The make-up mirror is an example. It combined the mirror with florescent light bulbs. While the parts were not new, combining them resulted in a new and useful product that was a patentable invention.