I hear stories about that a lot, and it sickens me. Yes, moving forward from idea to invention to protection to prototype to market can and does cost a lot of money. Spending $100K (or much more) is not unreasonable as long as there is a business plan and reasonable assurances that more will be made than spent. Unfortunately, many inventors fall prey to those who tell them what they want to hear and spend massive amounts of money never really having done the homework and research necessary to in any way justify such expenditures from a business perspective. It is great to dream, it is great to be committed and dedicated, but please treat inventing like a business — this is ESSENTIAL certainly when you are investing so much money.

I don’t know that there is a prototype counterpart if what you mean is acting like a watchdog or educational source. That is where so many people do waste a lot of money.

I think the key is to start out responsible but with as few funds as possible, then continue to research, review and move forward as information and circumstances warrant. Little by little expend funds, and constantly reevaluate. Only move forward if there is a good business reason to do so.

I will try and write more about prototyping. It is a sticky area. The more you go down the path to proof the more valuable the invention, but that only makes sense if there is a market.

Thanks for reading.

-Gene

Is there a prototype, product development counterpart to what you do? People waste a lot of money there too.

PLI didn’t fund it, it was a segment of a program put together by some attorneys who did some research on their own and uncovered the patents. My recollection is that the search they did specifically found intermittent wipers.

Yes, I see that the total was $30 million, but your comment earlier said he received that amount from Ford. That was the sum all together as I understand it.

-Gene

Based on the link to the NY Times I posted up there, the 30M number was the total of the settlements and the judgment from Ford and Chrysler, and those came after trials in both cases. I checked a Washington Post to confirm (although they could be citing the same source).

Pretty sure you have it backwards. The pre-litigation offers were much higher and what he won at trial was lower. He didn’t settle with Ford for $30 million, it was closer to $10 million, although all of his litigation efforts against a multitude of companies probably reached to close to $30 million. Reports on the Internet and in newspapers are all over the map on how much he won. What seems to be consistent is that his lawyers received close to 40%, his wife received about 10% and Kearns alienated his family and became obsessed. The reason the pre-litigation offers were rejected were apparently because they were not willing to admit they copied his invention. He wanted credit and kept fighting. PLI did a very interesting presentation on Kearns and his patents right before the movie came out. They talked about the history of the case and then did a mock argument based on prior art that was never found and asserted against Kearns. It seems that his patents probably should have been lost and his claims likely invalid based on newly discovered prior art. Who knows? It was still an excellent thought experiment.

-Gene

This post was mentioned on Twitter by ipwatchdog: What Inventors Can Learn from Skateboard Icon Tony Hawk – take it from Tony Hawk, stick with what you know. http://bit.ly/2Ubof6...