Regina/ 14 miles South of Moose Jaw Saskatchewan | Can't speak to patenting machinery - but did have the experience of selling a product that was jointly developed with my former employer & a university student. Essentially my employer & the student had an equal share in the product. Was often suggested we should patent - thankfully we did not. Ended up selling at an industry trade fair. We did this by having the product there - renting the smallest trade show space available & talking to anyone that dealt with similar technologies.
After 3 days we made a deal with a manufacturer - he became interested when he saw interest from others in the product at the show.
Price negotiation was interesting - I said "How much is this worth" - His answer " Its worth exactly how much time it would take me to figure out how to do it, now that I'm aware of the idea" (that was not an insignificant amount of time - & an experience manufacturer knows this) - he made an offer - it was fair - we sold & everyone was happy.... The money out would likely have equaled the cost of patenting....
If you have a good idea - my suggestion is to try it out - build it to the stage where you can market it to a manufacturer - sell and move on... as fast as you can - there can be modest profit in selling your design & prototype (much better if you have 10 out in the field working when you talk to someone vs. 1, or just the idea) - but I think you have to be very realistic in terms of looking at what an idea's worth.... The answer of "its worth exactly how much time I'd have to spend figuring it out" is exactly what you can expect....
My $0.02
Doug w. |
Anyone ever patent a piece of machinery?
