Most of the larger manufacturers will require you to sign their submission documents before they will look at your information. These documents are designed to protect the manufacturer against an individual’s claiming that the company took his idea. The submission documents usually state that by signing them you are aware that they may have already seen, been working on or previously rejected the same or a similar idea. If you want to move forward with them you must sign these forms.
Submission forms that you send to manufacturers can also be considered part of your “paper trail” of proof that you disclosed your invention to them should you ever need it. Be sure to keep copies of everything in your files.
If the company is not ethical and you show your unprotected invention or idea to them, they can simply take it. Therefore, the thing to remember is to make sure that you have carefully followed your early protective procedures before approaching anyone regarding licensing. They protect themselves and you should do likewise.
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Another option that many independent inventors are choosing nowadays is to license their inventions for royalties. This is a method of choice for many inventors for lots of compelling reasons. Once a product is licensed to a manufacturer, that product will automatically have a place on the planogram of the retail stores where the manufacturer places goods. The manufacturers handle all of the responsibility for producing the product, selling it to retailers, bookkeeping, etc. The licensor (the inventor) goes to his mailbox and collects his royalty checks at regular intervals, usually quarterly. The inventor’s time is entirely his own to spend creating other moneymaking new products or in whatever way he chooses.
While receiving a royalty amount of 3-5 percent of net sales on your product may seem like settling for a very small amount, consider this: the manufacturer is taking all of the financial risk in getting the product on the market. He is spending the money to make the product, warehouse it, insure it, sell it, ship it and handle the bookkeeping. His profit margin on the product may not be as great as you imagine. In addition, if you have a guaranteed annual amount of royalty (and you should!) you will receive at least that amount whether your licensee sells that much of your product or not. Lest you jump to the conclusion that 3-5 percent of the wholesale price does not amount to much, do the math. A product that retails $8-$10 million annually returns between $120,000 and $250,000 in royalty, depending on the percentage. This is money that you didn’t lift a finger to earn once it was licensed. If you are still thinking 3-5 percent is a paltry amount of royalty, consider this; if you are unable to get the product marketed on your own, 3-5 percent of something is much to be preferred over 100 percent of nothing!
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There is yet another route that some inventors take with their inventions and sometimes this one works for those who have a good idea for a product that cannot be patent protected because it is already in the public domain. That is, the product or something very similar has already been patented or sold before, but it is still a viable product.
You are not required to get a patent if you choose not to do so. If protection from competition is not important to you and the product is not currently covered by an existing patent, you can simply market the product in whatever way you choose. If the product is a really good one, you will probably not maintain exclusivity for a very long time, but if you think yours may be a fad-type product, it could be a wise decision to just get on the market with it and make your profit while the fad lasts.
Catalogs often sell items that have no patents. It is relatively easy to get your product into catalogs if you are willing to manufacture and sell it to the catalog companies. If you are interested in this option, just go online and check with the catalog or catalogs of your choice. They all have contact information. Contact them and let them know that you are interested in submitting a product for their catalog. They will send you their submission requirements.
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Be aware that if you are the manufacturer and distributor of your product, you will be responsible for providing product liability insurance to the retailers who sell the product. All retail products, no matter how innocuous they appear to be, must carry product liability insurance.
If you are building a business around your invention, keep in mind that it is your responsibility to enforce your patent. If you should find your product infringed this could be a significant expense. Many independent inventors choose to license their products for this reason alone. They know that they would never have the financial resources to sue for infringement.
Large companies also know that small independent product developers are not likely to have the funds to force them to stop if they choose to infringe. This makes it more likely that a large company might consider it worth the relatively small risk that an independent inventor could make them stop producing and selling the inventor’s patent protected product.
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If you plan to be your own manufacturer and deal with retail buyers, learn the language of retailing and be prepared to talk about such things as “planograms,” “sku numbers, “ and “upc codes” in order to understand and be understood. Other things to consider if your goal is to be the manufacturer of your product:
A. Will you maintain manufacturing facilities and hire the work done or import your product.
B. Will you hire a sales force, place the product with a product representative and/or a distributor, or be your own salesperson.
C. Will you handle the day-to-day requirements of running the business.
There are both advantages and disadvantages to building a business around your invention. You are the only one who is in a good position to decide whether that is the correct choice for you. It will depend in large part on your current financial situation, your age, your state of health, and how you want to spend your time. If you have the financial ability, the expertise and you are up for the challenge, maybe this is the route for you. If being in control of your product is important to you, then this may be the right option for you. You can certainly exercise total control over your product when you are the manufacturer.
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One option to get around this problem, if you plan to manufacture and distribute your own product, is to place your product with an independent product representative. This is a person who represents a number of products from various manufacturers to the retailers. Be aware, if you do this, that you will have to pay the product representative a percentage of the sales for this representation. This can make a significant difference in your profit bottom line, but it may be the only way that you can get your product into the large retail chains.
You can find product representatives by contacting administrative offices of the retail stores and asking them for the names of the reps for your category of products. Product representatives usually cover a specific geographic region. For example, there may be a product representative who covers Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. The entire country is divided into exclusive regions for the individuals representing specific lines of products. This approach may require you to contact product representatives all over the country in order to get maximum market coverage for your product, but it can work.
In addition to individual product representatives, for many categories of products there are distributors. These are companies that handle the distribution of an entire category of products to select retailers. When we were marketing Ghostline® on our own, before licensing the product, we sold some product to a distributor who got Ghostline® into stores in a seven-state area. This involved another layer of wholesaling (from us to the distributor and from the distributor to the retailer), but if your profit margin is great enough, you can get greater distribution this way.
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If you currently do not have a business and it is your desire to build a business around your invention, you can do it, but it becomes a much more risky proposition. In the example above, the business owner can lose some money if the product fails, but he is not likely to lose the entire business unless he has risked the company’s stability on the success of that product.
If you choose to build an entire business around a new product, not only will you need a substantial amount of start up capital, including enough to survive until the company becomes self-sustaining, you will need to be virtually certain of the success of the product. There are some astounding success stories of people who have built profitable businesses around a single product. It can happen. But, the odds against huge successes with businesses built around a single product seem to be getting steeper. One important reason is that the buyers for the major retailers will not even allow single-product vendors an appointment to show their product to them.
If you have only one product to sell to a major retail chain, you are not likely to be given that opportunity, no matter how great your product may be. While the retail stores are made to look cheerful with bright colors, bright lighting and background music to enhance the shopping experience, to the retailer it is very serious business and each inch of shelf space is allotted to a particular manufacturer in a map of the store, known as a planogram.
Getting your product on that planogram is not an easy task if you have but one product.
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Marketed as simple and easy to own, stocks are actually the most complex and emotionally challenging of all asset classes. Powerlessness,
unmanageability, regrets, fears, social pressures, herd behavior, and complexities galore are the norm. Stock investors are primarily an optimistic group. They believe that stocks they purchase will increase in value. They all know stories of stocks that increased in value by 100 times or more. The potential rewards appear unlimited. Of course, most stock investors are aware of the risk of loss, so they diversify and employ other cautions. Still, every stock investor believes that one or more of his stocks or mutual funds will have fantastic returns.
Businesses issuing stock encourage this belief and are all too happy to accept the investor’s cash.
Investors also rely on society. Stable economic conditions are important for investors. Investing concerns the value of currency. Inflation, deflation, supply and demand: All are part of the investment scene. Ancient savers relied on the utility of the product saved, not the currency value of the paper interest in another’s actions or productivity. However, investors’ reactions to their relationship with their investees are much more powerful than their reactions to economic conditions.
For a fee, many parties facilitate the transfer of investment capital to investees. Stockbrokers, Realtors, bankers, money managers, mutual funds, newsletter writers, and other financial professionals siphon off pieces of investment capital. While investors seek to make high returns with little or no work, financial professionals seek to obtain high wages with little notice. This relationship is the source of many troubling emotions.
Investing involves small segments of society: businesses, individual farms, buildings, and entrepreneurs. Only recently, with the advent of index funds, has investing concerned the whole of a large market: the stock market. Index funds are mutual funds that buy shares in every stock in a given segment of the market. Buying index funds, you can buy a piece of the whole stock market. Still, the stock market is only one segment of society, though currently a large segment.
The investor trusts the investee. When this trust is broken, strong emotions are unleashed. Utility stockholders are furious when a utility cuts or
eliminates its dividend. When a tenant defaults on a lease and forces a property into foreclosure, the property owner has a wide range of emotions triggered by the breach of trust. Some vow never to own real estate again.
Sometimes the investment exceeds expectations. Wal-Mart investors saw their small regional chain become the largest retailer in the world. Berkshire Hathaway went from a shell company to one of the world’s largest corporations. Success triggers grandiosity in some, frivolity in others.
Many successful investors are disoriented and unhappy. However, faith is also a part of investing. The borrower, tenant, or business owner believes the application of science and technology to business practices will produce more than the sum of capital and labor, thus enabling him to pay the rent, interest, dividends, or capital appreciation plus enough for his own savings. Productivity, technology, and efficiency are the creed of investors.