The construction industry is full of innovative thinkers, says Jim Smith, Northwest Plastics, Redding, California, inventor of Bolt-Rite Products. “We are the guys in the field trying to put a round peg in a square hole,” Smith says. “The guys in the field are the ones who see the problem first hand and say let’s just make the peg round.”
With an inventor’s mind, a background in construction and a new manufacturing company, Smith was armed to create his idea. While he was in the concrete industry, he had the idea for Bolt-Rite products. He wanted to create a reusable template to quickly and accurately anchor bolts for concrete forming. His latest invention is an adjustable, aluminum four-bolt template. It comes in either a 9-inch or a 14-inch square and adjusts to fit 5/8 to 1-1/4-inch bolts.
Now his whole business is based around his inventions. But he attributes his real success to the innovators in the industry. “Contractors will make a suggestion to add a little piece of something or change this to make it easier to hold,” he says. “They feed this stuff to me. They tell us what they want and we go and develop it.”
Contractor/Inventor Dan Wolfe, Red Wolf Development, Highland, Utah, also saw a need in the construction industry for better jobsite security. “I got ripped off the first time shortly after I got my contractor’s license in 1975 and that wasn’t the last,” he says. “You feel so victimized and abused. You just want to nail those guys.” When the existing limited tracking systems failed him, he started developing his idea for a tracking device that would catch the thief in the act. He started developing a GPS tracking device with infrared sensors linked to a cell phone. When the device detects an intrusion at the site it calls the owner. If you can’t get there in time to catch the bad guy then the tracking system leads you and the police right to him.
It took him years and “nearly every penny” he had to develop the product. He already had pre-sold 800 units to contractors in his area when DeWalt heard about his invention and came to negotiate.
For advanced royalities and a promise of 3 percent royalties for life, DeWalt bought 50-percent of the license to market and sell the MobileLock. Plus it took the burden of financing the marketing. The DeWalt agreement got Wolfe’s head above water after he and his partners had invested everything they had.
The new slick redesign of Wolfe’s invention debuted January 2007 but isn’t available in the big box stores just yet. Do you have an invention idea?
Wolfe has been an inventor all his life. “And I have wasted a lot of time and money on my inventions,” he says. So, before you get discouraged follow his tips to success.
First, do a little research yourself. You don’t need a patent attorney to go online to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) website to see if your idea is already patented. “Most ideas, sad to say, are already thought of and patented,” Wolfe says. Between 2000 and 2005, the USPTO received 2,153,852 official patent applications and in the same time frame only issued just over 1 million patents.
If your idea is unique and no one has patented it yet, then get an attorney and submit a provisional patent application. That will give you patent pending status for one year. In that year’s time you have to put in a formal application to get the process going or you have to start all over again.
Prove the market. Before you waste any time or money you have to determine if the market is large enough to support the cost of producing your idea. It is very expensive to prototype, patent and market your product so be sure the demand will support it, says Wolfe. Marketing is one area where contractors go wrong. Usually they don’t have the skills or the money to market a product successfully, says Smith. “Getting it into the market is one thing but being able to get it into the hands of the contractor is another,” he says.
Is it worth it? Can you build the product for a price that is cheap enough to cover the other costs? “The rule of thumb is that you have to be able to build it for 1/5 of the possible sales price,” Wolfe explains. “If you can build it for $100, then you better be able to sell it for at least $500. That margin has to cover research and development, patents, legal fees, and manufacturing.
It’s Gonna Cost You. Once you determine it is worth pursuing, expect to pay some upfront money. Smith says if all goes well with a filing a patent and you don’t have to change much then between legal fees and patent fees it will cost you around $8,000. But when the patent office sends it back for revisions it is going to cost you addition patent fees. Plus a good patent attorney charges $150-200 an hour. “That all adds up quick,” Smith says.
Instead of dealing with all the marketing and manufacturing costs, you may want to find someone to manufacture it for you or try to sell your idea, Smith suggests. “If you have an idea for an invention, don’t think that tomorrow you are going to make a million dollars,” says Smith. “It just doesn’t happen like that. It is a commitment that they have to make; a sacrifice. In some cases you can sell your idea and someone will love it. But that doesn’t happen everyday.”
Wolfe got lucky with DeWalt. But he knew he had a successful invention long before DeWalt came along. “Usually as an inventor, you are kind of uncertain whether your idea is any good,” he says. “But with this idea I was never negative myself. I knew that I had an idea that had so much potential to help people. I was going to sacrifice whatever I had to, to make this thing percolate. This one was going to be successful come heck or high water.”
And it is.