This is an account of a personal venture undertaken during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Much of the detail has been lost and some events may have been rearranged to suit, but overall its sense is true to those events.

At the time, I was sub-contracting my services to a company, while trying to get up-to-speed with database programming and planning a self-employed consultancy. At home, thoroughly bored with databases, and mulling over the collection of diskettes (the 5 1/4 inch variety, remember?) that were sat on a muddled shelf, I got up, went to to my garage/workshop and started making this carousel thing. No epiphany, no bolt of lightning or sense of even mild revelation. It had just surfaced smoothly, then gently called attention to itself – ventriloquising from the workshop.

The first one took a lot of making – sorting through my 'come-in-handy boxes' for suitable bits and pieces, cutting shapes and grooves by hand, drilling to accurate(?) centres and depths without jigs. It held 32 diskettes in 36 radial slots, (in groups of eight plus a fixed support between top and bottom), and it worked.

So that, as they say, was that. Here was a device that held all my diskettes readily available, albeit taking up more space than they would have if they'd been kept tidy (tidy, perhaps, but awkward to access). Job done, smug feeling.

Some time later, a friend visited.

Quoth he: 'What's that?'

Quoth me: 'Oh, just a little something I made earlier'.


From such little things do great quests grow.

So far, we have a device that suits its purpose and that has drawn attention from a peer. Is it worth anything? Let's find out...

The next task was to do some research, so, to the library, looking-up copyright, registered design, intellectual property, inventing. Nowadays, on the web, it's a lot easier – but at the time this wasn't the case. Forearmed and forewarned, the next steps were to visit a patent agent in the nearest city, who offered a free first consultation. Take a deep breath and go for it? Yes.

He looked at it, played with it, hummed a bit, haa-ed a little, and said that carousels are not new. However, I had introduced a small step behind a shaped (bell-mouthed) entry to each slot, just high enough to prevent centrifugal force from spraying diskettes around the room, and that, it seemed, was enough. Decision time had arrived. Do I go ahead? Can I finance the patenting fees? What about tooling? Materials, fittings? What would the best materials be? Yes, yes, and... 'Currently, earnings are quite good, and I do have insurances to borrow from...'

The following months were spent tooling-up, and scrounging around local plastic workers and manufacturers for material offcuts.

Naturally, I'd been hawking my goods around suitable manufacturers and marketers, but now it began in earnest. By this time, the patent application was lodged, so there was protection of a sort. I had also taken out an insurance policy against idea thieves – not that it'd do much good, but might have deterred some casual baddies.

There were many, many telephone calls. There were many visits. There was a gratifying amount of interest, but no offers of help, though it had seemed close at times. One, then large-ish company, now a multinational, kept one of the precious prototypes for assessment – it never came home ('But we gave it back – on [riffle, riffle] the nth of mumbleber'). One company, bless 'em, had me make a presentation at one of their customer gatherings. There was much interest but the consensus was that a finished product, ready for delivery, would have attracted worthwhile orders but a prototype wouldn't suit.

During this time, various manufacturing methods were under review:

• The current, individually fabricated items were just too slow and labour intensive.
• Vacuum-forming (heat a sheet of plastic and suck it into a former) was more attractive but doesn't give crisp edges to narrow slots or reproduce fine detail. The costs are moderate.
• Injection moulding fitted the bill except for cost – the tooling is expensive (several years' average income for a set of moulds).

So, on it went. By this time, the 3 ½ inch diskettes were in wide use and I'd put aside the larger version – which had been rather big.

So, on and on it went.

Finally, as I was about to either a) look for large amounts of backing in order to finance tooling for injection moulding; or b) give up, my best chance arrived.

At a computer fair, I talked to an office equipment supplier, a subsidiary of a continental manufacturer, whereupon an appointment was made at their London office, to meet with the senior people in UK.

That meeting, dear reader, was arguably my most harrowing interview to date – or since. They even waited (for what seemed like five minutes) while I tracked down, in my log, the name of someone I'd talked to, whom they thought they knew. The upshot was that they kept my prototype, for a month, while they sent it to their principals for assessment. The downshot was:

Two years, or even eighteen months ago we would have taken it on, with pleasure and, being established, it would be selling now in moderate quantities. But, in the current recession, we just cannot justify the effort and expense

This part is quick and easy. Oh, that I'd done this! (Hindsight is the most precise science known to man), so:

• I should have set-to, improved and streamlined my manufacturing process and...
• I should have put effort into selling the product to local outlets.

Its worth would have become apparent and investors would have beaten a smooth path to my door. Doing that would, of course, have had its costs, but they'd have been at least partially offset by profits. What wouldn't have been so easy (but perhaps manageable, with more borrowing) was the perceived necessity of setting-up a larger production facility in hired premises, with hired labour. At the time, that sensible approach just wasn't as attractive as using my (diminishing) resources to find a sponsor.

There are some 20,000 new patent applications each year in UK. About two percent (that's 400) get to market. I have no figures for 'success'. It takes about four years for an application to be granted – if it's suitable. After a patent is granted, an annual refresher payment is required to keep it active for another year of the 20 allowed.

This one was never going to be a world-beater, but I had estimated enough sales to finance my 'real' project – and leave me comfortably off for retirement. Early in the process, there were some 1,000,000 desktop-type computers in use in the UK. Extrapolation worldwide suggested ... a few more. A small percentage of that number would have been 'potential' buyers and a small percentage of those would have been a worthwhile target. I started off by aiming at world patent coverage but, naturally enough, countries want applications in their own languages and translations alone (never mind local variations in procedures) are out of reach for small concerns like this. In the end, I had settled for covering those English-speaking places that seemed likely to have suitable facilities already in place - USA and the British Commonwealth countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore...). I reckoned that manufacturers there would tend to police their own markets against patent theft.

In the event, the UK Patent Office changed my application – to just one patent. They said there was material for three – but my finances just wouldn't stretch (this was a couple of years after the initial application). By the time the patent was granted and another couple of years gone, the thing was dead and I couldn't meet the continuing costs anyway, so I allowed the patent to lapse.

I spent a lot of time looking for 'Inventor's Clubs'. Eventually someone pointed me at the Institute of Patentees and Inventors. Through them you will get sound, unbiassed advice for a moderate annual subscription. They all know all about your problems and they have resources, meetings, talks and occasional trips out. That is if, of course, you're within reach of London – though there may be regional sub-groups by now.

One Entry that will help you get started is Filing for a Patent.

OK, so you're an inventor but are you good in business? Are you an entrepreneur – really?

Before setting out, look at yourself slowly and carefully then, while keeping your options open, choose your starting direction... and, Do Not tell Anyone Anything about it until the Patent Application is in and recorded.

Good luck.

Articles by Rod Archive

RodtheBrit

30.11.09 Front Page

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