UKC

Selling a new product idea

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 Sl@te Head 04 Dec 2014
Has anyone on here successfully sold a new product idea to a climbing gear manufacturer under licence or similar deal? Any help and advice would be appreciated as I have no experience but do potentially have a good idea....
 john arran 04 Dec 2014
In reply to Sl@te Head:

It won't be much help but I can tell you what NOT to do. I spent many hours of many days of many months, plus a slice of dosh, acquiring UK patents on two completely separate cam inventions. Then because I'm good at inventing and utterly hopeless at marketing or following up in any way I failed to secure US patents for either and failed to market either idea to anyone at all. The first became the Metolius Supercam, apparently independently invented but a couple of years after my UK patent. The second still awaits any take-up, although I'm convinced it could be extremely useful in a wide range of placements.

Somewhat dispirited by these experiences I've now been sitting for quite a while on a karabiner design idea that could revolutionise sport climbing krabs, but I haven't yet applied for any patent or approached any potential partners about it, because I'm crap at that kind of thing!

Any interested manufacturers please get in touch!

ps. of course it's always possible we have the same brilliant idea
In reply to john arran:

There are companies out there (more hard earned money I'm afraid...) who help with this sort of thing, telling you how to protect the idea and helping facilitate the contacts you need to sell your idea, as well as helping generate a pitch and practicing it. Climbing gear might be a bit niche, but if you were really keen to get it out there it might be worth a punt. The catch is that once they've seen your idea you have to negotiate how they get paid. Apparently that usually ends in a deal where they get partial ownership of the product. Depending on how honest their intentions, that could actually work very well.

We got a pitch from http://www.lightbulbinvestments.com/ who apparently are a new company in the field, I have no idea if they'd be any good but that's where I heard about it.

I really like the idea of a company that does this, I think it is quite a noble thing to do. Unfortunately I have a sneaking suspicion that the type of people with the experience to do it successfully may have a less noble aim than in my ideal world.
OP Sl@te Head 05 Dec 2014
In reply to john arran:

My idea's nothing to do with Cams or Krabs, but similar problem to you with not knowing what to do next and fearful of approaching manufactures who may just simply rip off the idea. Not sure if it's possible to patent the idea either as it's an improvement on a bit of gear that also doesn't have a patent.
In reply to Sl@te Head:

It doesn't cost much to make a patent application. That time stamps your IP, and gives you a period of time to go for the full application, with some protection.

The difficulty may be in draughting the patent in adequate patentese in order to cover the features of your patent; that's where patent experts are useful. But not cheap. Once you have a patent application, you cannot add 'claims' to it when going for the full patent.

The Patent Office have some pretty good guides to the process; get googling.

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