How can I sell the design for a climbing gadget?

Mallett

Mallett

Location
Sonoma county
Hello tree people. I have an idea for a tree climbing gadget that I’m interested in selling. Anyone have any experience with doing something like this?
Basically I have no desire to manufacture, market, or sell my product. I have the design and I want to sell it to a company like DMM or Petzl in exchange for royalties.
I’ve never done anything like this so I’m trying to understand the process. I have no patent & no prototype, so far my design is drawn on a spaghetti sauce stained piece of graph paper. All I have going for me is it’s a good design and I think a lot of climbers would buy it


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treebing said:
Make a prototype. Prove it works first.
Click to expand...

It has a few moving parts which would be difficult and expensive for me to make. & I don’t have machining skills. More like paper-mache.
Main thing is I’d like to avoid dumping money into making a prototype with no promise of any return.


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My limited understanding of patents is that they are only as valuable as your ability to pay to enforce them. Without deep pockets and a team of lawyers on your side, a patent is just another fancy piece of paper.

JB Holdway has licensed several things to manufacturers, he might be someone to talk to...
 
Also, everybody has had a "million dollar idea". Ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is everything. Myself, I invented (in my head) the road hockey puck with the 3 balls in it for sliding, as a kid in the early 90's. Then later on I invented the drive-thru washroom (haven't worked out the details on that one yet, but it's gonna be big)...
 
Muggs said:
My limited understanding of patents is that they are only as valuable as your ability to pay to enforce them. Without deep pockets and a team of lawyers on your side, a patent is just another fancy piece of paper.

JB Holdway has licensed several things to manufacturers, he might be someone to talk to...
Click to expand...
Muggs is right. I own a machine shop and small foundry and have learned this the hard way. A patent in this country is more or less worthless to the small guy; there is no enforcement behind it from the government. The burden is all on the patent holder to enforce it or contest patent enfringement, so there is little to stop a large company from simply stealing your design unless you have the bucks to stop them in court. Basically, it will be cheaper for you to spend the money on prototyping and documenting that, than to eventually hand even more than that to lawyers. The basic working principal could possibly be shown with a wooden model, and any obvious bugs worked out. All you need for that is a bandsaw (Harbor Freight, cost is a few hundred bucks, and nice to have later anyway). Then you can graduate to an aluminium version. Aluminium plate can be worked with the same bandsaw if you move slowly and have a strong blade. A drill press is handy also. Doesn't have to be too large a one. Again Harbor Freight for less than a hundred bucks. A bench vise in the garage or on the tailgate of your truck, and a few files, complete your basic shop. Document and photograph everything you do, with witnesses as to the date you do it.
 
It seems you can order pieces to be made for you.

I am not sure what Vention.con does, but it seems like you can get them to make things for you for a fee. If not them, someone else in the internet will do it.
 
When you make a prototype you learn the real life parameters that govern the principles from which you formed your idea. Eg rope squishing/dimensionality within device geometry. Give it a go it would be nice if you succeeded :)
 
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Lots of good thoughts in this thread.... AND.....there are inventors/innovators who just come up with the idea and sell that to a company who can have the rest done, has incentive to do so, and has the $$ to employ legal 800 lb gorillas.

I heard one such person at a seminar. He was an idea person, most of which he got while walking through the grocery store with his wife and thinking, "what would make that better?" He did the upside down ketchup bottle and flip open lid, panty liners with wings just to name a couple for Google purposes.

He said we are losing our inventers in America and incouraged more to get into it. Think he had sold over a hundred ideas that way.
 
Don't let the long hair fool you. Reg did some writing. If you read thru, mention of Hobbs, Wichard and Quoin who I actually had a small association with (small world!). There's a lot of "please elaborate" beyond the graph paper, without touching a tool, just in paper description.

WO2010092319A1 - Arborist tool - Google Patents

An arborist tool (10) for raising and lowering tree trunks and branches is provided having a base plate (13) which is attached by a strap (16) to the base of a tree and on which at least one capstan (14, 15) is mounted. A rope gripping device (12) in the form of a two-part lever (23, 24) is...
patents.google.com
 
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