Perhaps I am repeating myself, but many years ago in another job far, far away, the department in which I worked in the Government of Canada was also in charge of the Bureau of Intellectual Property. I watched a case where a farmer in Saskatchewan who had invented a novel design for a farm implement hitch to a tractor had filed for patents for his invention. He tried and tried to market the thing, but in the end folded and sold said patents to a huge farm implement dealer in the US and voila! - his design became the standard farm setup for years to come, maybe worldwide for all I know.
Bottom line, in my own business of 25 yrs or so, I watched great ideas come to light in software, then the inventors sold out to much larger company's who had the marketing, legal departments, etc. etc. Some made it and some (like Q Sound, a competitor to Dolby who didn't really make it) gave way to far larger firms who had absolute control of their markets and don't want what are called "scramble competitors" chipping away. All of this isn't invention or tree work - it is business. No Business! I would encourage folks to read some business books before embarking on the full scale development/ retail sale thing - The Discipline of Market Leaders by Micheal Treacy, or Startup by Gerry Kaplan and many others in small business libraries. Or here's a weird idea - perhaps we should consider other business models for innovative tree climbing gear development - what about a Co-op? Look at MEC in Canada or REI, both very successful. No reason why it can't be done with tree gear? Years ago in Shell, I met a brilliant young man from Belgium I think it was who was doing his Masters thesis in business - on various models of business Co-ops around the workd and their case studies. There's gotta be other ways to do this. What is it the RCMP has in their motto - "Maintain Le Droit" (Maintain the Right). Can it be that the ideas are new but we keep trying to ram them into the same business model over and over?
