Philanthropic Invention Corporation

Why not. It is not exactly rocket science. How about a website based version to start with (got to get the fundamentals right before you start to get your hands dirty). Something similar to CR4 but with additional downloadable resources (tips, patent law, patent sites, etc) and website links (there is plenty of useful information provided by other experts out there, as well as basic technical information on physics and electronics). Oooh, a separate section for pseudo science enthusiasts to go to would be nice. A section on common technologies and fields that show promise, and ones that don't would be good too. I am more than happy to help (even thou I am not retired). So many ideas, so little time.

Anything to help the many, many backyard inventors that, each year, believe they have reinvented the over unity power generator or other such device, as well as the rest of us.

jack writes: "Oooh, a separate section for pseudo science enthusiasts to go to would be nice."

... and ...

"Anything to help the many, many backyard inventors that, each year, believe they have reinvented the over unity power generator or other such device, as well as the rest of us."

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Methinks thou and I are on the same page here. Someplace, off the street, where the Voices-from-the-Fringe have..well..a voice and where they can safely test their Tesla Death Rays.

-e

I think I've had enough of you and the other lofty geeks that never have anything good to say .What have you ever come up with ? What new ideas do you bring to the table ? I'm guessing nothing and that you have never tried anything .

One thing you may be good at is cutting people down but what does that show about yourself.

I bet you have exactly $500 in the bank

your in debt on your credit cards $5000

you have exactly zero to show for your time on earth

good luck clown

Trad writes: "What new ideas do you bring to the table ? I'm guessing nothing and that you have never tried anything."

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No offense intended, Trad. And no, I don't have $500 in the bank. Not precisely $500, at any rate. Nor do I use credit cards (preferring instead, debit cards). But I do have seven patents and two more pending and so my table is a bit..um..cluttered?

Again, no offense intended. But do you identify with The Fringe? You did take offense, yes? No need to take umbrage - unless you're with the Death-Ray Squad.

-e

Not with the death ray squad but for the little guy that might have a good idea .It has been my exsperiance that so called experts have there heads so far in the clouds that they honestly believe if they didn't think of it ,then it's a dumb idea .

I prefer positive thought .I'm sure historically many of the greatest inventors have not been to MIT .And conversely many people who have ,have not done much but flapped there mouths . I have been facinated with the work of Tesla and believe he did alot with what he had to work with in his day. I also believe that as with his work it may be reasonable to assume in todays environment something that failed then may in fact be viable today.

I clearly understand the frustration in the science community with "backyard " inventors assuming they have found a way to beat the laws of physics but I believe many great ideas go unheard for fear of ridicual and or failure .

In my exsperiance that has enbolden me to greater hieghts of success to prove the doubters wrong . So I will be an eternal optomist ,although a lousy speller and typist .

I see you have been a prolific contributor to this forum and probably a great guy so

no offense intended or taken .

Remember where you came from .

Trad advises: "Remember where you came from."

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I do remember indeed. I was a janitor once. In two years I cleaned 8,500 potties and mopped and vacuumed at least one square mile of floors. You'd be amazed just how bad a "Ladies" room can get!

-e

so I'm sure you see my point

LOL. I started as a cleaner also, working for almost 1/2 of minimum wage. Saved up enough to put muself thru university for my first engineering certificate.

You da man! (high five)

Most of the people I work with have Ph.Ds, yet the majority of them treat the custodial folks the same as they do their peers. I find this to be very, very impressive. Nor would I be the least bit surprised if a number of them put themselves through school as you did - by busting ass in the face of having little more than a poverty-level income. I've never, ever seen anyone here sneer at a custodian (and if they do they'll have to answer to me!)

-e

Can I be part of th OJC (old janitor's club) too? I used to clean toilets at a tennis club. I also gathered up the slimy old towels, put out new ones, swept the clay courts, watered and rolled them, etc.

The Right Honorable Blink asks: "Can I be part of th OJC (old janitor's club) too?"

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Please, have a seat over there. By the hearth.

Waiter! (Would you care for a fine Hine Vintage Cognac, or might you prefer Eau de Perrier?)

The valet will take your jacket now, Sir.

-e

Btw, avatars must wait outside. See, mine looks a little sheepish, but I'm confident he can handle it.

-e

Eau de Toilette would be just fine for my cat and I.

Methinks I see a trend. Sometimes the best thing you can do is go out and get your hands dirty.

Jack writes: "Sometimes the best thing you can do is go out and get your hands dirty."

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The most valuable diamonds are those which undergo the most cutting. Great soldiers are not made without war. Skillful sailors are not trained on the shore. The one who is much plowed produces the greater harvest. Gold is not thrown into the furnace because it is rubbish, but because it is gold.

This period in my life was a living hell. I can only hope that it has produced fruit worthy of the suffering.

Enough said.

-e

Trad also writes: "Not with the death ray squad but for the little guy that might have a good idea."

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My poke was directed strictly at the pseudo-science crowd who manage to believe every piece of crap that floats down the pike but never seems to "get" even the simplest, demonstrated, proven principles of Basic Science. I sometimes wonder at what might make such tripe attractive to this bunch. An easy substitute for intellectual honesty, maybe? Or, perhaps Real Science is too hard for them, so they opt for something less challenging that also has the "benefit" of lending an air of gnosticism to their endeavors. These are the folk who truly come up empty-handed, not folk like you and I who work our asses off to bring something to market only for Big Money to steal it out from under our noses. This pseudo-science bunch are a total turn-off. I poke fun at them once in awhile on this forum, and I can't think of a more deserving bunch.

-e

ok

I appreciate your adaquate explaination , I'll need to look up gnosticism , but I think we understand each other .Thanks for taking the time to clarify your position .
ck your mail

As mentioned briefly in the other recent thread "Emmision Free Electrical Generation "

The free and unhindered exchange of ideas is great, that is what it is all about, but pseudo science is an area that has little (but still possibly something) to offer (hence my mentioning it should have a separate section, not be blocked entirely). The inclusion of this section, at the very least, should help provide an area where enthusiastic people with little or no clue can get advice (not psychiatric) on how to start and learn about the basics, as well as what has and hasn't been done. Armed with this knowledge they will have a substantially better chance at developing something productive rather than going down a path with a dead end that so many have gone down (pseudo science). Sure, sometimes that path does have another hidden path off it for people to discover (some unexpected scientific offshoot, etc), but without a grounding in the basics and knowledge the chances of only finding a dead end are almost certain (luck only goes so far).

This means that other scientist's and engineers can happily work with people without having to hear some of the following phrases (or similar).

"My idea is an improvement on an idea already patented. The other idea is patented so I already know that it works of course"

"you put my idea down saying it cannot be done. Your just a puppet of the oil companies"

"My technical background of 1 year of high school science and access to the internet says your decades of experience (and degree) in the specific field I am talking about are wrong."

"If you say my over-unity device for producing infinite amounts of power, that I built in my backyard, cannot work, prove me wrong." <respond with quantities of scientific laws, electrical waves and fields theory, real world experiences, etc> "my device and $10 multimeter say your wrong, look I will send you a picture of the multimeter screen to prove it!"

"My proof is this website I found. On the website they prove it was done, the designer however has disappeared due to the oil companies buying him out or killing him"

The list goes on.....

Without a proper education and background, backyard tinkerers are at a serious disadvantage, especially when dealing with such concepts as over unity power generating designs that will change the world, converting water to hydrogen, cold fusion, etc. All these are attempted regularly each year. ALL have failed to date.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY (from an open-minded engineer. Me): "You must learn to crawl before you can walk" (or in the cases of many pseudo science cases "You must learn to crawl before you can win the marathon!")

Just to report

It has been suggested to check American Society of Inventors

I have and they seem to offer many of the services I envisioned in my original post I will be following that up and report back .If anyone has any experiance with ASI please give me some insight .

Another suggestion was NASA tech I had less luck but will continue trying .

P.s. why don't they use milk to neutralize acid ? I bet it gets stinky
not to say it wouldn't work well .

Some MIT professor guy was on the tube t'other day with a "super machine shop in a box"...a collection of CAD lathes and shapers, benders and brakes, with fuly integrated software. The idea being that you could bang out robots or guitars or whatever your inventor's heart desired. He was happy that it was being picked up by classrooms around the nation but unhappy with how few individuals had any real interest in it. (Hope I am not misquoting him with a poor paraphrase. If so, sorry!) Personally I think its a great idea. Combine that with a decent education so that you can learn to skip the stuff that doesn't work, and you got a winner.

The show was about great inventors, and I suspect, half the contributors to CR4 either were or should have been featured in that show. So somebody here must know who this fella is!

In my humble opinion, it is not new inventions we need, but better marketing and utilization of the ones collecting dust in the patent office now.

Do you have the link to the "super machine shop in a box"?

Thanks,

Montie

montie@montie.com

www.montie.com

No Montie, I wish I did. It was a TV show on the Learning Channel. It featured Leonardo's workshop in Florence I remember. I was kinda hoping somebody on this forum would know. I just was watching it kinda casual like, and remember thinking "Hey...thats a good idea!" On the other hand, how hard would it be to assemble a "machine shop in a box anyway? I'm sure I could deliver a half container to your backyard fill of machines and manuals for under 20 grand. Double that if you want premium tools to start a business, but just hobby or classroom...the price of a school bus, you got yourself a way to put the next generation onto the moon. But although I could provide the tools, I don't have the expertise to train those young minds. But this forum is full of people who can!

re the machine shop in a box idea:

I'm sure something like the following is is being done somewhere... but it would be great to share the cost of a large 3d printer, so that you could do rapid prototyping of parts, creation of plugs for molds, etc. Some of these will create a working part -- even metalic things, (via sintering) for many applications.

Maybe centers like trad is envisioning could be set up at each state university. The university gets 30% of the royalties, and, in return, provides facilities, patent advice and attorneys, (some security system?) etc.

Great ideas Ken

thanks for bringing the conversation back around .

I see it as a very plausable idea .

the fact that ideas can easily be moved around makes sattelite facilities ideal.

Once an idea showed promise it could be then directed to specific areas of expertise around the country or the world .The idea of having a "clearing " house would allow immediate access to the correct people ,rather than the guantlet of invention theives, locally oriented and with the prestige and integrity of college affiliation .

I believe any legal issues could be reasonably be handled and in reality I think peoples rights would be better protected. Rather than stardard posibilities or avenues currently availible.

Put it this way you could trust me ,I want to maintain my hard earned reputation.
In the same sense so would any college or university.

That is essentially an answer to a big problem ,trust is hard to find ,and is at the root of the cancer, that pervades intellectual property rights or any other money making venture for that matter .

Trust comes from a win win situation and we may be on to something .

Hi Ken. The outfit I work for has an Office of Technology Commercialization. Not quite what Trad envisioned - not yet anyway - but you have to start somewhere. While I think the OTC is a good idea, I don't feel they fully explore the merits of inventions, discoveries, and so forth, unless said innovation is on the scale of, say, a breakthrough in nuclear fusion, discovery of dark matter, or the discovery of the neutrino.

Sadly, their point man seems greedy and a bit jaded to everything that doesn't promise to bring in at least $100 million a year. One of my inventions (like pretty much all the others) came in a flash of insight while I was thinking about something else. The guy wasn't interested until I mentioned that it leverages extent technology and processes (no manufacturing changes need be made, as it is a behavioral change only and one that takes advantage of characteristics already present in a particular kind of device), and that over 100 million of these thingies are now made each year worldwide. (You probably have at least two of them in your own computer - if not more.) That's when he sat up straight and listened. Finally.

-e

Not far from here is a microcar museum (which has very strange hours -- so even though I've been planning to go there, they never seem to be open when I get close to actually doing it). Many of these neat little cars were sold in very small numbers but quite a few were produced in numbers in the 10,000 to 20,000 range. Those numbers are far to small to be of interest (even for a single year of a single model) to a car manufacturer. But if one were to plan a small business to fill a particular niche, you could keep it going for quite a while, I'd think, with numbers like that. (10,000 $10,000 cars is $100,000,000, which might not be real money to Bill Gates, but it's real money to me.)

I think there is an assumption that you have to grow (and grow fast) to make a sustainable business. There is also a (basically true) notion that a business has to be worth a $million to attract early VC money. That makes it tough for someone who has an idea that might be very good but which fits into a small market.

I've read some business plans (especially from just before the .com bust) that took a pretty good, solid idea, and blew it up with hype into something that would attract money. They got the money (too much, with too high expectations attached) and promptly went belly up. Had they thought smaller, they might still be in business (but of course, they wouldn't have received the VC money).

So, some way to get smaller ideas up and running would be a good thing, I think.

Maybe in part two we can thrash this around.

Exactly I seen a big company waste enough money on there annual party to fund this idea for 5 years .The save a buck spend a million mentality is absurd .
Thanks again for you well grounded comments on this issue .

Hey montie, check this out. You download the CAD package, design whatever (specifying materials/ machine tools etc) check against on-line pricing, and just place your order. I haven't the faintest idea how good it is, but it does appear to be a bona fide site. My guess is that it's pitched at home inventors, and the pricing would be commensurate with what it does. Still, you might like to look. I'd love to hear if you go on to evaluate/use it.

What's really funny is that I've sat on this for a year or two (somebody asked me to locate such stuff), and found reason to post the link just the other day on one of the Challenge Questions. I just love synchronicity.

That's sounds really neat! Was the idea that you could send a file remotely and end up with your widget -- or did you have to show up at MIT?

I agree, marketing is key. (Granted I think we should keep the ideas coming, too)

blink writes: "I agree, marketing is key."

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An absolutely essential key. Look at Microsoft: people still think it's a technology company. Even now.

-e

The problem, Trad, is in the essence of Intellectual Property. To the extent that it is public the value declines. Secrecy is paramount in the patent process.

If you just want to bounce around ideas, then CR4 is probably as good a place as any, save Valhalla (Rice U Grad Student Assoc beer hall). First round's mine.

some interesting comments .I still am surprised that the specific location of a design center isn't forthcoming .In the art world it is common to give budding artists a place to stay materials and support .I realise the importance of secrecy but wouldn't that be covered by non disclosure agreements . Even having the resources to do a patent search for free would be helpful but I accept confidentiality is an issue .Maybe it is unrealistic idea but I still have hopes. Its unfortunate the standards of going to developement sharks is all that's availible in the greatest country in the world . I'll check out the suggested site "Dyson" I expect it's origin is british I'll check back with the disscussion .

???? Why are you surprised ??? In this day and age virtually everyone is connected by the internet. A fixed location is nice, although the cost is soo much higher and flexibility is soooo limited when located at a fixed location. In this application, what cannot be done over the internet with video conferencing, etc?

Patent searching is becoming much, much easier on the web with the introduction of patent search sites.

Why thank you, I agree New Zealand is the greatest country in the world (you didn't indicate what country, so I am assuming you come from NZ).

I took an entrepreneurial development course several years ago. There were about 15 of us, and we all signed a mutual non-disclosure, as I remember (or we certainly did so verbally) There still has to be a lot of trust involved, but I think the same idea could work for patentable things.

Go Owls!

(Don't quote me here. I work at UT)

-e

Try James Dyson at www.dyson.co.uk/jd/default.asp?sinavtype=menu

Thanks for the info I'll give it a try

Tried him -Nothing- even offered an improvment to his vac machine-too busy with our own inventions was the reply.

as far as technical assistance goes look up SCORE it stands for service corp of retired executives. It is a service to budding entreprenours. matching people with an expert in any perticular field

Morning,

We have been talking about starting such an organization in North Carolina. I'm interested in thoughts that any of you have on the subject. If you go to:

blog.montie.com

There are a couple of entires on this subject, you will have to scroll down though.

Sincerely,

Montie Roland
Montie Design
montie@montie.com
www.montie.com
www.ncproductdesign (home of the North Carolina Product Design Directory)

Montie your the man,

anyone who has such a perfect thought

" a candle looses nothing by lighting another candle "that's my kind of thinking .

I'll definately look at your site and apprieciate your post.

Thanks.

Montie

Please explain your vision for the type of support and ownership of the end product.

If the results of this endeavor are prorpietory products, then there is likely to be conflict over who shares the booty. If someone picks up the shovel for you, or provides the shovel, they may feel some sense of (partial) ownership.

The GNU folks (software only) www.gnu.org provide complete sharing through their open-source approach, but nobody gets rich.

The MIT media lab shares the results of its labors with all sponsors - you buy a ticket, you have access to the rewards.

The Score folks offer business/(some)legal counseling www.score.org

There is no reason why these three models couldn't be combined into a workable model. It seems to me that defining how the rewards are shared is crucial to getting a buy-in.

True my first patent experiance the attorney pointed out a very valuable leason .

He said " would you rather have 10% of a million dollars and partner with a company or break your ass and make a $100,000 " I've also added to that would you rather have a peice of something or alot of nothing .

Trad advises: "He said " would you rather have 10% of a million dollars and partner with a company or break your ass and make a $100,000 " I've also added to that would you rather have a peice of something or alot of nothing."

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Your attorney might also give you this advice: "A corporate partner can also help you defend your patent(s). Invariably you will run up against infringement at some point if your inventions are attractive enough to steal. As the burden of proof is on your shoulders, mounting a successful prosecution can get very costly. Better to partner with someone having deep pockets and who has a vested interest in your continued success."

-e

After leaving Polaroid in the hands of corporate managers (who subsequently drove the company into the ground) Edwin Land started the Roland Institute for Science to serve as an incubator for new inventions. His concept was to license patents to industry and use the income to support more r & d. In 2002 the Institute was merged with Harvard University to carry on this effort.

Thanks for that tip I'll look into it .

The Rowland Institute for science MIT
not quite a general idea tank specific high science, interesting .

Yeah tell me about it, Ive developed a simple idea that makes electrical current something that you can eyeball both for presense and polarity over the range of + or - 3ma to 10 Amperes AC or DC. Just think how many electrical circuits there are in the world that could use such a devicem and how much wire and complication it could save.

As well as being able to eyball electrons via photons there is also 2 volt free outputs for connection to a data system if required. The device is line powered so needs no supply consideration. It does cause a small fractional Volt loss (+or-0.35-1.1 V) from the line however but well worth the information it provides.

Just think of an Bi directional system of LED's that operate in the current domain alone ( ie. any voltage line level) and at a fraction of their normal requirement for voltage, virtualy solid wire that lights up so to speak and in any colour required even UV.

This bit of Kit will produce light from 2 corroding pieces of Metal (ZN Cu) in a salt solution, Corrossion indicator/ detector?

Also will allow operation of remote solenoid valves with perfect closed-loop feedback over the same 2 supply wires.

Anyone interested out there in the big wide world

Honeywell, GE, Rockwell, Siemens?

Na -not so far anyway, I need HELP the patent Agents are Bleeeding me dry.

Silver medalist at International Inventions Fair Geneva by the way!

Contact +44(0)1446 741180 if any interest

Getting away from all this talk of "patent" and "money making" (certainly not to be used in the same sentence), how about just a place for the free exchange of knowledge and ideas to assist in developing or furthering ideas we have, and creating new ideas which can be further developed.

Sometimes all someone needs is a point in the right direction, an ear to listen to and a hand if they stumble. The reality is that it is unlikely that anyone will make any money anyway (except the patent lawyers). Go the pursuit of knowledge, fun and helping others (it is after all supposed to be fun). Yes I love my job.

Hi All! I think it's a good idea! How can I help?

Thanks for your comments

This discussion is a few days old
As is the norm things tend to degenerate and slip into obscurity after a few days so to continue I think I'll start it up again to refresh the idea .There have been some positive input and some realistic workable ideas ,at the same time "Inventors Beware " has provided great insight .So to bring things together I'll start a link " New inventors corporation Part 2 " I hope you all will attend .

Just as an update. We started the RTP Product Develoment Guild. The website is at:

www.rtpproductguild.com

Montie

Thanks for the update I'll check it out