The American Inventors Protection Act of 1999 added 35 USC 297 to federal law. The statute requires invention promoters to disclose contract terms in writing before any inventor signs. Twenty-six years later, a large share of inventor complaints to the Federal Trade...
A patent grants the inventor the right to exclude others from making or selling the invention, which is what makes a license worth paying for, but the USPTO does not market or commercialize patented inventions for you. A first-time inventor sending cold outreach to...
A typical inventor underestimates the time cost of a do-it-yourself product launch by a factor of three. Industry surveys put the median DIY effort at 200 to 1,000 hours of unpaid work spread across 12 to 36 months. The same product run through a competent firm...
The Federal Trade Commission has filed enforcement actions against more than a dozen invention promotion outfits since 1994 under the American Inventors Protection Act. The pattern repeats: glossy marketing, vague promises, big upfront fees, and a contract that...
“Invention assistance companies” is a loose phrase. It covers patent attorneys, product design firms, prototyping shops, and marketing and licensing services, and an inventor searching the term gets all four mixed together with no map. The phrase is broad...
