ELECTRONIC GAS SAFTY DEVICE
ELECTRONIC GAS SAFTY DEVICE
I have a patent on a gas vent / burner device for water heaters and other gas appliances check it out @ u.s. patent office patent # 5,531,214 I would like to see this on the market but I do not have the money to back it. Also I don't know where to start.
Re: ELECTRONIC GAS SAFTY DEVICE
Hello.
Visit the Patent Café ; there is some guidance, assistance and clues there.<p>http://www.patentcafe.com/<p>Miguel
Visit the Patent Café ; there is some guidance, assistance and clues there.<p>http://www.patentcafe.com/<p>Miguel
- Abolish the deciBel ! -
Re: ELECTRONIC GAS SAFTY DEVICE
Thanks, It is a cool site.
Re: ELECTRONIC GAS SAFTY DEVICE
Read the pm I sent you as well
also
thanks for the site it's very interesting reading
also
thanks for the site it's very interesting reading
Re: ELECTRONIC GAS SAFTY DEVICE
Well, do not believe everything you read at the café...<p>I do take my hat off on this :<p>http://www.tinaja.com/glib/casagpat.pdf<p>My patent lawyer in profession for 30 years became REALLY, REALLY hurt to the extent of ripping apart the above document after I showed it to him. He had never seen it before. You should.<p>Enjoy,
Miguel
Miguel
- Abolish the deciBel ! -
Re: ELECTRONIC GAS SAFTY DEVICE
Certainly the debate over the usefulness of patents rages on. The only ones guaranteed to make money off a patent is the lawyer (no wonder he didn't like the article)<p>Since you already went through the trouble of getting a Utility Patent, your choices are:
1.Become an OEM and make it and sell it yourself
2. Licence it to a manufacturer and get up front money and/or royalties.
3. Wait until someone carelessly (or intentionally) rips it off then sue them for royalties.<p>Option 3 means you need to do lots of homework to find a transgressor and then hope they have some money for you and don't burn it up by delaying and causing you extra legal fees. You should do this anyway in parallel with option 1 or 2<p>Option 1 is not just building it, thats easy, you simply buy raw materials, send them to contract manufacturers to be fabricated into your sub assemblies then you put it together and calibrate it. The hard part is selling it, maybe you can move a few off a website or even ebay but to make money you need a big commercial customer who will buy dozens at a time. Establishing a customer base and marketing strategy can take time but it will all be in your control. <p>You can use independent sales reps but you need to keep them interested (with income, and that means sales) or they will just forget about you. My boss always said, "If the salesman does a bad job, The rest of us might as well just stay home"<p>
Option 2 requires Synergy. You need to find an OEM who makes products that already sell to the customers you want to sell to and they must not have a conflicting product or agreement. It helps if that OEM already has experience manufacturing devices similar to yours but it is not required, the sales (pre-existing customer base) part of the equasion is much more important to making money. <p>There are invention trade shows you can use to look for someone but you might be better off approaching qualified companies directly. You can look up the CTO or president of many companies on the internet and mail a letter directly to them. The existance of a patent may or may not be attracve to them depending on their experience and your price etc.<p>Companies are looking for new products, I know we are (but there is no synergy here). The economy is making them very cheap though, Be flexible when negotiating. Maybe you can get a job as the product manager at the same time.<p>Have you done any study to determine the value of this product. Start with the manufacturing cost (low and high volume will be different) and estimate what the customer will pay (your customer, not the end user) then start dividing up the markup into overhead, commissions, sales expenses etc until you are left with the profit. Finally multiply that by the number of units you think you can sell (realistically) per quarter. With those values in mind, you can then start to think about what franchise fee or royalty is reasonable.<p>How long this takes depends on how much the market wants it. It seems to me that a homeowner would not retrofit his heater with your invention so direct sales are unlikly. Furthermore, a contractor might incorporate this into an installation if it is available "a-la carte". Even better is for a big heater manufacturer to desire to design it into a new model. Best of all would be for local code or legislation to require a device like yours on all new installations then it wouldn't matter who made them, they would all have to come to you.<p>I was overdue for a long post
Chris
1.Become an OEM and make it and sell it yourself
2. Licence it to a manufacturer and get up front money and/or royalties.
3. Wait until someone carelessly (or intentionally) rips it off then sue them for royalties.<p>Option 3 means you need to do lots of homework to find a transgressor and then hope they have some money for you and don't burn it up by delaying and causing you extra legal fees. You should do this anyway in parallel with option 1 or 2<p>Option 1 is not just building it, thats easy, you simply buy raw materials, send them to contract manufacturers to be fabricated into your sub assemblies then you put it together and calibrate it. The hard part is selling it, maybe you can move a few off a website or even ebay but to make money you need a big commercial customer who will buy dozens at a time. Establishing a customer base and marketing strategy can take time but it will all be in your control. <p>You can use independent sales reps but you need to keep them interested (with income, and that means sales) or they will just forget about you. My boss always said, "If the salesman does a bad job, The rest of us might as well just stay home"<p>
Option 2 requires Synergy. You need to find an OEM who makes products that already sell to the customers you want to sell to and they must not have a conflicting product or agreement. It helps if that OEM already has experience manufacturing devices similar to yours but it is not required, the sales (pre-existing customer base) part of the equasion is much more important to making money. <p>There are invention trade shows you can use to look for someone but you might be better off approaching qualified companies directly. You can look up the CTO or president of many companies on the internet and mail a letter directly to them. The existance of a patent may or may not be attracve to them depending on their experience and your price etc.<p>Companies are looking for new products, I know we are (but there is no synergy here). The economy is making them very cheap though, Be flexible when negotiating. Maybe you can get a job as the product manager at the same time.<p>Have you done any study to determine the value of this product. Start with the manufacturing cost (low and high volume will be different) and estimate what the customer will pay (your customer, not the end user) then start dividing up the markup into overhead, commissions, sales expenses etc until you are left with the profit. Finally multiply that by the number of units you think you can sell (realistically) per quarter. With those values in mind, you can then start to think about what franchise fee or royalty is reasonable.<p>How long this takes depends on how much the market wants it. It seems to me that a homeowner would not retrofit his heater with your invention so direct sales are unlikly. Furthermore, a contractor might incorporate this into an installation if it is available "a-la carte". Even better is for a big heater manufacturer to desire to design it into a new model. Best of all would be for local code or legislation to require a device like yours on all new installations then it wouldn't matter who made them, they would all have to come to you.<p>I was overdue for a long post
Chris
Re: ELECTRONIC GAS SAFTY DEVICE
Thanks Chris,<p> Long yes, but very use full info.
Thank you very much for the time you put into it .<p>
Thanks again,
Rick
Thank you very much for the time you put into it .<p>
Thanks again,
Rick
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