When you turn to someone for invention advice or help, you need only ask one question: Where can I buy your or your client's products?

The response you want should be a list of stores that sell their products and not a stuttering salesman spouting a lot of "um"s and "uh"s. If they have successes, then they'd tout them. Unfortunately, there are a lot of groups, inventor clubs, prototype makers, patent attorneys, invention companies, etc., giving inventors advice without their own successes, or a product on the shelf.

If it's me, I'm looking for an organization with a consistent track record. One product might be luck, but numerous ones mean they have more experience in developing inventions successfully. Here's how I look at it: Would you hire a tour guide to take you where he's never been before? Probably not. Neither should you hire a company to take your idea where theirs has never been.

Over the years, I've had more people than I care to remember with issued patents for no good reason. In fact, it made absolutely no sense for most of these people to patent at that time. Personally, I wouldn't trust anyone who said they were going to get me a patent when I was only in the roughest of idea stages.

Inventors shouldn't be misled by trigger-happy, patent-now invention firms who want you to cough up thousands while your idea is still in the early stages of development. This is an all too common way to kill your idea in its tracks. To add insult to injury, I see some of these worthless patents turn into 20,000 units of poorly developed product with horrible packaging, collecting dust in some warehouse or garage. Those people lost thousands because they put the cart before the horse.

Each organization wants to give something different to an inventor, whether it's advice, a patent, a design or a prototype, leaving inventors crying out, "I know the rate of success is low, but show me something." An organization that does it all sees the bigger picture. Find a group that shows what it has done with its own ideas, so you too can see the big picture.

George Davison
http://www.georgemdavison.com/