The following are the Inventors Association of New England Meeting Notes for December 2009, by Peter Taibi:
Art Venditti, our December speaker, has been a member of the IANE for over 30 years and was trained as an Industrial Designer, and calls himself a Common Sense Engineer. Over the past 35 years, he has worked on hundreds of products in various roles (V.P., Director of R&D, Sourcing, Biz Development) at Parker Brothers, Craft House, Inc., Chartpak, Inc., and Peachtree Playthings, and holds over a dozen patents in the fields of toys, games, electronics, mechanisms, and packaging. He has built key relationships and worked with Trade Companies and Manufacturers in Asia for over 15 years, sourcing materials and designing/developing, naming & managing products for sale in the global marketplace. In doing so he has made over 75 trips to Asia, and currently makes the trip once a year; he never misses the 2 week long Canton (Trade) Fair. Art is the Managing Director of The Product Development Network, which exists as "a resource available to inventors to help guide them through the product development process." They are a consultant group of highly skilled professionals with specialties in all facets of bringing a product to market, which includes an IANE patent agent, Joe Birkner. Part of his presentation displayed many products he has worked on and prototyped, including a new children's play desk/easel, a paint-by-numbers set with real brushes and paint tubes, and the hit "Merlin" game, which highlighted how the exponential advance of technology has impacted the field of once expensive and computer intensive inventions.
Some of the valuable info he shared with us:
- Before you get serious, Do Research and see if anything is out there.
- Don't spend your time and money recreating the wheel. He thought he had missed out on capitalizing on the baby monitor market, for which he had done prototypes many years ago, but discovered it had already been done in the 1950s.
- Learn from the Past. Look at old things in an area of interest to Improve.
- Prototype things on your own first, if you can, like he has (ex. airplanes out of foam). Sometimes pictures of your ideas sent to a company are enough, and a proto is not necessary. A process he has had success with is to do a one page drawing and get a quote, before moving on.
- Network as much as possible. Develop trust and friendships and build products together. Don't back stab anyone, it'll come back to haunt you.
- Rely on who you are licensing to to do the work, because you cant know everything yourself, and other areas of expertise will be necessary from time to time.
- Get the company to fund the patent. When working with Schaeffer, they paid for the patents, tooling, manufacturing and he got a 5% royalty (he paid for his lawyer to do the Agreement).
- Join into a Partnership if what you are working on is complex or takes a lot of resources to develop. Sometimes you will be able to Leverage Relationships with service providers (ex. model shops).
- Always think of Names when creating a product. Sometimes a good, solid name can be more valuable than a patent because it can be easier to protect, as in the case of the Nerf line of products, which extends beyond the ball that Art developed & named.
- If you can get your idea into a company to show it, do it. Start with the owner or CEO, deal with people who can be a champion for you. Make sure to have some protections in place first (PPA, etc.).
Art gave advice about one of the issues that came up in the Q&A about ripoffs when dealing with other countries, such as China. Try to find a good Representative, like a Trading Company, to Manage the Relationship with the manufacturer and oversee the whole process. They can do things that you are not able to do: Track product, Source for you, Check on pilot runs at the factory, Quality Control, and have Resources they have nurtured over the years. He trusts his associates in Hong Kong to do due diligence with anyone that he asks of them that will sign non-disclosure. Art also pointed out that keeping communication simple without using colloquialisms, is important. He draws from his experience writing rules for games (which are written for 12 yr. olds) to communicate clearly and explicitly what is needed.
We thank Art Venditti for yet another informative presentation and active Q&A session. He brings his vast experience in managing, designing and developing products, packaging, business development and relationships in the U.S. and Asia to The Product Development Network (www.productdevelopmentnetwork.com). See you in 2010!
<==
