The American Dream … Realized

Alyson Dutch is an incredible individual. In her own words, “I am a first generation American of an immigrant family, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor and Lithuanians sent in cattle trains to Siberia in the winter, so succeeding to me, is never a question.” She went on to graduate from the Goldman Sack’s 10,000 Small Business program which is an intense MBA like course.

25 years ago, with her Chocolate Lab Rocky Brown, she founded the wildly successful Brown and Dutch Public Relations Inc. https://bdpr.com/  which works with small independent inventors and entrepreneurs to a slew of Huge Companies of which there are too many to mention here.

She is also a prolific author. I was impressed by her articles for Inventors Digest and look forward to reading her latest book The POM Principle in which the P stands for Product, O Operations and M is Marketing. These are the 3 pillars to start and sustain any business. A Product can be anything from an invention or general product to a service. Operations is the day to day responsibilities which, believe it or not, is where most businesses fail but Marketing is the rocket fuel that can shoot you to the stars.

Think about every success story you know. They all started out by developing a great product. They learned how to persevere, until they found the right marketing angle that pulled them out of obscurity and drove their success. That is the key.

Here is a woman who has realized her American Dream and is willing to share what she has learned with you. Might I add, she is very approachable. You will feel comfortable asking her any question you may think of. If you miss this opportunity to find the key to your success, you will regret it.

Speaker For The 2/13/21 Webinar

Licensing To Open Innovation

Just about every Inventor I know wants to License their product to a large company but have no idea of how to make that happen. Well … Now you have the opportunity to learn just how to make that happen.

Warren Tuttle has been working for 12 years as a product scout for Lifetime Brands, the worlds’ largest kitchen company whose 32 well known brands include Farberware, Kitchen Aid and much, much more. He has since branched out to power tools and Direct Response TV which, for those who don’t know, is infomercials. He has seen it all and if anyone knows what it takes to get your product in, it’s Warren. 

Not only that but, just like me, he hates to see inventors waste their money. Oh, you are going to have to spend it, but spend it wisely. Unlike most industry professionals who just brush off most unprepared inventors as Dreamers, Warren goes out of his way to teach us how to become prepared. In that vein, he has served as the President of the Board for the United Inventors Association (UIA) for 12 years.

So many inventors simply refuse to do the work necessary to make their product attractive to any size company. Most might not know what to do while others want to believe the misinformation that floods the market of how to books. To set the record straight, Mr. Tuttle has written his own book called Inventor Confidential which will be available in March 2021. I ordered my copy the minute I heard about it because I know how good it is going to be.

Just think about this for a minute, product development is a Multi Billion Dollar industry with millions to be made with the right product. If all it took was a good idea to cash in, everybody would be driving Maseratis. It may start with a good idea or by identifying a long felt need or want but then the fun begins. Warren Tuttle is the Man, who can guide you through the process.     

For more information go to our website www.inventors-society.net or call 561-676-5677       

The Gadget Guy

Steve Greenberg, a world renowned expert on the subject, author of Gadget Nation, incredible TV personality, and one heck of a nice guy, will be sharing his vast knowledge of the Gadget world, including how YOU can cash in on his monthly segment on the Today Show. That’s right, that’s THE, NBC’s Today Show with Hoda & Jenna.

Steve and I go way back to when I first started booking speakers for ISSF even before I was the President. He impressed me with his genuine love of gadgets and their inventors. I mean the man lives and breathes the stuff. He does dozens of TV shows all over the country. As you would expect, even if you just get on a local show, the exposure for your invention could catapult you to instant success.

This is Very Important. It doesn’t matter if you are pitching your product to Steve, a retailer, a potential licensee or an investor, make sure it is relevant to the project. These are all very busy people and Steve is very specific about what he is looking for but in general, if an investor only invests in high tech, then pitching them a kitchen gadget will just tick them off.

Next, always follow their procedure to the letter. Steve is looking for a low resolution photo. So sending him a high quality video because You think it really shows off your product better does him no good and will get you rejected. It is a very fast process. So I recommend putting your pitch package together now and start following where he posts the new requests. When the shoe fits, Jump in it. Here is a link to Steve’s submission page http://bit.ly/2CgjIRD

Steve has spoken at our regular meetings several times and has always been very informative as well as entertaining. Some of the gadgets he finds are thought provoking, others incredibly funny, while still others would invoke the phrase What The Heck Is That? which was probably the inspiration for his new YouTube game show by that same name.

As he explains, it’s sort of Shark Tank meets What’s My Line? Check it out here https://bit.ly/3fm0lt1 to watch episodes of the show click on the arrow next to the word YouTube on this home page. Once you are on that page, you can subscribe so you get notified when new shows are available.

So Explode into the New Year with us on 1/9/21 at 1:00pm EST and learn everything you ever wanted to know about Gadgets from Steve Greenberg, The Gadget Guy … hosted by the Inventors Society of South Florida, a 501 (C) 3 non-profit educational organization.   

The Future Of IP

Gene Quinn is without a doubt the most knowledgeable person on the planet when it comes to Intellectual Property (IP) in the US. His blog www.IPWatchDog.com is a treasure trove of the latest cases, new legislation, guest authors, unbelievable interviews, etc.. Some are intense, as you would expect considering the subject matter but most are very informative and easily understood without a law degree. 

He is also running some incredible webinars in conjunction with LexisNexis on their software for patent practitioners. There are many types of Utility Patents. Some sub categories have a higher pass rate but may weaken the patent while others are very difficult to pass but make for a stronger patent. The software helps them determine which sub class they are trying to get in and how to write the claims to do so.   

I know, most amateur inventors say, ‘I don’t deal with any of that stuff, that’s why I hired a patent attorney. Let them worry about all that’ and that is precisely why professionals in the industry consider us Dreamers. I’m not saying this to insult anyone. I am merely stating fact. Even some professional inventors have that attitude but that is a BIG Mistake.

With mostly minor alterations, our patent system remained basically in tacked since Thomas Jefferson brought in his shoe boxes from home to act as a filing system for Prior Art. Then on September 16th, 2011 at exactly 11:42 am President Obama signed the America Invents Act (AIA) into law and All Holy HELL Broke Loose !!!

Punitive Damages for willful infringement virtually vanished, and so did most infringement verdicts. Why should a company license an invention when even if the inventor could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend their patent, the company would only have to pay them possibly less than what they would have to license it in the first place?   

Injunctive Relief which is the Right of the Inventor to exclude others from making, using, selling or importing the claimed invention is right out the door in the U.S. The PTAB, which we were told was supposed to be an inexpensive way to bring infringers to justice became a Death Squad allowing infringers to invalidate issued patents by the thousands. It became too easy for big corporations to steal patent rights rather than make a deal.

We, as inventors, cannot ignore what’s going on. This is our livelihoods, our future, our Constitutional Rights that we are talking about here! If for no other reason, we need to know where we stand so we can make rational business decisions related to our inventions.

Gene Quinn is The Man who can answer any question you may have related to this topic. He is on the forefront, following all the case law, the court decisions, PTAB hearings. He has interviewed all of the key players including the Trump appointed Director of the USPTO Andrei Iancu who has been working diligently to right the wrongs caused by the AIA.   

Considering the recent election results, Who Knows, what the Future will bring?

Gene Quinn …  That’s who, and he will be sharing his thoughts with us on 12/12/20 at 1:00 pm EST. You cannot afford to miss this presentation hosted by the Inventors Society of South Florida, a 501 (C) 3 non-profit educational organization.   

No recording will be made. You must register then follow the instructions in the return emails from Zoom. 

To register click on this link https://bit.ly/2Jv3fAb    

For more information go to our website www.inventors-society.net or call 561-676-5677.

The University Of Hard Knocks

Lisa Lloyd has been through it all and then some. Starting back in the early 90s, without a clue of what to do, she developed several products based on the French Twist which was a very popular hair style that made over 30 Million Dollars in retail and that was when a Million Dollars was a MILLION DOLLARS !

To share her hard earned knowledge she co-founded the Inventors Association of Arizona a non-profit like ours and served on the board of the UIA. As a matter of fact, she advised Stephen Key when he was considering how to start a business to help inventors.

She was on the inaugural season of Shark Tank and became part of Daymond John’s team dealing with every facet of his business. As a consultant, she worked for several major companies including Idea Village which is one of the biggest As Seen On TV companies in the industry. You can see her resume on her Link In Page. It is quite impressive. www.linkedin.com/in/lisavlloyd/

When we spoke, like a number of other top professionals in product development that I personally know, she expressed her utter frustration with the Independent Inventor community in that they identify fantastic problems or needs, envision creative solutions but lack the knowledge of how to develop them into commercially viable products. 

People, we are on the cusp of a revolutionary renaissance of innovation which may be bigger than any, ever seen before. The strides that the Patent Office is making, leading us out of the dark ages of the AIA. The mounting interest in the redevelopment of Open Innovation in the corporate world. The general surge of entrepreneurship as well as the infrastructure that is developing to support the individual are just a few of the obvious signs.

Bunch Of Bullllloney

Most of you already know the plight of Josh Malone with his product Bunch Of Balloons after his wildly successful million dollar Kick Starter Champaign but that is less than a quarter of the adversity that he faced leading up to it.

As I tell school children, most successful inventors that I know learned their craft while working in the field for big companies. Not only do you learn more in one day then you will on your own in months but you get paid while getting your education. Josh worked 10 years for Texas Instruments before striking out on his own with Tinnus Technology which stands for There Is Nothing New Under the Sun.

I know I wouldn’t have had the tenacity to do what he did next. With a wife and 8 kids to support, he spent the next 8 years trying to develop a successful product. After depleting their bank account, the kids’ college funds, he gave it one more shot and BAM !!! His world exploded into the roller coaster ride we all know.

After years of fighting the good fight, he has become the Champion of the Independent Inventor, giving of his time and expertise to change the laws to bring back our rights to the American Dream as envisioned by the founders of our country. 

Although he will talk about his very public life, I asked him to go into more detail about his journey TO success because there are lessons we can all learn that will show us what we need to do to climb our own mountains. He is an engineer. So the gears in his brain work differently from other creatives. There will be more logic and mental mechanics. 

The treasures he will share will change the methods that we use to develop our own products. Heck, it may change our whole way of thinking. In the very least, hearing all the tribulations that he preserved through should inspire us to put our nose to the grind stone and overcome the issues holding us back.  

For more information go to our website www.inventors-society.net or his website www.joshtheballoonguy.org or call 561-676-5677