Archive for: September 2010

If you are into building scale model construction kits (and I used to be obsessed by the whole process), there is a problem with the paints you need to complete the job.

Essentially, a perfectly accurate duck egg blue or an olive drab coating, when applied to some model in 1/72nd scale, looks way too intense.

I’m not sure about the neurophysiology of why this is, but professional modellers know it’s true and dilute accordingly (otherwise that feldgrau Tiger tank looks black -even in 1/35th).

Today’s invention is model paints which are matched more correctly to the scale of model for which they are intended. Manufacturers could supply a separate range of paints for every scale, but more usefully a kit could be sold which would allow makers to dilute their own precisely (according to the measured perceptions of psychophysical test subjects as to which of a range of eg tanks looked the correct shade when set against images of the real thing).

Driving to the car wash is a waste of time and effort.

Today’s invention is a mobile carwash that comes to your car. A small vehicle drives down the pavement and extends its brushed arms around your car as shown.

The operator would decide how dirty each car was and use only enough water and detergent to deal with the job in hand.

In this way, an entire street of parked cars could be washed very economically, whilst their owners were elsewhere.

My attention span started off short and is getting rapidly shorter. If a document is written in convoluted sentences (or in the case of a patent application, one half-page ‘sentence’), then I usually avoid reading it.

Today’s invention is a tool to order search results by average sentence length on a webpage.

This would help people to mostly avoid florid language in favour of writers who get to the point.

Manufacturers of eg edible goods are obsessive about understanding what we like best. Today’s invention is a box for chocolates or biscuits which allows communication about our preferences.

It consists of a (grey) annular box, like a slide carousel, in which eg biscuits are arranged on their sides and visible through a transparent, annular lid.

The lid must be rotated so that a slot in it corresponds with the biscuit of one’s choice. As this happens, a small (red) pen leaves a line on a roll of paper wrapped around the outer face of the carousel. When the pen stops, it leaves a small blot.

Microscopic analysis later of the blots and the line’s local ink depth allows interpretation of the order in which biscuits were visited.

Consumers could be offered a small incentive to mail the paper sheet back to the manufacturer to aid product development.

Getting into and out of vehicles, especially those with low, sporty profiles can be difficult.

Today’s invention is seats which detect if anyone is sitting on them and which can be driven forwards or backwards, when the vehicle is stationary.

When a front door is opened, and that seat and the one behind are empty, it will slide back to allow easier access.

Similarly when a back door is opened, if the seats on that side are unoccupied, the front one will slide forwards.

Mudflaps. They are primitive, ugly and highly non-aerodynamic.

Today’s invention is mudflaps which withdraw into the vehicle body, scraping themselves clean as they do so and sealing flush with the bodyshell.

This allows for the best possible combination of protection against flying dirt (for surrounding vehicles as well), aerodynamics and aesthetics.

It may be mostly cosmetic, but today’s invention is a computer keyboard with keys that glow when pressed.

The colour of the light emitted might vary with the speed of key depression.

The keys would then dim exponentially, with a user-defined time constant, so that the computer owner gradually learns the visual-temporal pattern associated with typing a given word, say, and will thus be better equipped to spot spelling errors in realtime (especially in irritating passwords).

I was in a major city today during a rainstorm and noticed that certain locations each had a pile of broken umbrellas on the pavement, dumped by their owners as the local wind had reduced them to tatters.

Today’s invention is a gustiness map overlay for Google Street View.

This would be based on crowdsourced information about where damaging winds usually occur (mostly on street corners) and result in a display in the form of a superimposed ‘heatmap’ on a mobile phone clipped to the shaft of their brolly.

Owners would be better prepared to re-orientate their umbrellas and thus reduce the waste which unexpected blasts cause.

Knocking on a door in a unique temporal pattern may be used to tell the building occupants that someone they trust wants to come in.

This is hardly the security of our cyber-era -or is it?

Today’s invention is a related alternative to the conventional secure login methods for a touchscreen-enabled device.

A user touches the screen anywhere in a certain temporal sequence. The machine can detect this and decide whether to log him in or issue a refusal. Either way, the touching can be done silently and in such a way as to be very hard to shoulder surf.

Mark Sheahan (Inventor In Residence at the British Library) recently gave me some tips on how to make more money from inventing.

Here is the checklist he uses when advising Inventors via the British Library ‘Ask- an-Expert’ service:

Best solution: Is their idea the best solution to solve the problem for the target market?

Patent search: The importance of getting a professional patent search carried out, before spending significant amount of time and money on the idea -and who to use.

Market and size: Ways of finding details on the market and its size, to gauge whether it is worth commercially pursuing. Also, how they intend to reach this market, or help with it.

Manufacturability: If a physical product, can it be made, is the cost sustainable and is it fit for purpose? Getting ‘proof of concept’. Maybe showing them how I think it should be made can help.

Adding value: Most new ideas are generally better or cheaper – ideally both. I look for ways of adding value to the invention, so it offers more.

Reality check: I talk about “Getting off the train” now and again. An objective approach asking yourself the question “Is this worth continuing and, if so, am I moving in the right direction?” can often lead to a fresh perspective.

IPR strategy: Securing strong defendable intellectual property rights (IPR), be it a patent, registered or unregistered trademarks and design rights, copyright or, more commonly, a strategic combination (advice and direction).

Avoiding sharks: Avoiding invention promotional companies and doing proper due diligence on everyone – companies or individuals – that you intend to do business with (how to do this).

Business Models: What is the best way to set up the business, taking into account the product or service they are offering and how they want to exploit it?

The Business Plan: Best way is to compile a Business Plan with a focus on the most important commercial elements of their venture.

Contracts: The various contracts you will need to understand in this business, for example NDA’s, shareholder, licence, distributor and agency agreements etc. and maybe many more.

Funding options: How to get investors and/or available grants.

Negotiation: Getting the best deal, whether negotiating for a cost of something small or in a full blown licensing deal (some of the basic tricks to use).

Licensing: Why license? Plus the general terms and conditions of a licence.

Timeframes: Being realistic about the timescales involved in having an idea and making money from it, plus coming up with an exit strategy, if things go wrong, or right.

Objectives: What do they need to do to get the outcome they want? Clarity of intent can help direct them.

Re-motivation: This involves encouraging them to move forward, but may be in a different and more focused way, e.g. ‘’I like it, but …’’.

On-going support: Advise joining Inventors’ Clubs/organisations. Aside from providing a peer group where many find themselves ‘in the same boat’, they offer an opportunity of sharing experience, advice and expertise on many aspects of invention development.

I’ve also attached a related article Ask A Expert British Library Mark Sheahan. Contact me for further details.