Email Jim at jim.thompson@ipulpmedia.com

Many people I have known over the years, especially those with a technical bent or an engineering degree dream of striking it rich with their own patent.

When I was a kid, people would come to my dad with ideas they wanted help with, and he would gently push them away. In my career, the same thing has happened. I have had ideas that missed as well. A couple of years ago, I had one I thought was really good and so did my wife. She talked me into going to a law firm and starting the process. For a mere $15,000 in lawyers' fees and another $1,000 in a 3-D model, I obtained "patent pending" status which was good for a year and not renewable. I tried on and off to sell the idea during that year. At the end, I had a $16,000 lesson. Not to worry, I have had other lessons, not patent related, that were far more expensive than this in my soon-to-be 55-year career thus far.

Typically, someone comes to me with an idea that they think is so obviously good that it will be an instant hit.

All of us can't be Thomas Edison.

The problem is, exposing an idea to others, especially a really good idea, opens it up to theft.

The best solution I ever heard to these problems was about fifty years ago when I was in charge of designing tissue converting machinery. We had a need for magnetized rolls. In those days rolls were magnetized after final grinding, for the material ground off would cling to everything if you tried to grind a roll already magnetized.

Someone figured out how to grind magnetized rolls. Did he run out to get a patent? No. He put the machinery that did the work in a secure and locked room. He trained trusted employees to operate the machinery. If you wanted a magnetized ground roll, you went to his company, and they did it. And no, you could not see how it was done.

Now, this approach only works on small, specialized cases.

In today's world when everyone has a camera in their pocket, it is almost impossible to protect your intellectual property. On top of that, large companies have departments that do nothing but reverse engineer anything they are interested in pursuing.

Want to innovate? Make sure you have a really good idea and make sure you have a way to protect it. Today, it takes a well-funded team to do this.

Be safe and we will talk next week.

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