Thank you all for the detailed posts..
The quote by
TheFlyingBanana -
If you can get it into production and to market, then 10% of something is better than 100% of nothing. is quite true.
I think its very easy to see such projects as your baby and spend far too much time and money dealing with the protection of the project rather than getting it out to market, yes we need to do our homework on patents but at some point we have to trust a production company to make it a reality.
ej86 - some great advice there for me to research, our type of product is used in hundreds if not thousands of different sectors but not this sector we are targeting (well not that we have seen), not sure if this will make patent application easier or much more difficult?
Wolfie - You sound like you have a lot of experience, one option I'am considering is approaching some companies that already make similar products, they're previous experience, manufacturing capabilities and getting such products to market would propel this project quickly
If we went this route then of course we would be revealing all so dangerous ground, how to move forward with them is another question -
- Is it best to sell the idea outright?
- Agree a deal where they take all the load and take percentage from sales?
- Or the long road, patent and protect the idea but use their production while we deal with all the sales
The last one is not really realistic for us, I imagine tooling would need to be made up, minimum order quantities etc so lots of money and risk.
I like the idea the second option, it would give a company a responsibility to protect the product, take the production hassle off us while we make a percentage which I imagine would be small.
The first option is a no unless the money being offered was life changing and then you have to ask yourself why are they offering so much to buy you out which takes us back to option 2..
Lots to think about but thanks for the advice so far..