The Vultures Circle

Continued from my January 24 post.

A patent is only a nice decoration unless you can make money with it. As soon as the patent issued I started getting mail from companies that want to represent you in presenting your patent for licensing. Within two weeks I must have gotten ten of them. Their tactic:

1. Flatter-“We have chosen your patent from among thousands as one that has great commercial appeal.”
2. The hook-“These are products that we have helped introduce to the market”, with pictures. “We believe your invention has similar potential.”
3. The price- Their fees for services range from up front fees of $600-$35,000, plus from 5-30% of royalties, but you did not learn their prices until you called them and endured the hard sell.

The experience reminded me of a common scene in western movies, vultures circling over a dead or dying critter. I am sure some of the companies were legitimate and do give valuable service for your money, but being a skeptic, I checked better business bureaus and on line complaints. What I found left me skeptical of all of them. Every one of them I investigated had numerous complaints by people who felt they were ripped off. Not wanting to join the ripped off club, I put together a brochure with pictures of the Compound Bow Rest and Holder and a description of what it does and how it works. Then I searched Google for web sites of companies that sell bow hunting equipment, and sent emails from their contact page with pictures I had taken for the brochure. Most did not even answer, but those that did basically said to get the Bow Rest manufactured, and then contact us. One company did send a letter saying that they were looking into licensing the patent, but I never herd further from them.

Since I had tried my tactic for four months and failed, I thought perhaps I would try one of the companies that had originally contacted me about licensing. I got a letter from one of the cheaper services that had contacted me previously, offering me a special deal. For only $50 they would represent me to manufacturers for licensing. If they got a hit they would share in the royalties. This sounded like a pretty good deal to me. At least they think enough of my invention to put some of their time and money into seeking a license. I sent them my brochure so they could reproduce it and also have additional information concerning the invention in addition to the patent.

Two months went by and I had heard nothing from the company. When I called I talked with someone who had no knowledge of me or my invention. I was told to wait another month and I would hear from them. I did. I got a letter stating “Sorry, nobody was interested in your invention.” No explanation of what they had done or who they had contacted. Hmmmm! It sounded to me like I may have been scammed out of $50. I’ll bet they did nothing. They probably sent the same offer out to all the inventors as a follow up to their first letter. A $50 fee for nothing is as good as $600 for time and effort on their part. But as I admitted earlier, I am a skeptic. They could have done something on my behalf and I would never know.

Shortly after this experience I received a letter with another letter with an interesting offer. This company offered to make the product in China (they have offices both in China and the US) and they would market the product for 15% of the net profits, with 85 going to me. They wanted $13,750 for “tooling”, $9,212.50 upon signing a contract and $4537.50 when production was ready. While this was interesting, it was too risky considering that I would have to borrow the money for tooling. I decided I would rather take my chances making the product myself and introduce it in the market on a small scale rather than jump into an enterprise with both feet. Perhaps it won’t sell. Besides, could I trust this company since all of the risk is mine, but they get paid up front? Like I said, I am a skeptic.

Continued in the next post.