Caveat emptor! Invention Promotion Companies

Consider this a PSA (public service announcement): When it comes to invention promotion companies, Caveat Emptor!

Invention promotion companies are the bane of inventors and legitimate intellectual property practitioners.  They  often promote themselves via television ads and so-called “infomercials” – typically praying on the elderly and disadvantaged who often believe they can’t “afford” to talk to a patent attorney.  These companies promise to “promote” the invention in addition to obtaining patent coverage – something most patent attorneys would never promise to do.  The patent coverage they “obtain” is dubious – at most a provisional patent application is filed and, in most cases, nothing more than a statutory invention disclosure is filed.  In those instances where a real utility application is filed, it is typically narrow in scope and virtually worthless. 

An article I read a number of years ago had a “confession” from a former patent attorney who had previously worked for an invention promotion company.  According to this patent attorney, he was filing approximately 10–20 applications per week on inventions submitted through the invention promotion company.  On average, he was spending only 2–3 hours per application to write the specification and claims.  Compare this with most patent attorneys that spend anywhere from 30–60 hours per application when drafting the specification and claims.

During the course of my career, I have never once run across a legitimate, useful and non-fraudulent invention submission/promotion company.  On the contrary, I have on numerous occasions had to inform inventors that they have spent $10,000 or more on bupkis.  The scenario almost always plays itself out in the same manner: shock followed by anger followed by desperation to do something, anything to get the $^%# who cheated them out of their hard-earned money.

A recent article in the Mobile, Alabama Register should serve, once again, as a cautionary tale for anyone thinking of using an invention promotion company:

Monique Lyle of Magnolia Springs has nothing but contempt for the company she paid $4,450 to market her space-saving idea: a double-decker dog bed.

"I got took to the cleaners. I fell for it like an idiot. They haven't promoted me for anything," Lyle, 71, said last week of Invention Technologies Inc., a company that sells its marketing services to amateur inventors. Lyle hired the company last year.

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Pollack provided the Register with a copy of an "Affirmative Disclosure Statement" that clients are asked to sign. It reads, in part, "Invention Technologies, Inc. does not, at any stage, perform any evaluation or assessment of the market potential, patentability, technical feasibility, or merit of ideas submitted to it."

The statement also says, "the sale of ideas is highly speculative; the prospect of any one invention or idea obtaining financial success is extraordinarily low."

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The Coral Gables, Fla.-based company, which also goes by the name Invent-Tech, has been the subject of complaints to the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Of fice. A Florida Better Business Bureau Web site says the company does business under 129 different phone numbers.

Steve Nipper has an excellent resource center over at The Invent Blog on invention submission/promotion companies and I recommend it to anyone who is contemplating signing such a contract.  Afterall, what are you really getting for your money if they are not obligated to ever evaluate your invention? Isn’t that what they promise — access to all those contacts they have who are just dying for your invention?