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anybody ever gone through the process of inventing, patenting, etc? I made a toy for my son a few years ago that he seems to think is pretty cool. Was just curious what it would take to make it a "real" marketable product....

I wouldn't do any online companies. Hire a patent lawyer.

My uncle came up with a "sports theme" cooler, that uses special materials that keep things cold for like....a week? or something like that. He made a bunch of different styles, for each sport, they're actually pretty cool. They're shaped as objects from each sport, like hockey pucks and sticks, a football, baseball, etc. He's got patents for them already, and is now in the process of marketing the product. He's been at it for, I'd say three or four years, and they haven't hit store shelves yet. But I know that he's had some investor complications, for some reason or another. He had over $1 million in potential sales lined up to companies, and investors are apparently just dragging their feet over it. No idea why. Hopefully that kind of answers your question. You have to patent, find a manufacturer, get a good pitch going for investors, FIND investors, market your product, etc. A LOT of work before the product hits shelves. I'm guessing you don't want to share what this toy is, due to not havin a patent yet?

Edit: and remember, patents aren't cheap. They can cost around $4000 plus the other misc. costs, so if your idea doesn't take off, you're pretty much out several thousand dollars. But sometimes risks needed to be taken in order to be rewarded!

yeah, I hear pretty much the same story for anybody I know who has invented something. Cost a fortune to patent...being marketed for years....one of these days kinda of things. I don't want to do something half way, but I'm not planning to retire off this either. Was just curious if anybody had any actual experience with a good company because I do know 2 people who have used 2 different companies, but the problem is both were paying a lot of money and neither of them were getting much in return. They just don't seem to have much communication with these companies who are supposedly "marketing" their products. I want help developing the finished product because I know what I want it to do and how I want it to look, but I don't necessarily have the skillz to create it the way I want. but I do want to be involved from the marketing side because I have a fair bit of background there....

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rapidleap.com

They have helped me through a bunch of stuff and I was very happy. Great designers and have in house prototyping capability.