Poor bugger. See how easily is done. The whole wold and their dog have MP3 players and the type now days yet this por fella gets nothing out of it. I wonder who does tho??

Hers another great patent idea for you. One of the richest families in the world are the ancestors of the guy who created...... wait for it..... the little plastic bit on the end of shoe laces.
Every pair of lace up shoes around the world and all the spare laces that are sold, they get a bit of.

Now that was something very simple too, so you could be on a winner mate. The simplest ideas are always the best.

Ahh what the hell I'm writing it up now and I'll try get a patent.

Tetra packs are always the ones I think of as the amazing idea that made millions on something simple :) (Read Milk/Juice Cartons)

That said Tetra packs are slowly going away unlike shoe laces ;)

my mate paid a staffordshire firm £1600 to patient a new type of pond filter that he made and for them to find potential buyers, no buyers were found but they still took the £1600, his patient has to be renewed each year.

well thats why I asked about the cost... I knew someone who was asked to pay that kind of money, sorry don't know the outcome though!

Thats the problem with patents.
They cost based on how long you want it to last for or to renew it :(

Still this is the sort of product that either finds a market or doesn't so if I get backing to R&D it after a patent and don't get anywhere I'll just let it drop and when it becomes the next huge thing I'll just get drinks down my local telling people about how "I started that I did!"

If you strike it big, do you promise to build a racetrack in the garden of your mansion and have free trackdays for .org members? :)

BTW My old man worked on patent applications at the patent office for 15 years or so. His advice to me was if some big company come to you with an offer to buy out your invention (so long as it's something you can retire off like £1 million) to take it. If you don't, they'll make it anyway and usually beat you when you try to take it to court and not only will you end up getting no cash, you'll lose an awful lot fighting it.

Yeah it's always the way they will spend half the money they offered you in twiddling your idea to make it just different enough to make it too expensive for the likes of you to fight it :(

And yes if I get that rich not only will I make a course with free days for .Org'ers I'll even have a selection of slightly banged up bikes for people to use if they don't want to race their own :)

(hmmm can I set up a rule that no-one is allowed to cross the finish line before me ^_^)

you can do a basic (and free) patent search here:
http://ep.espacenet.com/quickSearch?locale=en_EP

ps. i work at the uk patent office

Hmm, sorry to be a bit of a downer, but this sounds like it MAY not be patentable. If it's just a case of using pre-existing technology in a new way or in new combinations you'll have no patent rights.

Having said that chances are I'm wrong, and even if that's not the case, nothing to say there's not a business future.

To quote Edison: Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration.

Good luck, sounds very intriguing.


Andy

I think theres somewhere on google now that will check for patents to see if the idea has been patented but not actually created. I saw it on the news the other day however didnt see the beginning of the feature telling how to do it