Essential Steps to Becoming Inventor

Being an inventor sounds proud, because inventions make our everyday life easier and simpler, more interesting and technological, and some inventions are so great that they save the world. No wonder almost everyone wants to be an inventor, to make the world a better place, to contribute to progress and leave its name in patenting history, or to monetize the invention. So how to become an inventor, develop something new and get a patent for your invention? Let’s see how it works. 

At first glance, it would seem that only geniuses or scientists who have devoted their entire lives to their child can be inventors, but this is not the case. Of course, there are inventions that would never be possible without special knowledge, but there are also simple inventions that are understandable even to those who have never been involved in technology. 

Surely, each of us at one stage of life or another has shown ingenuity when faced with difficulties or problems that had no obvious logical solution. Eventually, we find probably the most unexpected and original solution. Then we understood that thanks to ingenuity, we managed to solve the problem in an unconventional way. Each of us can develop and discover this ability. 

Just take a closer look at the problems and tasks around you, and try to find a new and original solution to them. There is an inventor inside of us and we just need to help this ability to wake up. Everyone has a different motivation for doing this: some are very active and their ideas pop up one after another, some want to simplify their lives and invent useful assistive devices, some want to help all mankind and make a huge contribution to the patenting process, some invent in the hope of getting rich, some generate ideas because they are in a critical situation, and some invent by accident. 

Below is a striking example of the ability to think outside the box when necessary, allowing for invention which is inherent in human beings. Pietro Ferrero, a famous hereditary confectioner, once sold homemade chocolates at a local fair. “However, since it was too hot outside, the candy melted and lost its marketable appearance. Ferrero was not confused: he began spreading the resulting chocolate paste on bread and selling it that way. The chocolate sandwiches proved very popular with the Italians. This is how Nutella, a world-famous product made from ground nuts and chocolate, appeared, and its inventor became fabulously rich.

It is fair to say that it is not worth trying to patent everything that comes to mind. Inventions should first and foremost be useful to society, so try to emphasize that. Take a closer look at the objects around you and find which particular shortcomings do you see in them. Employ out-of-the-box thinking, and then you can find a way to help eliminate these shortcomings. After you find a solution, don’t forget to put it in writing. 

The first stage is over, then the most interesting things begin as it’s not enough to just think up, now you need to put it into practice and assert your rights to the created invention. Article 1350 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation grants legal protection to inventions if they are novel, have an inventive step and are industrially exploitable. Not all of your solutions need to be protected by a patent, as it may turn out that the technical solution you have invented is already patented. But this is not meant to detract from your talent, as it is the first time you have discovered it. 

So, after you have invented a technical solution, you need to conduct an international patent information search to make sure that the technical solution you have invented is not already patented and there are no similar solutions in open sources, and also to find analogues of the technical solution, to analyze them and identify the closest analogue which will be chosen as a prototype. If the search results turn out to be positive, then it is possible to submit an application to the patent office with payment of fees for registration of the application and for the examination on the merits. 

It is necessary to understand that patenting of technical solutions incurs financial expenses. In view of the specifics of the application materials for an invention, you will need to study the requirements for registration or resort to the help of specialists including patent attorneys, who will competently describe your application. 

If you fail to succeed with the first attempt, it does not mean you should despair as you should always try again and again and you will get stronger and stronger. As Theodore Roosevelt once said, “The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything”. Even Thomas Edison, the famous inventor, tried thousands of different materials and made thousands of experiments before he invented his incandescent light bulb, the invention of his life. So, try to concentrate, set yourself up for a positive end result, do not be afraid of the first difficulties and overcome all of them. 

If you want to be a true inventor, look closely at everything around you, try to identify shortcomings and eliminate them in an unconventional way. Even if they tell you that everything around you has already been invented and patented, do not believe it. The rapid development of the world entails millions of opportunities and ideas that will be opened to inventors, and some of them will be so great that they will become the history of the future. You might be one of them, so if you want to invent, then do it, and whatever the hardship is, never turn away from achieving your goal.