Thursday 28 June 2012

Product Design Specification


It is very important at the early stages of your design, to pin down and write up a clear Product Design Specification.

A good product specification, will save you development costs and time. Plus will ensure that your chosen supplier can meet or exceed your needs. I have written a template that explains some of the concepts, and also is useful to batten down ideas into a concrete plan.


You can download the instructions and Product Design Specification template here and use it right away!

Especially useful for planning, and I recommend for obtaining accurate quotes and leadtimes for product, concept or prototype delivery.


Instructions are on the right hand side of the sheet. And there is plenty of further reading on this subject either on the internet, or by obtaining this book on developing new products that I highly recommend.

Good luck in your aims, to get specifically what you want. At the price, timescale and quality you want.

Regards,
John Biddleston



Monday 14 May 2012

New Product for BioAMD Ltd


BioAMD Ltd asked The BIG Consultant to design a consumer product for medical high street retail. Here is a presentation from the 3D CAD data, used to demonstrate the product prior to commercial manufacture.



We use SolidWorks and also SolidEdge 3D CAD CAM to design and realise new product concepts. Prototypes can be produced as physical, tactile and working models. In this case a range of "Soft Tools" were created to cast a number of injection-mold-like facsimiles which were built with the working electronics and software to drive the product. Please email john@thebigconsultant.com for more information

Tuesday 10 April 2012

How to make and use an NDA ( Non Disclosure Agreement ) and Copyright


This is No1 for inventors, small businesses and start-ups with a new product or service idea, that is worth money. You NEED to start using an NDA  ( Non Disclosure Agreement ) . Right now!

Please find here my Non Disclosure Agreement , which you can re-write as you wish, and add your details in as the disclosee. The file is attached in MS Word format.

Alternatively, feel free to use a Government Official version of a Non Disclosure Agreement.

Heres how it works:-
1. In the bits I have highlighted yellow, put in your details. You are the disclosee.
2. Print out 2 copies for every person that you meet, and disclose the ideas to.
3. You and the person you meet both sign a copy of each. You keep one copy, and they keep the other.
4. Do not disclose until / or unless they sign.
5. Explain to them, that this is required, by law to ensure that the design is patentable and protectable. It has to be non-publicly disclosed, and this document ensures that legally, its is not public disclosure, but is a trade secret.
6. This document, proves who you have spoken with, and is dated. Also, its an agreement not to disclose the idea without your permission.  It is VERY important, should you require patent protection later, and you may well need this, in a competitive situation once product(s) are launched.
7. Please take this seriously, and keep a copy or folder with all the records and contacts that you have disclosed to from now on.

Please take the NDA seriously. Big companies are incapable of coming up with good ideas for themselves. Its up to us, the little guys, to give it to them. But do be cautious with having a game plan, which you clearly are developing, keeping a tight ship, and understand the law.

In legal terms, you hold "prior-art" hopefully, and if its a goer, then we can not only build you working prototypes, but also draught and file any registered design rights, patent applications, design drawings etc etc.

Make sure that you also mark any drawings you show as Copyright ...

It sounds daft, but it will take you very little effort, to mark any drawings or sketches you show with © Your Name 2012. And you would be surprised how much legal protection it gives you. Dont question it, just take my work for it.

Generally, copyright lasts for the lifetime of the 'author' plus 70 years. Copyright is extended automatically to all Berne Copyright Convention countries. Copyright protection is also extended automatically to all Universal Copyright Convention countries provided that the standard UCC copyright notice is placed on the article or design. The notice should consist of three elements, namely, the symbol © which is the capital letter C contained within a circle, the name of the copyright owner and then the year of first publication of the work (e.g. © Your Name 2012). Also adding "Any unauthorised copying or reproduction is prohibited" would be a good idea on any drawings, followed by "Copyright and Design Rights subsist in these drawings or articles shown".

That file to download again  NDA Agreement  in editable MS Word format.

Very simple to do. No cost. But very very important.

Tuesday 24 January 2012

Searching for Prior Art for Inventors or Businesses with a product idea



I talked recently about Business Plans. Indeed, if you are (a) an inventor, or (b) have a great new business idea (which are really both the same thing are'nt they?) then you will at some point need to know about "Prior Art".

What is Prior Art and why is it so important?


Well, there are several reasons.
- You cant patent or have a patent application for an idea that has already been done, can you! ... So you must investigate the prior art. This is a legal term in patents and in new products that is defined as:-

"Prior art is all information that has been disclosed to the public in any form about an invention before a given date. Prior art includes things like any patents related to your invention, any published articles about your invention, and any public demonstrations."

Now, note the words above "information that has been disclosed to the public" and again, I will make a BIG point that you as an inventor or start up business with a new product must heed. That is the NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) ... If you dont know what this is, then find out right now. As by "publicly disclosing" i.e. showing your idea to anyone, without asking them to sign an NDA, you will not be able to enforce any patent!! Scary, yes!

But here we are talking about Prior Art, and why you should search for it. The second BIG reason is:-

- You need to know if someone has thought of your idea before! You know, there might have been a good chance that they have. So save yourself time and expense by finding out as one of your very first steps

How is this done? Well its easy, and there are several ways. One is free, and the others are going to cost you money. Now later on, you might certainly require professional services, to ensure that you have not missed anything (using the benefit of paid experience).

However, you can do this yourself. And this is the way that I would recommend to start. Your time costs less, and it is not as hard as you might think.

A. Speak to Ged Doonan at the Leeds Central Library. They have access to the entire patent database, and Ged has helped me to do this essential search for free when I was looking into my own invention many years ago. And Leeds Central Library has an extensive search facility for Prior Art, and excellent support facilities and staff. Please look into this on the following link for all your Prior Art searching needs. I cant recommend them enough! Very knowledgeable and helpful!

B. There is a free online service run by the IPO called GB Esp@cenet
and this is usable in your web browser. You can do a complete "Prior Art" search for free using Keywords. Its free, run by the IPO and has had several improvements recently, that make it quite competitive and thorough. I might write a more detailed blog entry about this soon. But for now if you are stuck, then I would recommend that many libraries now in the UK have this search in their Business section, and can aid you to complete quite a thorough search! - However, please also do try Esp@cenet

Way down the line in the future, I might consider spending some money but right now, its best to do as much as possible yourself.

Get this information into your Business Plan, make sure you buy and read Build a Better Mousetrap: The Business of Invention and be prepared to research to discover if you are onto a winner. One final work of warning though, that just because you have an idea that has never been done before, this does not mean someone will want to buy it. Later in your Business Plan you will need to start researching and discovering more about your potential market!

But for now, get looking into Prior Art. You wont regret it!!