Home Forums Bike Forum I have a dream – new cycle product

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  • I have a dream – new cycle product
  • 1
    Speeder
    Full Member

    Patents? It takes a lot of sales to justify the initial expenditure and the ballache it takes to get one but if it’s a product that can be sold in considerable volume and at a decent margin then it may be worth it, especially if you’re looking for further investment to take it further – watch Dragons Den for examples of the “do you have a patent?” question coming up.

    As said above there’s a lot to be said for just going for it and getting a lead on the market.  It’ll save you a lot of money in patent fees (we’ve just spent over £3.5k doing a search on one product and it’s come back as marginal as to whether they’d approve it because of “prior art” we hadn’t found that was in different fields and jurisdictions we couldn’t search in like Japan).  You can move fast and make changes, evolve the product and you’ll always be the original.

    Def. take Brant up on the offer, he’ll be able to give you a good idea of how viable it is and I reckon he’s pretty trustworthy ;o)

    2
    BruceWee
    Free Member

    I don’t think Pete Tomkins ever patented the Crud Catcher.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/01/21/mr-crud-made-millions-from-mud-now-surfs-all-day/

    Although he also didn’t get his product manufactured in China…

    2
    Duggan
    Free Member

    Please be a self-cleaning bike

    4
    beej
    Full Member

    A friend of mine designed a bike related product that he 3d prints and assembles at home. He’s sold 1000+, it’s quite niche and sells for £50-£150 depending on version. It’s constantly evolved over time and is even being used by pro road teams now.

    It’s potentially patentable, but really wasn’t worth doing without the money to enforce. He’s quite up on the patent process and holds a couple obtained through his day job.

    He’s even open-sourced the models for the 3d printed parts so people could make their own or print replacement bits – there’s a net positive of this as people see the approach, think “that’s good”, but 99.5% of people will just buy the thing.

    As with the mudhugger/crud catcher, brand and reputation count for a lot.

    1
    bullandbladder
    Free Member

    https://worldwide.espacenet.com/

    Would be a good starting point in seeing if your idea has already been patented.

    We’re currently in the process of applying for a patent on a new manufacturing method that I developed at work, so we did a bit of research here ourselves. The process is a bit obscure so getting the search terms right was tricky. A patent specialist did a search for us and concluded that we had something viable/patentable.

Viewing 5 posts - 41 through 45 (of 45 total)

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