(3) Checking things out

Went to the store today to do some recon. Took my father, who has a long history of business experience to leverage, as well as some good ideas regarding the product. We surveyed the target product discipline; absolutely no hint of progress in the direction we're thinking. I think the many vendors in this area won't really be happy about our direction. In fact, maybe it'll cause some major overhauling.

After the wine festival, some time in my garage led to confirmation of my idea. Spent most of Sunday thinking and drawing, in between domestic responsibilities, rummaging around the house and assembling, with bits of wood, plastic, rubber, velcro. The final 'assembly' seemed useful. It was apparent, however, that several 'embodiments' were likely, some more complex than others. The preferred embodiment was the more widely useful one, so that's where I concentrated. As these ideas materialized, I was constantly checking the online sources for evidence of this idea, commercial manifestations, 'prior art', actual patents, etc. Still nothing.

I used Google, Vivisimo (good classifier), Dogpile (good aggregator), the USPTO.gov search, ESP@CENET (European patent search), and followed many threads of discussion and practice.

Also started searching for best practices in the invention process.

Before that Sunday, I hadn't probably used the word embodiment since studying for the SATs. "Prior Art" I hadn't heard before. Time to get a book.