SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/605094
www.stma.org December 2015 | SportsTurf 15 PROTECTING YOUR IDEA Patent rules have changed recently. Now, the first person to the patent office gets the patent. In the past, you only had to document the date and time of your idea creation in an inventor's notebook or journal. This area of focus is very important and can be mind-boggling. Keep your idea to your- self as you research online to see if someone has beaten you to the punch. Also you need to get familiar with your competi- tors' information. After you have finished researching online if you are con- vinced that your idea is still the best, and no one else is close to your idea, the next step is to research current and pending pat- ents at the United States Patent and Trademark Office at http:// www.uspto.gov/patents-application-process/search-patents. There are a variety of patent options available. Make sure to select the right one for your idea. Options include: utility, design, provisional, plant, and reissue. We decided to file for utility patents, which are also referred to as patents for inven- tion. If approved, your idea is protected for 20 years from the filing date of your patent application. For our first product, the pitching rubber, we filed a pro- visional patent with Legal Zoom for less than $400. The provisional patent gave us a year to figure out if our idea was feasible before filing for the utility patent. During that year, we met with three different patent attorneys to determine with whom we wanted to work. We filed our first utility patent for the adult and youth pitching rubbers in 2012. After many revisions, interactions with the patent office, gathering testimo- nials, and a phone interview, our pitching rubber patent was finally approved in 2015. The average cost for a patent ranges from $10,000-$15,000. It is very important to do your idea research before spending money on patent and attorney fees. Another part of protecting your idea is to make sure to have anyone you discuss your idea with sign a non-disclosure/ non-compete form. There are a variety of these forms avail- able online or contact us for a copy of our form. When we first started out, we were very intimidated about asking people to sign the form. To our relief, we found that many of the true business professionals we talked to were used to signing non- disclosure forms. If someone refuses to sign your form, move on. Do not deal with them. They are not worth the risk. MARKETING AND RESEARCHING YOUR IDEA Now that you have protected your idea, it is time to do additional research. To figure out your target market, do a Strengths-Weakness-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) analysis to determine if your idea is feasible in the market. Will people pay for your product idea? This area of focus helps you deter- mine if you can manufacture and distribute your product at a low enough cost so that your retail price is reasonable. It also helps you determine what avenues you can use to market your idea. Many universities have marketing and business students who can help with this step. One important thing to deter- mine in this step is what your main purpose or mission is. We decided that our main company mission is to develop tools and equipment to help groundskeepers save time and money. We use social media, a website, videos, and marketing emails as our main marketing avenues due to our very low marketing budget. FINANCING Starting a business is expensive. There are multiple fees such as corporation fees, business license fee, sales tax fees and the list goes on and on. Writing a business plan and projecting your revenue and expenses will help you decide if you want to go forward. Once you decide to go forward, you will need to deter- mine what type of business you want to start, i.e. corporation, partnership, or single ownership. Getting start-up financing is not easy, but fortunately it is now easier than it was when we started in 2011. Crowd fund- ing, microloans, credit lines and new online options such as Kabbage, Accion USA, SoMoLend, Opportunity Fund, and Kiva Step Ahead Loan Program all help start-ups fund their businesses. Chad and I decided we did not want to ask family and friends for loans or seek investors, so we decided to con- tinue working full-time at Virginia Tech while developing our business. We also used credit cards and recently switched banks in order to secure a line of credit. Financing your business can be very stressful. Don't give up. Work with what you have. After