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Component Manufacturing dverti$er
By Steve Rotzin
Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
Adverti$er
January 2019 #11234 Page #94
Good Ideas Come from Many Places — “Necessity Is the Mother of Invention”
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ou never know where the next great product idea or innovation is going to come from — some of our best new ideas originate with the customers who use our current products. At Simpson Strong-Tie, we welcome any inspiration that can help us serve our customers’ needs even better. With so much competition, however, and because so much research and testing are entailed in developing each new product, the criteria that an idea must meet to gain eventual acceptance are necessarily quite rigorous. In this post, Steve Rotzin, Manager of Intellectual Property and Legal Services at Simpson Strong-Tie, outlines some of these criteria for your consideration. All of us, at one time or another, dream up a product idea of some sort. My wife was once sanding the tongueand-groove boards of our living room ceiling and she thought of a very cool idea of gloves that had Velcro on them and users could interchange sandpaper of various grit on any finger of the glove. If you’ve ever sanded anything, this actually made a lot of sense especially for complex shapes and tough to reach spots. I researched it and found out that someone had already thought of it and “patented it.” We are no different here at Simpson Strong-Tie Company. We are constantly thinking of ways to make the very best products, incorporating innovative features to make the installation as easy and cost effective as possible. We also strive to exceed the performance requirements of the application in order to help build the strongest, safest possible structures. While these ideas are something we think about day in and day out, we also know you think about solutions as well. It’s you who encounter circumstances where our parts may not work as needed or fail to meet a specific need or application. These are the times we receive ideas from customers hoping we might adopt or develop an idea to meet their needs. Annually, we receive a number of ideas from outside the company, even though they’re not something we actively solicit. The truth is that product ideas from consumers, especially ideas that come from consumers who work in the construction industry, are often relevant and timely. To make it easier for you to share feedback and ideas, we’ve set up a process whereby anyone who has an idea they’d like to share, can submit it to us for evaluation. 1. Do Your Research — Has someone invented this before? You might be surprised by how many ideas have come and gone. Ideas that we think are novel and have never been attempted by anyone else have often been manufactured, sold and put out to pasture years before we thought of them. So do some research. Also, just because you don’t see the exact same thing doesn’t mean the elements which could be patented, or protected, in your device haven’t been claimed before in someone else’s patent. 2. Protect Yourself — Make sure you’ve taken steps to ensure you are protected. Did someone else help you? Could someone else claim ownership? Have you filed for a provisional application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office? We cannot offer legal advice, but seeking legal advice from a patent professional is always a good idea.
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