The story of the StormBoard - Part 2 - May 2008

The second instalment in a three-part tale of product development and exploitation as explained by David Copp of Dummett Copp Patent Attorneys

RON was all fired up after his success on the water, so he lost no time in making an appointment with a patent attorney recommended to him.

The first question he was asked was “Have you shown the idea to anyone else?” Ron was able to say that two of his mates had seen it but nobody else, and the two mates were good friends. The attorney cautioned Ron to tell them not to tell anybody else and to swear them to secrecy, at least until a patent application had been filed.

It turned out that there were a number of different aspects of the StormBoard which could be protected, but the most important would be to get a patent application on file. Once this had been done, Ron would no longer have to worry about other people seeing what he had made. This would be important, as he knew that he would have to talk to an engineering firm to get his design refined and brought to the point where it could be put into production.

The attorney did advise Ron that he should ask anybody involved in the development of the StormBoard to sign a Confidentiality Agreement, as there might be some significant and possibly inventive modifications to Ron’s own design as the development took place.

Ron had to brief the attorney not only about how the design worked, but also about all the different variations he had thought of and experimented with, even though some of those variations may have been discarded as not working. The attorney explained that knowing all this would greatly assist in the writing of the patent application.

A couple of weeks later, and the patent application had been filed. Ron now had a patent priority date for his invention, and he could start to show people what he had got so that he could begin to develop a market for the StormBoard. He was so excited!

The attorney had also explained that the StormBoard name could be protected as a Registered Trade Mark, and the shape of the board could be protected as a Registered Design. However there was no great urgency to put that protection in place, and as Ron had gulped when he learned of the cost of the patent application, he was really pleased to defer that for the present.

As luck would have it, the wind and sea conditions were just not suitable for surfing for the next few weeks, but Ron arranged for a friend who was handy with a camcorder to make a video film. They planned this together. Obviously they wanted action shots, but when conditions were not right for surfing, they were able to get some footage of the board itself and Ron could explain the theory.

Ron now had to work out a marketing strategy. He had his video and some stunning photos. A friend had put some good graphics on the board, but where next?

Should he try to get an introduction into one of the major kit manufacturers? Or should he arrange some small scale manufacturing locally and aim to develop a market slowly to the point where the manufacturers might come to him?

Read the third and final instalment of this story

Taken from the Suffolk Business Magazine article of May 2008