Page 159 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

publications, the claims must be limited to only the advance in the art which
the inventor had made. Sometimes the only thing that can be patented is an
accessory. That is why in taking out a patent you should go to a reputable and
experienced firm of patent attorneys and stay clear of quacks who advertise
for “suckers.” You will pay a reputable patent attorney a little more than the
quack’s advertised price, but the reputable attorney will tell you frankly if
your invention is practical and may even be able to help you to market it.

Strangely enough, most of the outstanding inventions were made by
“outsiders.” The principle of the steam engine, as everybody knows, was
discovered by James Watt, who got the idea watching the lid of a teakettle
jump up and down. It suggested to him the existence of power in steam, and
he set about in his crude way figuring out how that power could be harnessed.
Out of that invention came our present industrial system.

Benjamin Franklin was not an electrician, but he invented the lightning rod.
The Eastman Kodak Company paid a hundred thousand dollars to a man who
invented the device which enables you to write on the back of a film after it is
exposed. And even the humble brake on a baby carriage was not invented, as
you might suppose, by a carriage manufacturer, but by an advertising man in
search of an “exclusive” feature to advertise.

So do not feel that just because you do not know all there is to know about a
particular product that you cannot find ways to improve it. Strangely enough,
a person who is using a thing is often the one to think of an improvement,
rather than the man who makes it, and the maker is eager to pay him either a
lump sum of cash for the patent or a royalty on it. Improving the appliances
and things that you use in your daily work is perhaps the easiest and most
practical way to make money on patents. It is not much of a trick to get
$1,000 from a large manufacturer for any worth-while improvement which
you develop and patent. There are a hundred ways to make a thousand dollars
right in the kitchen of your home. In spite of the thousands of existing patents
there is still a need of a better can opener, a better clothespin, a better bottle
opener, and other simple everyday things that are in daily use.

As a rule, simple inventions are the most profitable. The hump hairpin is a