It looks as though the UK is again without a functioning national representative body for inventors. Inventor Forum (briefly the United Innovation Association UK), which we were happy to be associated with, is no more after less than a year of existence. As far as we know, the main reason for its demise is that founder Simon Brown reached a point where for financial and personal reasons he couldn’t go on.

He wasn’t helped by a brief but nasty entanglement with the United Inventors Association of America (UIA). Or more specifically with its CEO Mark Reyland, now a controversial figure – to put it mildly – in US inventor circles. UIA promised sponsorship that never materialised, and it soon emerged that association with Mark Reyland was the last thing an ethical UK inventor organisation needed. All history now, but it caused lasting damage.

So who else can act as a national voice for UK inventors? The cupboard is pretty bare. We can’t do it because we’re a commercial organisation, and there lies the rub. Whoever does it must do so at least initially for little or no money and yet remain independent. Not an easy circle to square.

There is, or was, the Institute of Patentees & Inventors. It’s been around for many years but we’re not aware that it’s currently making any waves nationally and its website seems not to have been updated in a while.

There is, or was, ideas21. Set up over ten years ago by Linda Oakley, her personal dynamism combined with lively networking sessions for inventors and professionals promised much. But ill health forced Linda to take a back seat, so although ideas21 still operates in London and Bristol, it isn’t the national force it could have been.

There is the British Inventors Society, run by inventor Kane Kramer. But its only significant role seems to be to run the annual British Invention Show (which takes some doing, we freely admit) and its website too seems out of date.

A coalition of inventor clubs? That would be a good solution except that there are now few viable inventor clubs left, and at least one of the biggest is struggling to find volunteers to take over from retiring officers.

A model for what is needed is John Mitchell’s SME Innovation Alliance. For energy, determination, authority and expertise, entrepreneur and innovator John Mitchell is hard to beat. What SMEIA is trying to achieve will benefit many inventors, but it’s primarily an organisation for high technology SMEs.

Looking back at a quarter century and more of little sustained help for inventors from government, industry or education, the reality is that there may never be a national representative body for inventors with real clout – because inventors as a species don’t have clout. They’re below the bottom rung of every ladder, off every radar screen, invisible to all shipping. Only when an inventor has an unexpected success does everyone jump up and down and say how inventive a nation we are. So inventors – you’re on your own, ladies and gentlemen. And that’s the way it may always be.

There is one body that in theory would be perfect as the voice of inventors or the funder of a representative body: NESTA. It was after all set up by law – the National Lottery Act 1998 – to help inventors. But NESTA, of course, soon decided that inventors weren’t worth helping, whatever the NLA said. (More on this in our Alternative Brief History of NESTA – coming soon!) 

Now an independent charity but still in possession, with questionable justification, of an enormous pot of public money, NESTA is and will remain the cuckoo in the nest of UK innovation for some time to come. In the wider context of UK enterprise and economic recovery, that’s not something we should be at all proud of.

When talking to inventors, one question just won’t go away: ‘Should I patent my invention?’

It’s fiendishly difficult to answer because so many facts about that specific invention, and the inventor’s plans for it, need to be known and digested first.

A short answer is impossible, while a long and diligent answer may have to contain so many ifs and buts that the inventor comes away feeling more bewildered than enlightened.

It’s a question that can’t be dealt with satisfactorily over the phone either, which is why we urge inventors to use our Invention Advice Email or Research & Report services.

But if forced to take a soundbite approach, here it is:

A patent will cost a lot of money, so it has to be worth even more. And for many inventions, it never will be.

So work backwards. Estimate how much money your invention will make for you per year. That’s actual cash, in your bank account. For many products an inventor’s cut may be no more than a penny or two per unit sold (not just made). Figure out how many units will need to be sold just to cover your patent costs. Many inventions will fall short, or be highly marginal. If yours is one of them, a patent probably isn’t for you.

If you can’t estimate the potential earnings from your invention, then (a) you haven’t done enough homework and (b) you need to read A Better Mousetrap.

Money in pocket – or out of it – is the calculation that matters most. But if that doesn’t clear up the question of whether you should get a patent, here’s another soundbite:

 The real cost of a patent isn’t the cost of getting it. It’s the cost of enforcing it.

If you need to enforce or defend your patent, all legal costs have to be met by you. And they will be very high. And you might never get them back.

If you’re an individual or SME, a big company will have no scruples about using the fear of crippling legal costs to intimidate you into submission. In such a situation, your patent will be no use to you whatsoever.

So what’s the advantage of a patent? For many individuals and small businesses it’s increasingly hard to see one.

You may of course get lucky. Income from your invention may amply cover your patent costs, and competitors may leave you in peace. But either way it’s a risk. With patents nothing is guaranteed, so patenting an invention should never be something that you rush into quickly or without a lot of hard-headed and thorough calculation first.

Recently, John Mitchell of the SME Innovation Alliance sent an open letter to UK politicians responsible for scrutinising the workings of the patent system. The immediate context is growing concern that a proposal for a unitary patent court – part of a wider proposal for a single EU-wide patent – will seriously disadvantage UK SMEs. But its wider context is the way the patent system as a whole disadvantages inventors and innovative SMEs.

In our view the letter is so important that, with permission, we’re publishing it here almost in full. It’s relatively long, so we’ve highlighted key sections in red.

We agree with every word of it, and it’s a good fit with our own Patenting Your Invention: the Ugly Truth. Its message is one that many politicians, civil servants and legal professionals don’t want to hear – which is why it had to be written. And it’s one that needs to be taken on board by every inventor and innovative small business.

Unlike many who pontificate on the patent system (including us), John Mitchell is right at the sharp end of it and writes from first-hand experience. He owns Allvoice Developments Ltd, a world leader in speech and voice recognition technologies and licensing. Allvoice owns five patents, one of which has been the subject of extensive litigation in several jurisdictions.

So make no mistake about it: John Mitchell is a seasoned and respected UK entrepreneur who knows exactly what he is talking about.

AN OPEN LETTER FROM THE SME INNOVATION ALLIANCE 

27 February 2012

To:  House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee, House of Lords EU Sub-Committee E – Justice and Institutions Committee

Dear Committee member

Unitary Patent Court – SMEs need serious revision for it to have any value

One of the SMEIA’s member UK companies is planning on burning its UK patent in front of Parliament later this week as, for them, it has no value.

Our membership has vast sympathy for his situation and many will be cheering that someone has finally escalated this to a level that politicians cannot ignore. The owner in this case claims the patent is infringed but there is no way his SME can enforce it because of court barriers. So will the Unitary patent be of any value to an innovative UK SME based upon what we hear? The short answer is a resounding no.

Government officials are unaware of the real problems SMEs face

At the February 2012 meeting of the SME Innovation Alliance, HHJ Birss of the UK Patents County Court and John Alty, Chief Executive of the UKIPO addressed patent holding SMEs. These speakers seemed shocked at the widespread dismay expressed by SMEs through ongoing failings in the patent system.

At present, the patent system encourages corporations to steal EU inventions. There is no UK penalty whatsoever for infringing a patent. Your unitary patent deliberations so far appear to continue this trend. We are only one year on from the UK Hargreaves Report, which was fatally flawed. It did not understand that when the big corporations all reported that ‘the system was working well’, that was an exact statement of the problem.

SMEs account for over 95% of radical innovation

A Japanese Ministry Study (METI) found that out of all the radical inventions created since the second world war, over 95% came out of companies employing less than five people. And 54% of all radical inventions were British. So why does Britain not lead the way today? One crucial reason is an inability for SMEs to enforce their patented inventions. This is not shocking news; the 2000 EU report Enforcing small firms patent rights discovered that, from the large number of respondents, every single valuable EU invention that an SME held had been copied at least once (by in every case at least one US infringer) yet not one EU SME had been able to enforce their patent. There are a number of other empirical studies that detailed similar findings.

The large corporations (less than 5% of radical inventions) pay IP lawyers and patent attorneys vast sums to break patented SME inventions so that they can remove them or take over and control them. That often means burying them as well as slowing down progress as that would otherwise disrupt their established marketplace. That cannot be in the public interest. Yet such corporate representatives are referred to as ‘users’ by your committee, which strikes us as a sad reflection of the loss of focus of the real needs required from a patent system. The system should reward innovation and encourage growth; not encourage unchecked copying by only those with enough financial muscle who use patent courts to prevent an SME from enforcing its patented rights.

Will the proposed unitary patent court benefit SMEs to create growth and jobs?

We have listened to the exchanges that you have so far had with ‘witnesses’, none of whom represent patent holding SMEs, and also to the Minister for Intellectual Property and her UKIPO and BIS advisors who failed to tell you about the problems with courts that SMEs face.

Any granted unitary patent has to be easily enforced. This is not just a wish but actual law. It should adhere with the enforcement provisions within TRIPS (Article 41)* – something the UK currently clearly breaches as enforcement is not possible for almost all SMEs in UK courts. The unitary patent court follows this same path and will therefore not comply with TRIPS. No serious growth can result from such a system in which only corporate patents can be enforced. Remember, these firms are reported to account for less than 5% of innovation.

All the ‘evidence’ provided by legal individuals that you have heard has made a huge assumption which is that patent disputes should be tried in a court. We can imagine that the legal minds amongst you will find any alternative difficult to comprehend but the court proposal cannot deliver growth. This significant and questionable assumption costs billions of loss from the European economy as many SMEs lose the very foundation upon which they were built i.e. patent protection because of the patent court system.

* Article 41 1. Members shall ensure that enforcement procedures as specified in this Part are available under their law so as to permit effective action against any act of infringement of intellectual property rights covered by this Agreement, including expeditious remedies to prevent infringements and remedies which constitute a deterrent to further infringements. These procedures shall be applied in such a manner as to avoid the creation of barriers to legitimate trade and to provide for safeguards against their abuse. 2. Procedures concerning the enforcement of intellectual property rights shall be fair and equitable. They shall not be unnecessarily complicated or costly, or entail unreasonable time-limits or unwarranted delays.

How can infringement be properly considered?

A patent is supposed to be a public disclosure of an invention, including how to implement it. It must be written so that it can be understood by a ‘person of ordinary skill in the art’ (POSITA) so that innovation can be disseminated and more innovation encouraged.

To put that another way, a patent is going to be incomprehensible to someone who is not a POSITA. This latter category includes judges. The concept of establishing infringement in a court of law with decisions made by a judge as to how a patent should be interpreted is fundamentally flawed. Binding decisions on infringement should be made by a panel of appointed experts in the field of technology in question. That would be a major step forwards for a unitary patent and create certainty – uncertainty something you have heard as often being the situation within patent courts. An appeal to a court is necessary to comply with TRIPS (Article 41.4), but such an appeal can be made subject to it being entirely at the cost of the party challenging the ruling – such costs to include that of the party facing the challenge and not just restricted to legal fees. Now is your opportunity to implement that first important change.

How can patent validity be properly considered?

In order to obtain grant, patents have been examined and approved by technically qualified patent examiners (who represent the authorities’ official POSITA). Opportunities to challenge the validity of any patent are already open during the application process, similar to that available when someone is applying for planning permission to be considered by experienced planning officials.

It comes as a shock to most SMEs to find out that lawyers can attack the decisions of patent examiners – almost always when their client is accused of infringement. Their challenge is made simply to avoid licensing that patent i.e. costing the economy growth and jobs. Even decisions made in previous court cases can be retried, which is plainly absurd and damaging to any innovative business. Having a court using non-POSITAs reconsider patent examiners validity decisions leads to confusion and inconsistent results with many patents being held dubiously invalid. This is precisely what happens in the current UK system, as a patent does not deliver what is sold by the UKIPO to SMEs – that is, ‘protection’ in the form of enforceable rights. Either the patent examination process is accepted or it is not, in which case the EU and many countries could dispense with thousands of patent examiners and replace them with a registrar.

If all of a granted patent is open to challenge, patent examiners are redundant. If their work is unsatisfactory, then address that. Instead, SMEs have to assume responsibility and pay with their business when opponents challenge a granted patent – the cost of a challenge usually being sufficient to sink the SME or, at minimum, its patent.

Most challenges attempt to ascribe different meanings to words in the patent that the patent examiner had to have used eg ‘prior art’, deficient specification. Patent examiners do not appear in court, which seems an obvious failing as it is their decisions that are challenged, thus making this process open to a great deal of abuse. Anything relevant will, of course, have all been examined by the patent examiner in order to allow grant or reject the patent application so such challenges should not be allowed.

Even infringement is usually based upon trying to ascribe different meanings to that in the patent claims.

Courts create costs that are unaffordable for the vast majority of inventors

All these processes rack up enormous costs, and we do not refer here to only legal costs and fees but those borne by the SME itself. It has to pay for its management and staff to travel, stay in accommodation and be diverted away from their business. Studies show that most SMEs with patents are the best source for more innovation so any significant diversion costs the economy dearly.

Indeed, so expensive are these proceedings in the UK that no SME can actually commence a case because of the high barrier of these different costs. The Patents County Court recent change to limiting paying the other side costs to £50,000 was inexplicably linked to limiting the maximum royalties payable to £500,000 irrespective of the value of that infringement. Although these are referred to as ‘damages’ there is no UK penalty whatsoever for infringing a patent, which of course only encourages infringement – ‘damages’ are only unpaid royalties. Bizarrely and quite incorrectly, the PCC change assumed that the value of a patent is linked to the size of the business that owns it. There is absolutely no such link – the value depends only upon the invention and the market-place that it addresses or creates. The PCC £500,000 damages limit of course makes it utterly useless for any unitary patent.

It is admitted that the PCC has the only UK judge experienced in IP. These processes will take yet another twist with a unitary patent through variations of meanings on any translation of the native language should courts be employed – making SME patent enforcement even less possible. Translating the claims of a patent into a different language immediately offers yet more language nuances that lawyers can pounce upon given half a chance. A court process will increase patent invalidity and produce more infringement. None of this either encourages growth or creates jobs – quite the reverse of what you have been told.

Court findings often damage the economy

Worse than that is the patent specification is made public by the state so an ‘invalid’ patent is still free to copy by all and sundry. Given that invalidity often hangs on legal technicalities, subsequent invalidation is damaging to the entire concept of registering a patent in exchange for exclusive rights of sale, manufacture and so on. A bargain is a bargain and should not be open to change once agreed (i.e. patent grant).

Baroness Wilcox suggested in her second session with you that the US system was ‘fast, efficient and inexpensive’. We believe she may have confused the cost of registering a patent (which she has also got wrong) with the cost of court proceedings. A typical US patent court case takes many years and costs many millions of dollars. It is incredibly rare for a European SME to win through the US system with perhaps the case of Håkan Lans the most significant example. He was the European Patent Office’s European Inventor Of The Year in 2007. Yet the US courts found his patent invalid and thus entirely worthless. His disclosed invention is now installed as standard on every aircraft and every ship over 300 tonnes.

We respectfully urge you to stop the nonsense that prevents SMEs from enforcing their patents, particularly a court system that can only worsen that process. We would like you to ask why other, far more accurate and reliable approaches such as technical binding arbitration, are not being considered given this important opportunity. Otherwise our fear is that SMEs will all go elsewhere where innovation is actually supported or perhaps take a lead from the burning patent ceremony. Growth and jobs will remain elusive. It is now in your hands to stop the rot that has damaged European innovation for far too long and do something positive.

Yours sincerely

John Mitchell

Chairman – SME Innovation Alliance

cc Maura Geoghegan-Quinn; EU Commissioner, research, innovation and science

A highly recommended free publication is IP mistakes business people make when trying to make money from their big idea, by Shireen Smith of Intellectual Property Lawyers Azrights. Get your copy from http://www.ip-brands.com/.

IPMBPMWTTMMFTBI (if asked, we might have argued for a snappier title) is aimed primarily at businesses but inventors can learn much from it too. And it’s an easy, well-written read, which always helps.

The seven mistakes Shireen Smith identifies are:

1  Revealing your big idea too soon.
2  Not understanding the importance of a strong brand.
3  Not budgeting for intellectual property help and advice.
4  Relying only on creatives for branding and marketing advice.
5  Seeing IP as a cost rather than an investment.
6  DIY legal advice.
7  Assuming a patent is all you need to succeed with your big idea.

Pre-business stage inventors will find plenty of useful tips here, especially if they plan to market their own inventions.

For example, if you have a business website, always register the domain name yourself:

Domains are owned contractually by the person named as the registrant – so, if your web designer registers your website’s domain, they are the owner. The domain renewal notice will go to them. If the renewal notice is overlooked, typically because it is sent to your web designer, or to an employee who has left your company, you won’t know the domain needs to be renewed. To risk the loss of your domain name and website is a costly mistake.

Too right. We know of more than one inventor-led business that hit a rock because it relied on someone else, not always still around or still friendly, to set them up with a website.

And there is a very useful section on managing risk when having products made abroad. Especially in China. Because, as Shireen Smith diplomatically puts it: ‘safeguards abroad are not always in line with what you might expect’.

(And while we’re at it, let’s say it again – there are some great small manufacturers in the UK, increasingly competitive and with the big advantages of language, shared jurisdiction and relative proximity.)

Quibbles? Hardly any. We might mutter that Mistake 5: Seeing IP as a cost rather than an investment is all very well but for inventors and start-ups operating on a shoestring, seeing it as anything other than a cost might take some doing.

And while IP Mistakes… gets a big round of applause from us for Mistake 7, Assuming a patent is all you need to succeed with your big idea, we’d take minor issue with the example of Daisuke Inoue, who invented the karaoke machine but didn’t patent it. Shireen Smith says: ‘Had he done so it could have made him millions’. We say it might equally have cost him millions defending a shaky patent, as in technology terms the karaoke machine didn’t amount to much – a view perhaps shared by Mr Inoue himself, who is reported  as saying: ’I simply put things that already exist together’. (And it seems he did OK from his business anyway.)

But never mind. IP Mistakes… is a highly useful publication from someone who obviously cares. And it’s free. So get your copy now.

The good news: the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) has been abolished! Thus spake a government news release of 19 Jan 2012.

The bad news: despite that word ‘abolish’, NESTA lives on. It has merely been evicted from its cosy government berth to float off as a private sector charity. And with the interest from its hefty £250m endowment – courtesy of the National Lottery – for sustenance, it could survive for some time as perhaps the UK’s most useless yet most lavishly funded organisation.

For those new to invention, some background: NESTA’s founding purpose, under the terms of the National Lottery Act 1998, included:

(a) helping talented individuals (or groups of such individuals) in the fields of science, technology and the arts to achieve their potential

(b) helping persons to turn inventions or ideas in the fields of science, technology and the arts into products or services.

In other words, it was set up by law to help inventors. Yet within a few years NESTA decided that inventors were the scum of the earth, so it wasn’t going to help them any more. And nobody in government or the media appeared to give a damn. But read on…

Where did all the money go?

One big question now is how much NESTA will have to cut its cloth to suit a time of austerity. It will clearly be some time before NESTA volunteers are rattling collecting buckets outside Sainsburys. Maybe NESTA can continue to spend £29m or so annually when its ‘proper’ income rarely exceeds £3m. Maybe it can continue to spend £3m a year on ‘publications, events and communications’, and £6m or so on management pay and perks. We shall have to see.

Another big question is: what happened to over ten years of largely vanished investment? The NESTA website lists some of its beneficiaries but we’re told nothing about how those investments are performing.

For example, what happened to the £3m given in 08/09 to investment company MTI Partners – one of whom was on the NESTA Investment Committee in 2006, stood down briefly owing to ‘a potential conflict of interest’, and was reinstated in 2007? Why were NESTA funds farmed out to a private investment company? What did they invest in? Was there any payback to NESTA? Does anyone know?

Cheques and balances

As a charity, NESTA will now presumably have the Charity Commissioners to satisfy, so some of the old spendthrift habits and opacity may have to go. And despite independence, it will certainly have the Conservative Party breathing hard down its neck. For thanks to political blogger Milo Yiannopoulos, we now know about a past attempt by the Tories to scrap NESTA altogether and grab its money.

In his excellent piece David Cameron’s secret war on NESTA, Yiannopoulos discloses how NESTA’s £250m pot of gold was targeted – unsuccessfully – by the cash-hungry Cameron government.

What makes his account remarkable is not the £75,000 (at least) spent by the Tories on lawyers’ fees, but the damning analysis of NESTA performance that justified the attempted take-down. The Cameroons wanted NESTA’s money not just for its own sake but because they thought NESTA didn’t deserve to keep it.

Choice quotes from Milo Yiannopoulos:

The Tory argument was that NESTA published too many lofty reports and did too little to help enterprise in a practical way. An organisation with such terrific financial resources could not be justified in an era of austerity when its primary output was high-level, self-justifying strategy documents. 

There were too many meetings with public relations companies and management consultants and not enough with entrepreneurs. Too few investments were being made, by inadequately qualified people and for too little money. NESTA had quietly become a ineffectual research body. It had to go.

Perpetual motion machine

We couldn’t put this better ourselves. To us, the cunning in the NESTA game plan always lay in its gradual movement out of projects whose success or failure were measurable – they either made money or they didn’t – and into more smoke-and-mirrors ventures where it was possible to trumpet success no matter what the outcome. NESTA invented its own perpetual motion machine, endlessly generating a form of energy that no one except itself valued or could use.

Now wiser and poorer from failing to get its hands legally on the NESTA millions, the government may have its revenge. They apparently hope that new CEO Geoff Mulgan, past founder of think-tank Demos, will re-engineer NESTA to more closely resemble the organisation it was meant to be – a champion of bread-and-butter innovation and not ‘wow factor’ froth.

Will he succeed? Will NESTA ever win respect from the innovation community? Will it revert to helping inventors?  The odds may be against the lot, but abettermousetrap.co.uk will do its best to press the case for supporting invention.

Milo Yiannopoulos doesn’t seem over-optimistic either. He ends:

Whether entrepreneurs have gained a more helpful, more enterprise-focused and more pragmatic body as a result – even if, strictly speaking, it will shortly be a charity – remains to be seen.

That seems a good enough place for us to sign off too. So all you inventors and entrepreneurs out there – no holding of breath, do you hear?

Inventors and bar-room brawl aficionados could do worse than look in on this discussion forum – at the time of writing, 258 comments and rising fast – where several members of the United States inventor community are busy smashing furniture and filling the air with oaths, accusations, passion, libel, illiteracy and incoherence. The title of the discussion – reproduced here exactly as written – is:

Would You Call DAVIDSON INVENTION SUBMISSION COMPANY..” One Of Your OWN “. And Praise Them For Biulding A Cool Place With Inventor RIP OFF MONEY.

Explanation follows, but the capitals alone give some sense of the pressure about to blow.

The focus of it all is Mark Reyland, CEO of the United Inventors Association of America. He wrote a blog piece praising well-known US inventor services outfit Davison (not Davidson). They, it appears, are not held in high esteem by inventor John Young, who then kicked off the discussion. Hence the title.

But forget Davison. John Young’s main target is Mark Reyland. Why? The precise reason is unclear to say the least, but the direction of travel of John’s loathing is beyond doubt. And it’s evidently shared by other US inventors.

Inventors united against United Inventors

We can’t say we’re too surprised at the strength of feeling. Mark Reyland has recent form in the UK thanks to his worthless and time-wasting (non)sponsorship of Simon Brown’s Inventor Forum (see earlier post).

What seems to be happening now is that several US inventors who also have a bone to pick with Reyland are jointly challenging him to justify his claim to be a big wheel in the US inventor services world, and to respond to a number of allegations of sharp practice.

To give Reyland his due, he’s willing to answer back: but in more than one name, never to the point, and in an irrational and provocatively ad hominem manner that merely adds fuel to the fire.

Unfortunately – or fortunately, if it’s entertainment you’re after – several of his adversaries can easily match his inflammatory ramblings and taunts with their own, which makes the ‘discussion’ somewhat difficult to follow. (An honourable exception is inventor and entrepreneur Nancy Tedeschi, who is doing her patient best to get answers from Mark Reyland by asking nicely. With no success whatsoever.)

Inventor services company in name only? 

Throwing all legal caution to the winds (when in Rome…), our own take on the shenanigans is this:

First, the United Inventors Association of America may be more smoke and mirrors than reality. Despite its ‘board of directors’ we’d bet that for all practical purposes UIA is Mark Reyland and no one else.

Second, Mark Reyland is a paranoid fantasist who mistakenly thinks he’s very clever in his use of multiple personalities and other forms of fakery to keep his plates spinning.

Yes, it’s that bad.

One can speculate on how many screws might be loose, but our guess is that for Mr Reyland the priority is seeking attention, not making money. And boy, is he getting a lot of attention right now. That probably makes him a happy, if disturbed, bunny while leaving his more mercurial adversaries raging and frothing impotently. Thus, stalemate rather than checkmate.

Our own ten pennorth of advice was to have UIA tax returns checked for any irregularities. That’s how they got Al Capone, after all. But Capone had assets. We suspect that any serious investigation of UIA will discover that it has no real substance, which might account for the inability so far for critics to deliver a knockout blow.

Other than that, starving the man of attention will probably have more effect than feeding him yet more of the oxygen of publicity that he craves. But as other posters seem unable to get that message, fat chance of a speedy end to all the increasingly futile exchanges. This show will run and run!

Do we have an equivalent situation in the UK? Not that we know of. But when it comes to unanswered questions there is always Nesta, which will be the subject of our next post…

UPDATE: As of 26 January the LinkedIn discussion thread seems to have vanished, after more than 500 posts. Probably for the best as it was all getting absolutely nowhere, but it still leaves a very large question mark hanging over the integrity of UIA and the people who run it.

When should inventors use NDAs? Basically, only when they’re absolutely necessary, otherwise they can hinder rather than help the development of invention ideas or projects. We cover NDAs in A Better Mousetrap, but happily draw your attention to this horse’s mouth blog from early-stage investment adviser Aristos Peters. It’s called ‘Why I don’t sign NDAs (usually)’ and we wouldn’t argue with any of it. It isn’t specifically about inventors and inventions but that doesn’t matter – the advice applies to anyone wanting someone else’s help with a business idea. And that’s what inventors are, even though they may not appreciate it. A serious invention project is a business opportunity, so business criteria apply to the presentation of information about it.

In a business context, too many inventors overuse NDAs. In A Better Mousetrap we give the example of a major company that won’t sign NDAs at a first meeting. Their argument is that they take NDAs seriously, so don’t want to sign one just to find out 30 seconds later that they have no interest in the invention idea that is then unveiled. If they are interested an NDA may be justified – but at a later stage, when both parties to the developing relationship need protecting.

Aristos Peters expands considerably on this theme. His blog speaks for itself, but a few of his main points are worth summarising:

•  Investors who receive many submissions simply don’t have the time to wade through every clause of every NDA.

•  Don’t NDA someone who is trying to raise money for you and your invention – it can hamper their efforts on your behalf.

•  If your business idea has what Peters calls ‘secret sauce’ – and if it’s an invention project, it will – then avoid the need for an NDA by simply removing from your business plan or presentation all significant detail about that ‘secret sauce’. As long as the recipient understands the investment proposition, sensitive detail can be left out until such time as an NDA is genuinely justified.

•  No self-respecting investor or company will sign an NDA just to read a business plan.

•  Inventors who insist on an NDA to disclose anything at all about their invention project risk looking amateurish or arrogant.

Peters’ sign-off sums it all up for inventors:

‘NDAs do have a use in the investment landscape and I have signed a few in my time, but knowing when and how to submit them is the trick.’

So if you’re an inventor with an investment-ready invention project and are raring to go, let’s sum up the golden rules: first, avoid the need for NDAs by describing your invention idea only in general terms; and second, an NDA is a valuable tool for invention development and intellectual property protection, but use it only when both parties accept that it is necessary.

Simon Brown’s emailed cri de coeur yesterday is, one trusts, a merely temporary expression of extreme frustration.

For those who don’t know what we’re talking about, Simon is the extraordinarily energetic inventor who earlier this year set up the United Innovators Association UK. Its aim was (still is) to be both a representative body for UK inventors and a self-help platform enabling inventors, service providers (like us), investors and businesses to work collaboratively. He did it without a penny of funding from anyone except himself, and he made huge strides in a matter of weeks because everyone in the know recognised that UIAUK filled a yawning gap in the market.

UIAUK is now back to its original name of Inventor Forum – and thereby hangs the start of our tale.

When setting up Inventor Forum Mk1, Simon was contacted by the United Inventors Association of the USA, an outfit started in 1990 and with an apparently good reputation. UIA(US) offered to sponsor Simon’s fledgling organisation to get it off the ground and enable UK inventors to benefit from commercial contacts in the States. A legally binding agreement was signed and as a courtesy, Simon adopted a new name and website design similar to that of UIA(US).

In fairly short order, the sponsorship deal proved worthless and UIA(US) started to implode. It became clear – not least from its CEO’s expletive-laden emails – that all was not well within UIA(US) and perhaps never had been.

Simon moved quickly to distance UIAUK as far as possible from UIA(US). This included dropping the name and completely redesigning the website – a time-consuming distraction that Simon could definitely have done without.

While the UIA(US) ash cloud was still in the air, Simon was approached by another US inventor help organisation. (Named in Simon’s email but we’ll refrain.) Its CEO commiserated, confirmed suspicions about UIA(US) and other US inventor help companies, and offered Simon a ‘clean’ version of basically the same sponsorship deal. Another legal agreement was signed.

It now appears that this deal too was worthless. Thus, Simon has been messed around by two US inventor help organisations in quick succession. Hardly a surprise then that he’s annoyed and upset. He’d need to be a saint not to be.

This whole saga raises a number of issues.

First, are there any US invention services companies at all that can be trusted? Simon’s experience suggests not, and in over 25 years of involvement with invention, we at abettermousetrap.co.uk don’t know of any that we’d feel safe recommending to UK inventors.

Second, there would be far less need to consider US sponsorship deals if there were more public support for UK inventors – a recurring theme of this blog. No one is asking for the moon, but when George Osborne announces that he wants to see more ‘invented in Britain’, it’s not unreasonable to ask for some rearrangement of the enterprise support furniture to make it happen. It seems you can get help for almost anything to do with innovation and enterprise except invention. That’s got to change.

Third – what now for Inventor Forum? Onwards and upwards, basically. The need for a single body to properly represent UK inventors is still there. So too is a need for a social media platform that local groups of inventors and innovators can use, either as an add-on to an existing inventors’ club, or as a wholly online club. The sad fact is that the number of inventors’ clubs that hold regular meetings is dwindling, which means that virtual meeting places such as Inventor Forum will soon be the only practical option for exchanges of local news and information.

Fourth – inventors have to accept that help and advice is never free, even if it isn’t charged for. Inventor Forum has to pay its way if it is to remain an asset for inventors. (As does abettermousetrap.co.uk for that matter.) A lot of people used Inventor Forum to get free advice, and it’s now perfectly understandable that this has to stop. So pay to use its services, partly because they’re a bargain and partly because if they wither and disappear, a lot of experience and expertise goes with them.

But how useful are social media for generating business?

First off, social media accounts are free, so there’s no point in not using them to promote your invention or product. Nor is there any shortage of social media gurus handing out free advice. (Try Renée Quinn. Her blog posts are more informative than most.)

But what matters to businesses is not attention but profit. Does all the effort you put into social media pay off? We talk to lots of mainly small businesses and most are sceptical. The prevailing view of the people who count the pennies in and out is that Facebook and Twitter may help with visibility but don’t produce much actual business. The term ‘emperor’s new clothes’ crops up with some frequency.

(Google Adwords also tends to be sniffed at. Better SEO, rising per-click costs and a browsing public that increasingly skips ‘paid for’ search results are all reducing its importance.)

So what does work for skint inventors with a new product to promote? The answer is: good old news releases and contact with journalists. Nearly every inventor we know who has tried it has been amazed by the results. (The most recent was just a few days ago, which prompted us to write this piece.)

What you don’t do is write a press release and blitz every paper and magazine in the land. Results from that are usually dismal, as you just go on to every journalist’s slush pile.

Instead, start small. What you need is contact with a local or regional business journal, newsletter or supplement – typically, the sort of never-heard-of-it-before publication you find strewn around the reception area of a large company or organisation. Their editors are always on the look-out for relevant stories, and often they don’t carry many of them, so your chances of standing out are high.

At this modest level you may have more going for you than you think. You’re an inventor bravely starting a new business based on your invention – that’s newsworthy. You’ve turned a quirky invention into a great new product – that’s newsworthy, especially if there’s a ‘wow’ or feelgood factor. You’re based locally, using local people and resources – that’s newsworthy. Always acknowledge any help you’ve had from local companies, enterprise agencies, universities etc. If they can use your story to publicise their own activities, you may get several bites at the same cherry.

The readership of that first publication may be small, but no matter. Other journalists will read it. If you’ve got something genuinely interesting to show or say, they will pick up on you. That first mention in Potato Peeler Monthly or Small Business Igniter can generate interest from bigger and better-known titles, even nationals, and often radio and TV too. And it’s those widening ripples that start bringing in the calls from businesses interested in talking to you about selling your product, or investors interested in helping you to grow.

Be aware though that it won’t last. The ‘15 minutes of fame’ dictum applies, so you won’t be newsworthy for long. Maybe ten days and it’ll all be over. But while it lasts, expect to be busy fielding phone calls – so be fully prepared to make the most of it.

Inventors need manufacturers, and for the sake of UK invention and the UK economy, it would help if more of those manufacturers were British. The shine is starting to wear off China as the default choice for getting things done cheaply, as costs rise and both performance and business ethics tend to be distinctly patchy.

But to put the shine back on UK manufacture, a few things need to change. One of them is the attitude of many UK companies to new business, some of which comes from inventors.

To be clear, we’re not talking here about inventors looking for companies to license their invention ideas. We’re talking about inventor-entrepreneurs looking for companies to manufacture their products in return for payment. In short, purchasers looking for suppliers.

And we’re mainly talking about SMEs, as they’re usually better suited to the relatively small initial volumes needed for a product new to the market.

There’s no doubt that UK manufacturing SMEs have the technical skills, care about quality and customer service, and are increasingly competitive on price. But too often, something equally important is missing. The testimony of UK inventor-entrepreneur Alan King (real words but not his real name, so don’t go Googling) speaks for itself.

Alan needed to find four suppliers for his product, aimed at the outdoor market. He wanted to use UK manufacturers and had £150,000 of his own money to spend.

‘Our greatest disappointment has been British manufacturers. In general, SMEs have reacted to a new business enquiry with a complete lack of enthusiasm and even apathy.

In 2010 we sent out over 200 new business enquiries. The rough breakdown is: 20 companies replied within a day, 20 within 3 days, 20 within a week, 20 within 2 weeks, 20 within a month. The remaining 100 never replied at all.

Of those who came back reasonably promptly, several backed off as soon as they found out we were a start-up – even though we had plenty of finance and knew how to present ourselves professionally. You don’t get this level of suspicion from most non-UK companies. 

In four months we visited over 40 manufacturers and to be fair we found a few who were professional, helpful and positive, but they were few and very far between.

A few examples: 

- One company agreed to see us but within minutes told us we’d have to pay for every single component before manufacture, which would then take at least three months and maybe longer at busy times. We already had a quote from a company in the Far East, who only wanted a small deposit and could deliver to the UK weeks earlier than the UK supplier, even with a month’s shipping.

- The CEO of a £7m turnover company spent nearly all our meeting moaning about his competition and how tough times were, and how his business only survived by making 200% profit from his best customer! We couldn’t get out fast enough.

- On the phone, the boss of a company that was a perfect match for our needs recommended two other companies instead. When we insisted, he said: ‘If you really want to see me, I may be able to meet you in a couple of weeks’. 

- Another company said they might be able to help us in their slow season, but couldn’t make any promises!

We eventually found three fab UK suppliers but still need one more to make our business work. We’d also prefer to have some back-up suppliers but that seems a forlorn hope.

So what’s wrong with UK SMEs?

I think most are too busy trying to deal with today’s clients to have time to look at new business, even if it knocks on their door. Most are dreadfully inefficient. Very few have dedicated new business staff, so new enquiries are dealt with by people who are too busy with other things to give you much attention.

You often have to deal with reps who appear to spend all day driving and don’t return calls or emails. Or if they do, you find they have little product or company knowledge. Busy fools comes to mind.

After months of trying to give UK manufacturers my business, I’m disappointed or disgusted with the majority of them and now fully understand why so many customers go overseas. The minute you do go overseas – even across the Channel – attitudes are very different. I just don’t understand why it should be so dreadfully difficult to get anything done in UK Plc.’

Unfortunately, Alan’s experience is not unusual. Nor are his complaints, or his analysis of the problem.  What makes him different is the scale of his search – 200 companies approached! Forty visited! Most inventor-entrepreneurs of our acquaintance would give up and source overseas much sooner.

So if UK manufacturers want to improve their prospects, they’ve got to improve their act when it comes to seeking and welcoming new business. The brick walls that Alan encountered don’t just affect inventor-entrepreneurs, but it’s probably at the interface between innovation and manufacture that SME failings are most exposed.

For what our opinion is worth, we think that one root cause of the problem is an inability of UK SMEs to think in terms of partnership. Elsewhere it’s taken for granted that a supply chain isn’t just a collection of disparate companies operating on ‘every man for himself’ lines. Elsewhere it’s also taken for granted that supply chains are international – something an insular culture like ours may still struggle with. It’s nothing to do with language – it’s a state of mind.

The fact remains though that new business is tomorrow’s business, whether it stems from invention or not. Whatever inventor-entrepreneurs like Alan can’t get in the UK, they can very quickly get elsewhere. A more positive attitude toward new customers should cost nothing. But if it isn’t there, it could end up costing UK manufacturers everything.