Million dollar idea - saving lives

Try reaching out to Bob Weber at 6D. 

Here's the office number: 1- (714) 772-2121

Bob is in the office almost every day, man cares about safety and is great to chat with.

Ryan Hughes of Ryno Power might be an interesting person to talk to about your product idea. 

Forward twisting throttle?

try Brady@atlasbrace.com

Dr. Chris Leatt. 

Who better to provide scientifically sound, objective feedback than the legions of body protection experts at VitalMX?

Probably the last person you want to talk to regarding safety. 

Listen buddy, if you have a great idea I would AT LEAST ask for 10% of sales to whoever you pitch your idea. I'd probably go higher 20-25%, you may not have the capital or resources, but if you have an idea worthwhile don't kick yourself in the nuts 20 years down the road from extra potential income.

While Ryno might not be into wearing some of the stuff out there, and would probably not start up a company to build a product. 

You could pick his brain for  what he thought about the idea, it might still provide some good feedback. Or could be a waste. But hearing some of what he thought may be issues with the concept may help refine the idea . I often will ask for feedback from people I know dislike something I'm doing to get that side of an opinion to help me finetune something. Knowing what Your worst critic will criticize can help you improve on an idea/project by also .

I'm not saying to not contact somebody. But the reason Alpinestars may not have responded could be that they may  already have something similar in development. I   talked with  a higher up at a protective device company before with some ideas . They  told me that they were already working on something like I described.  Around a year later I was at a local shop and saw a few variations of the idea I had on their new product. 

           I think You should try and contact all of the people suggested.  If You could try and call the on the phone You may have better luck .Or run into them in person at a tradeshow.  Emails can go to spam,  some might worry about a virus if there are attachments. If You do send emails, I would try and follow up a time or two to make sure they were seen.  Maybe even if You met a rep for one of the brands that could help you get in contact  , or make sure that the person You want to see Your idea  ends up seeing it.Goodluck and I hope You can come back  and post when the product with your idea is available so we can see it. 

Sorry for the long message.      

Of course there is. You can put any agreement you want in to a written contract.  Just the fact that you posted on this forum and gave a general description would help you prove if somebody stole your idea.

The first thing you need to do is get a Non Disclosure Agreement in place  (NDA).  You can find simple NDA's on line with a google search.  If you are seriious...contact an attorney!

You could probably find an attorney that would give you a free consultation . Maybe one that could be paid with a % of your % if you are unable to  pay out of pocket . I would avoid that unless it was your only way. The NDA  would be Your guarantee . If they came out with the product after signing it, They would have to pay for violating it. I would assume you would have to sue them if it happened that way.   

Companies can be sneaky sometimes , listen to the Full floater podcast Pulp did. Don't let it discourage you. Use it as knowledge to hopefully avoid what happened.       

Patents are only as good as the money you have to spend on legal fees.

Is Shark Tank still a show..?

Yup, sometimes they may even help Your idea be stolen.  If the idea is for a groundbreaking new item. And there are ways to do things similarly but different enough  , the patent can just be a way of giving Your idea away. Especially if You can not afford to enforce it . I'm not as familiar with Patents as I am with Copyright laws. With Copyright's it is up to the owner to enforce by sueing . And if the owner doesn't do anything to stop a violator ,there is nobody else that will do it.    

The bottom line is have as much documentation that You came up with the idea.  I had a person tell me to write down and draw out a sketch of my idea and mail it to myself, and keep it sealed. So I would have the postmarked and sealed envelope to prove a certain date. It may not be a totally solid way of proof. But it could help show a timeline. Only having an NDA might even be better than a Patent. It would limit the number of people seeing it  compared to filing for a patent   Hopefully You are able to help the sport be safer, and make some $$ along the way.    

I've been running a product development firm that takes people's ideas and turns them into products for about 17 years now, so I have a reasonable background on this sort of thing. First off, let me be clear that I'm not crapping on your idea, I don't even know what it is! But in general, here's my general experience with ideas and what they're worth:

   * The vast majority of ideas are worthless. Everyone has one and it takes next to nothing to come up with one. 

   * Good ideas are arguably worth something, but not usually much in reality.

   * Good ideas poorly executed are worthless.

   * Good, well executed, ideas can be turned into a company that's worth a lot.

That last point is the important one, but note that "well executed" means well executed in terms of design, engineering, marketing, distribution, sales, management, and much more. And it's the company as a whole that's worth a lot at the end. The idea is the simple part of all that! You're likely not going to get very much for an idea unless you're involved in the rest of it. Consider that the profit margin on products often doesn't exceed 20% all said and done (many not even 10%), so you're certainly not getting 25% of sales for the idea; you'd probably be really lucky to get 1%.

All that said, you should be careful with sharing the idea if it's a good one and you're interested in making money with it. You'll need to protect yourself with the appropriate legal documents. And by protect, I mean have something to sue for when someone steals your idea. So be prepared with a bunch finances to support that effort as lawsuits are costly. A patent, NDA, etc. isn't worth anything if you can't afford to use it in court. And if whoever steals it has no morals and big money of their own, you'll likely drown in legal fees.

A well written utility patent will run you about $20k in fees, so you best avoid that unless you're super confident in your idea (the problem there is most people are super confident in their ideas, despite them being rather poor ideas...) A well written non-disclosure agreement is a good start to get some discussions going to get feedback from actual businesses that do this sort of thing. That's nearly free and will help move things in the right direction. You can find plenty of examples online or have a lawyer come up with one more specific to you. I'd recommend keeping it fairly short (a couple pages tops). Most of the ones I see are a few pages and say all the normal things so it's not a big deal to sign them. But I've received some 10+ page NDAs in the past. I usually just delete the email and move on with more prosperous things than waste hours on a 10 page NDA only to find out the idea sucks afterwards.

Anyway, hope that was helpful and didn't seem too discouraging!

Ha ha....   Much as I love Shark Tank....they tend to run away when it comes to product liabilities....especially in this case...moto.

...and yeah, patents look nice on the wall (I actually have one).....but you better have capital to defend them.

My sisters ex came up with a really good idea for a flexible extension to caulk tubes for reaching difficult spaces.   Took it to one of the big companies and they told them "not interested"....and promptly created their own.     Now, my sisters ex wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed....but he should have protected himself in some way.

Companies don’t pay for ideas, much less give away 10% of future revenue or profit.

Whatever you might think of Shark Tank, have a look at what products successfully obtain investment.  It’s the ones that have an idea, built a prototype, tested its feasibility, put early production units into market and proven that there is a viable, scalable long term product or service.

If you aren’t interested in monetising your idea then by all means talk to established businesses in that field.

I used to work with the guy who invented snaplock lids for plastic lunch containers. Dude patented it, took it to zip-lock, they politely told him that they were just gonna wait until his patent expired and they did. Dude finally retired about a year ago.

Just give it away, there is way to much fucking around to try and protect something that might not even be a thing. The world will pay you back in good karma

Or your patent is that good that you get attorneys to do it on contingency

I just want to know what his idea is…

Were stuck in a blender now we’re saving lives? WHAT!? 

Lol!! Solid movie reference!

I don’t understand why no one has designed a chest protector with a built-in adjustable neck brace. Seems simple to integrate the two. Why hasn’t anybody done it?

Leatt make one for kids

Billy this forum legitimately is unworthy of your advice half of the time; what an incredible write up and your posts never cease to teach me something new every time I log on.

You don’t understand how patent attorneys work.  Their bread and butter is the ongoing processing of new patent applications.

Their icing does come from successful ideas but not because of the revenue the product makes.  Typically whoever filed the original patent becomes the patent attorney for the life of that patent, and every time it has to be modified, or challenged or defended they are involved and bill for their hours.