Shop4Patents

Written by the inventor Pete Lefferson P.E.; March 12, 2007.
I am a 67 year old electrical engineer with several patents of a technical nature. My wife, Kathy and I now enjoy an empty house. All four kids are off in their own life adventures. The house is full of little unusual inventions that have no real commercial value.

One on going topic through the years was light in the bedroom at night. Kathy liked a little light for the path to the bathroom. I liked a dark room. I don’t need light to find the bathroom! Finally I found a solution that made us both happy. I made a nightlight by installing LEDs all around the rim of a round cookie tin and placed that light under the bed.

The light beams lit the floor but not the walls. The light was where Kathy needed it to walk but the room was dark.

Now this sounded like a commercial idea. The Patent and Trademark Office has a very convenient method for checking patents. I spent some hours on that side without seeing a nightlight idea even close to mine. So I wrote a provisional patent and sent it in electronically using the Patent Office software.

Next prototypes were required to sell this idea. I made up a few using 1 ½ in. slices of 4 ½ in. pvc pipe in place of the cookie tin. I had a good friend, Oscar Fournier, a retired mechanical engineer and inventor. He was taking a class in Solid Works at St. Pete College. He drew up a new space age looking prototype as a drawing project and actually manufactured it using the St. Pete College rapid prototyping system. Students needed an example of why we used rapid prototyping.

Around this period I knew that I needed help from people with invention and development experience, so I joined the Tampa Bay Inventors Council. There are many people with wonderful ideas. Through TBIC I heard from people who developed and marketed products themselves and others who leased their patented ideas to companies to develop and market.

The eRA (Electronic Retailing Association) had invited inventors in Florida to show their ideas in Orlando on a particular Saturday. I took my prototypes. The panel liked the idea enough to extend an invitation to HALO to be seen at the eRA trade show in Las Vegas that September. A lot of people liked the idea and after reviewing several offers from potential developers, I selected Global TV Concepts in Deerfield Beach Florida.

Applying for the Utility patent was the next step. This time I went to a patent attorney and selected Ron Smith of Smith Hopen Intellectual Property Law in Clearwater Florida. He did a fine job based on my Provisional Patent and the Utility patent was granted.

Global TV Concepts took the product to China and came back with a product that was a compromise of my space age looking prototype and what could be manufactured at a price that would work within the expected mass market price point. They are now selling HALO through web market sites and catalogs. From my share of the profits, we have finally paid for the trip to Las Vegas and for the patent. We are finally in the black.

There are more new ideas in the prototype and patent pipe line.

Pete Lefferson P.E.

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