How to Be an

Inventor

Instructor: Drew Boyd

Week 4

Agenda

• Review– Lab Books– Third Tool: Multiplication

• Fourth Tool: Feature Dependency

• More PATENTS

Review Lab Books

• Who has an idea or an invention from their Lab Book that they want to share?

Third Tool: Multiplication

1. Find a product and list all of its parts

2. Multiply, or create a copy of one of

the parts

3. Change the multiplied component in

some way

4. Imagine your “Virtual Product”

5. Ask, “Who would use this?”

Example: Multiply a Part

“Picture-in-Picture” TV

Fourth Tool: Feature Dependency

1. Find a product and list all of its features

(NOT parts).

2. Take one feature and list it beside the name

of all the other features

3. Pretend that one feature changes when

something about the other feature changes

4. Imagine your “Virtual Product”

5. Ask, “Who would use this?”

60-Second Toothbrush

Features:

1. Rotating brushes

2. Time

3. Length

4. Width

5. Color

Traffic Light

Features:

1. Light color

2. Time

3. Car’s Waiting

4. Car’s Moving

Scooter

Features:

1. Height

2. Wheel Size

3. Speed

4. Road Smoothness

5. Person’s height

Patents

• A patent is a property right

• Granted by the Government

• Excludes others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention

• How? Apply to the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office (USTPO)

Patent Examples

Patent Examples

Patent Examples

Patent Examples

Finger Mounted Toothbrush

Yoyo

• Inventor: Donald Duncan

• Sold over 100 million

• He also invented the:

• Eskimo Pie

• Good Humor Ice Cream Truck

• Parking Meters

Next Week

• Review all the tools so far

• Invention Workshop• Surprise!