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Coping With Legal Issues

When I started getting into trouble I became pretty acclimated to legal procedures. Calling my attorney and working out bail was just another way to spend a Saturday night. Unfortunately, the stiffer the charges, the more difficult it was to talk my way out of a bad situation. After so many charges, I found myself slapped with a long jail sentence, and I realized that I wanted to turn things around. Fortunately, my lawyer was able to walk me through yet another process, so that I could make the right changes. My blog discusses how to emotionally cope with legal issues so that you can start living a good life.

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Coping With Legal Issues

How To Turn An Idea Into An Empire

by Lillian Wheeler

Have you always considered yourself an inventor, or an ideas person? Do you lose sleep because your brain keeps coming up with awesome new product ideas or ways to make money? If so, your next step is to learn how to take your ideas and turn them into reality.

1. Focus on Just One

For you, ideas are a dime a dozen. So for you, the hardest challenge in the beginning is to pick just one idea and forget the rest, at least for now. Anything that doesn't relate to that one idea is a distraction that may keep you from your goal.

2. Go With Your Passion

As you progress toward your goal, there will be many obstacles along the way. If you're not passionate about your idea to start with, you may not have the necessary determination and fortitude needed to follow through with the plan.

3. Keep Good Records

Once you start writing and drawing your ideas on paper, keep good records. Experts recommend purchasing a spiral bound notebook to keep all your written details. On each page you use, write the corresponding date. If you ever end up having to prove that the idea belongs to you, you'll have this personal, dated and handwritten record with all the sheets intact to submit to the court. The notebook will show all the stages you went through, how long you worked on the concept, and any designs you thought up along the way.

4. Build a Prototype

A prototype is a working or non-working model of your product. You can use your prototype for a variety of purposes, including to demonstrate your idea to potential investors or to file with your patent application. The material you use to build your prototype will depend on the idea itself. When it comes to prototypes, whatever gets the concept of your idea across will do fine.

5. Conduct a Patent Search

You'll want to hire a patent attorney to conduct a patent search. If you bring your product to market and it infringes on someone else's patent, you can be sued. You could conduct an online patent search yourself, using the U.S. patent office website. However, it's a much more productive use of your time to find a good patent lawyer and pay them to do a thorough patent search on your behalf.

6. File Your Own Patent

Before you put your product idea in front of the public eye, you'll want to file your own patent for protection. For a nominal filing fee, you can file a provisional patent yourself. The provisional patent safeguards you against copyright infringement on your product for one year. After that, you can either drop the patent or file for a permanent, non-provisional patent with the help of a patent attorney.

7. Do Test Marketing

Before you spend bundles on manufacturing your product and risk it not selling, do some test marketing. Get a few samples made and bring it to demonstrate at trade shows and fairs. You'll be able to get a good sense of the market response to your new product, and possibly collect a few purchase orders in the bargain.

Once you have built your prototype, protected your idea with a patent and tested the public's demand for your product, you'll be well on your way toward turning your bright idea into an empire. Contact a business, such as the Lingbeck Law Office, for more information.   

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