You think you have found the ideal partner. You want to know if this is the right partner before you invest too much time, money, and other resources in the alliance. You have assembled the partnering team. You are ready to try the initial activity. Review the steps and tools in previous articles for starting the initial activity. You can build quality into the process by using the Plan–Do–Check–Act cycle. This can be accomplished by listing the tasks that need to occur in the Initiate stage below each step of the cycle. On the following pages are examples of what to do in each step. You may want to use these examples as is or modify them to meet your particular objectives. Either way, the process will help you accomplish the task in less time and with greater efficiency and higher quality.
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Trademarks do not have to be registered to obtain rights to prevent others from using the same or a similar trademark, but federal registration significantly enhances these rights in a trademark. You can claim exclusive rights to use your trademark, after you have searched the USPTO’s database to be certain that it is available, simply by putting the symbol ™ after your product name each and every time you use it. It costs nothing to do this and it provides notice to others of your claim to this trademark. It is not a federally registered trademark, however. A trademark registration can be obtained from both the state and federal governments. If a product/service is going to be sold across state lines . . . think Internet sales . . . then a federal trademark registration should be obtained. The cost for having a law firm prepare and prosecute a trademark registration application varies according to the number of classes in which the goods and services are to be registered. We were quoted prices averaging from $1,000 to $3,000 to obtain a federal trademark registration. But the cost can be higher depending upon the existence of similar trademarks. There are no maintenance fees for federal trademarks but federal trademark registrations must be renewed every ten years. Renewal cost at this time is around $500.
If none of these resources will work for you there is one final option. If you have valuables such as jewelry, antiques or stocks that are not a part of your retirement portfolio, and you are willing to part with them in order to fund your invention, you can sell them. We would only recommend this course of action if you have no other. Exhaust all other possibilities before selling off your valuables.
You can see that while there is funding available for Shoestring Budget™ inventors, there is no magic panacea. It is, instead, a common sense approach to creative ways to fund your invention. You can help to make up for limited funds by careful planning and cautious use of your limited resources.