I have an Invention Idea

I have an invention idea. How do I bring it to life? What is the next step? Should I patent and Trademark it?

ultraroxanne, please take what I am about to say the right way. It is meant to help you not go into debt. We get contacted daily by Inventors that all say they have the next million dollar idea, but have not done enough research to prove they are correct. They are basing it off of hope and are very easy prey for some companies to bleed them dry as they try and get their product to market. Inventing is a business and needs to be treated like one. Yes, there are million dollar ideas out there, but remember they are the exception, not the rule. Make informed decisions with your head and facts, not your heart and emotion.
To many Inventors get an idea and rush to file a patent without doing any research on their idea first. Inventor Roger Brown has a saying we like "Patentable does not equal marketable." Roughly 3% to 4% of patented ideas make it to market so you are looking at a larger portion that wasted their money. We feel that if Inventors took the time to do more research up front they could save themselves money and improve their chances of success.

Here are some things you can do for free:

You can start by doing research on your idea to see what is currently on the market online, in stores, catalogs, do word searches on the internet, search for images based on your product idea eg: "coffee mugs" and see what types of products show up.
You need to know who your competition will be and who you may want to contact if you plan to license the idea to them. The following links are good places to start to do your research. Obviously if you see that other products on the market are better products than what you have in mind you need to go back to the drawing board. You need to be able to list the benefits and the faults with your product so that you can get an idea if you need more work on this product before moving forward and spending money on it. You need to decide are you looking to manufacture and sell it yourself or do you plan on licensing it for a royalty check.
http://www.google.com/patents
http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/search/index.jsp
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/

This blog by the UIA is also filled with fantastic information every Inventor can use http://inventoropinion.blogspot.com/ also find an Inventor group near you here. http://www.inventorsdigest.com/archives/6025 Inventor groups are a great source to find local help and also learn who to avoid.

The UIA Staff