Product development advice

Getting good advice on developing a product, making a prototype and so on is hard to get.

The British Library has a regular programme of workshops which include "Product development clinics" by Bob Lindsey, with the next ones on the 3 and 12 April, and "What next for your invention ? Plan, prototype or protect ?" by Bang Creations, with the next one on the 5 April.

I have many one-hour meetings with inventors and designs to discuss their intellectual property and business plans. It helps a lot if the person sitting opposite me is an engineer, but they tend to lack skills in marketing. Or they might know a lot about finance and marketing, and have no idea how to protect their idea or the importance of building and refining a prototype.

These workshops, and the others on our regularly updated programme, help to fill in those gaps.

In addition, our free advice meetings can be booked on our web page. These can include business ideas where there is no hope of a patent.

Comments

[Phil]

The British Library workshops are excellent and I have personally attended Bob Lindsey's session and found it very informative. It is difficult ofcourse for some people to get to London, however.

It is therefore worth mentioning that most product design companies or patent attorneys will offer a free consultation giving you valuable insight into how they would tackle your project. Unfortunately, being commerical organisations, they are likely to have some bias but then again almost everyone does! However, most people can access this even if they can't get to London.

Further information on both patenting and product development can be found here: http://www.design2market.co.uk