Category Archives: Invention

For the purposes of our group, this is generally considered something that can be patented, irrespective of its current status (concept, patent pending, etc.).

Free Help to File a Patent

Pilot Program

One of the consistent challenges faced by club members is to gather the resources to file an application for a US patent. Members are often constrained by finances or confusion about how to find legal assistance. In order to help independent inventors who struggle to find the necessary resources for filing, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) started a pilot program called the Pro Se Assistance Program. The USPTO website describes the program thusly:

The Pro Se Assistance Program is the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s comprehensive pilot to expand outreach to inventors who file patent applications without the assistance of a registered patent attorney or agent (also known as “pro se” filing).

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Tech Tour 2016 & Boy Scout Inventor Merit Badge

Hello Everyone! There are a couple of things going on in Fort Wayne that may interest club members. They are Tech Tour 2016 (October 24 – 28, 2016) and the Boy Scout’s Merit Badge College (October 15, 2016) that, for the first time here locally, features an Inventors merit badge. Both events will be discussed at the next Meetup (October 13, 2016). Continue reading →

Get Your Search Together!

When most people search the Web they simply type a few words or a sentence into Google and see what comes back. This works a lot of the time, but if you are searching a complex topic and need some precision, there are other techniques to use. Conducting Web searches on complex topics such as inventions can seem like an intimidating task. Fortunately, they are not as bad as they may appear. By organizing information a little bit before searching the Web, the task becomes much easier. Continue reading →

Indiana Tech’s WarriorHack

Today’s article is a report about the recent WarriorHack at IndianaTech. We are pleased to have Mark Richter join LightSwitch! as a guest author. Mark is the Executive Director of the Center for Creative Collaboration (C3), which is the organization that put the WarriorHack together. The C3 also sponsors the Fort Wayne Inventors Club by offering its offices for our meeting space. Needless to say, we love the C3. Now, without further delay, here is Mark’s report…

The first annual WarriorHack took place over a 24-hour period beginning at 6:00 pm on February 20, 2015 and ending at 6:00 pm on February 21. The event took placed in the Multi-Flex Auditorium and Theater on Indiana Tech’s Fort Wayne campus. Most of the attendees were from the Fort Wayne area, but some came from as far as Detroit, Indianapolis, and Louisville. The event was kicked off by a welcome from Bill Soards, President of AT&T Indiana. Continue reading →

An Inexpensive Prototyping Technique for the Independent Inventor

You have an idea, but you are not really sure what to do first. One of the first things you can do is to create an inexpensive prototype. This will help you visualize what you want to accomplish and evaluate its feasibility. There are several types of prototypes. The low-fidelity type, which is the subject of this article, is very economical when compared to other prototyping methods. Continue reading →