By S. Pal Asija
What do people want? That's one of the toughest questions facing inventors. And evaluating inventions is even tougher. Experts have been wrong both ways. For example, many experts thought the telephone would never succeed, while other products receiving high marks failed miserably.
The moral is--Don't rely on experts. Use your own best judgement because with resources like time, talent and tenacity, you, too, can succeed.
Of course, it always helps to know a bit about what people say they want, both here and abroad. So let's first of all take a look at the inventions Americans say they would like to see. Perhaps your idea or new product will address one of these areas:
1. Crime prevention or deterrent devices that work without harming or injuring the perpetrator.2. Life, property protection and security devices.
3. Devices to improve the quality of air, water or other environmental factors.
4. Affordable unlimited energy.
5. Software inventions for the PC to make one's personal life easier.
6. Holistic health inventions that deviate substantially from traditional medical approaches.
7. Self improvement and empowerment inventions such as devices, methods and systems to balance family, professional, financial, physical, mental, social and spiritual life.
8. Easy comfort gadgets for the lazy.
9. Methods, devices and systems to affordably improve and maintain the infrastructure of travel and communications.
10. Safety devices of all types.
11. Biotechnology--Alchemy, cloning, composites, energy, genomics software and plastics. This also includes perpetual motion machines that do not violate the laws of nature, physics, chemistry and math.
12. Inventions to make the information superhighway (Internet) practical and beneficial.
13. A product that sends an automatic message from lost misplaced or stolen articles to the rightful owner.
14. A means for answering an apartment intercom from the office and vice-versa.
15. An economical, hand-held GPS (Global Positioning System) for pedestrians, roller bladers and bicyclists.
16. A foldable, tiltable board that can be adjusted perpendicular to an overhead projector to eliminate distortion and blurring of the image.
Targeting your product in one of the above areas does not necessarily mean success. Test your ideas well and conduct market surveys to evaluate product potential.
Next time, we'll travel "Beyond the Pond" and look at a few invention needs from around the world.
Pal Asija is an inventor and patent attorney who offers many services for inventors. You may contact him at 7 Woonscoket Ave, Shelton, CT 06484. The phone number is (203)924-4271. You may also fax him at (203) 924-9956. Those with online service may reach Asija by writing to OURPAL@compuserve.com
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