Inventor Resources

Some of these sites are for commercial products or services and this list is not intended as an endorsement from the Bucknell SBDC.

Inventor Information and Education:

• http://www.thomasnet.com
  • Engineers, scientists and manufacturers can search for manufacturers and suppliers in a wide range of industrial topics ranging from chemical to aerospace, metalworking, mechanical, electronics, and more.

• http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/iip/documents/scamprevent.pdf
• http://www.bucknell.edu/x47436
  • Warnings about invention promotion firms.
• http://www.bucknell.edu/x48377.xml
  • Top Ten Inventor Myths!

• http://web.mit.edu/invent/index.html
  • Information from the Lemelson-MIT Program for inventors, including an “Inventor’s Handbook”
• http://web.mit.edu/deshpandecenter/resources.html
  • Resources for Innovators from the Deshpande Center at MIT, information to assist you in shepherding your innovation to the marketplace and see it successfully commercialized.
• http://www.inventorsdigest.com/
  • A magazine committed to educating and inspiring independent and professional innovators.
• http://www.innovation-institute.com/about.htm
  • The WIN-I2 Innovation Evaluation Service is an inventor/innovator assistance service that provides a third-party analysis of the risks and potential of ideas, inventions, and new products.
• http://www.ideationtriz.com/
  • Found a problem, not sure how to solve it? Try out the Ideation/TRIZ Methodology of problem solving.
• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/3764
  • Advanced product development discussions and papers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Innovation in Product Development.

Intellectual Property:

• http://www.uspto.gov
  • The US Patent and Trademark Office: the place for an inventor to start.

• http://www.google.com/patents
  • Search over 7 million U.S. patents for prior art.
• http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/pams/patent.html
  • An excellent patent search tutorial from Penn State to help you make your search more effective

Manufacturing:

• http://www.pct.edu/pmc/
  • Penn College’s Plastics Manufacturing Center, Williamsport, PA.
• http://patapsco.nist.gov/mep/centers-near-you/index.htm
  • Manufacturing Extension Partnership program: the industrial resource centers in PA.
• http://www.penntap.psu.edu/
  • PENNTAP: technical assistance from Penn State University.
• http://www.efunda.com/processes/rapid_prototyping/intro.cfm
  • An introduction to rapid prototyping.
• http://www.amba.org/media/Revised_true_cost_complete_reduced.pdf
  • From American Mold Builders Association, a comparison of U.S. versus offshore mold costs.