Review of "Secrets of Successful Women Inventors: How They Swim With the “Sharks” and Hundreds of Other Ways to Commercialize Your Own Inventions," by Edith G. Tolchin
Review of
Secrets of Successful Women Inventors:
How They Swim With the “Sharks” and Hundreds of Other Ways to Commercialize
Your Own Inventions, by Edith G. Tolchin, ISBN 9780757005244
Five out of five stars
Secrets, not really, just good advice
As someone that
has read thousands of books and reviewed hundreds of them, my experience is
that the word “secrets” in the title is not descriptive of the contents of the
book. It always seems to be a word used to draw buyers and readers to the book.
That is also the case here.
However, that
does not mean that the book is not worth the investment of purchase and
reading. The U. S. Patent office was created in Article I of the U. S.
Constitution, so the basic principles of intellectual property were established
when the nation was founded. The first patent law was established in Venice in
1474, so the basic principle of the rights to intellectual property were born
in the Renaissance. While technology has undergone dramatic advances, the
foundations of patent registration and implementation are essentially unchanged
since 1790.
The rules and
regulations regarding how to apply for a patent and the requirements for due
diligence that needs to be done before a patent can be applied for are all well
known and easily located. There are attorneys that specialize in patent law, so
there are no secrets in the legal complexities of the patent process. The basics
of that process are repeated several times here.
The obvious,
yet necessarily stated precondition for a successful invention is simple to
state, yet difficult to execute. It is simply, “the great idea.” To be
patentable and successful, the idea must be new and serve a very useful
purpose.
This book is a
collection of stories about women that came up with a great idea and went
through the process of getting a patent and commercializing their idea. While
the journeys through the patent process are generally similar and do not really
reveal anything, the important information is how they managed to fund their
ideas from prototype to large scale manufacturing. Every source of capital to
borrowing from friends and relatives to angel investors to crowd sourcing to
appearing on the television show “Shark Tank” are covered. That is really the nuts
and bolts of taking a new idea and turning it into a commercial venture.
There was
nothing in this book that I would have considered a secret. Like so much about
the difficult aspects of life, the most important factor in success is
determination and belief in yourself. Entire sections of bookstores are based
on that premise.
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