Product Liability Insurance...Really?

Article provided by Mark Reyland, Executive Director of the United Inventors Association of America. 

Most inventors have insurance on their cars, their homes, and maybe even their lives. However few inventors even think about insurance on their products.  

Product liability insurance is a fact of life if you expect to commercialize your invention. We don’t plan on things going wrong, but sometimes they do. That's why ALL major retailers require you provide Product Liability Insurance of at least One Million dollars before they will place an order.

By all appearances Spin Master is a reputable company that makes good products and has been in the toy industry for many years.  They likely didn’t intend to hurt a child – but once it happened I’m sure they were glad they had some insurance protection.

Spin Master Inc. of Los Angeles and Spin Master Ltd. of Toronto have agreed to pay a civil penalty of $1.3 million over sale of a toxic toy that put children in comas, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Thursday.

The settlement resolves staff allegations that Spin Master failed to report a defect and hazard associated with its Aqua Dots craft kit, the CPSC said in a statement.

The company also "knowingly imported and sold Aqua Dots, which were toxic and a banned hazardous substance, in violation of federal law," the statement said. "In agreeing to the settlement, Spin Master denies CPSC staff allegations that it knowingly violated the law."

Aqua Dots consisted of tiny beads that stuck together when sprayed with water, allowing children to create various shapes and designs.

By mid-October 2007, Spin Master had received reports that children and a dog had been made ill and received emergency medical treatment after ingesting Aqua Dots, the statement said. The CPSC staff also alleged that in the following weeks, Spin Master received more reports about children falling ill.

The company learned on October 18, 2007, that the toy contained 1,4-butylene glycol (TMG), which, upon ingestion, metabolizes to the controlled substance gamma hydroxybutyrate, the statement said. The next day, Spin Master learned that TMG is harmful if swallowed and targets the kidneys and central nervous system.

The CPSC received two reports in November 2007 that children who had swallowed the product had fallen into comas and required hospitalization. The product was recalled that month.

Please visit the United Inventors Association's website at www.uiausa.org for all of the resources built to protect inventors!

Get Money For Your Project

Contributed by Mark Reyland
United Inventor Association of America

As the largest inventor organization in the world, the UIA is always looking for projects that can help inventors. One such project was a Crowd Funding program we helped the people at FundaGeek build several months ago.
Eighteen months ago as Kickstarter and other crowd funding programs started to build in popularity we knew the inventor community would be one of the first in line to use this no risk funding source. So we started contacting each of these companies with our concerns about public disclosure and the effect of posting unprotected ideas on their sites without making sure the inventor knew the risk.

With the exception of FundaGeek, every company we contacted rebuffed our request to notify their users because they felt it would interfere with their business. That's right, in the end crowd funding is a business and the 5% they receive of your pledges is very real profit.

That's when we started working with FundaGeek to develop a portal on their site specifically designed to inventors.

In the FundaGeek inventor model we take traditional Crowd Funding (asking for a single sum of money) spreading it out over time more in line with the inventing cycle. The model encourages you to ask the crowd for incremental funding in smaller amounts that build on each other.  You may ask for $1000.00 in your first round to do research or build a homemade prototype. Then follow that up by showing the crowd what you achieved with the first round of funding and ask for $2500.00 next to apply for a patent and maybe even purchase some form of inventor education program or attend a tradeshow.

We mention this because after many many hours of coaching inventors, Cary Harwin and his team have an inventor project on FundaGeek that is well developed and on track. It's from an inventor named Anwar Farooq from Montclair California who has built a crowd funding program to support the development of his QuicknSilent Pencil Sharpener.

So if you have a moment check out what Anwar built to get the crowd to fund his project http://www.fundageek.com/project/detail/600/QuicknSilent-Pencil-Sharpener and if you have an extra buck laying around show your support for a fellow inventor by making a pledge.

Of course - If you have an invention you are trying to get funding for check out www.fundageek.com/inventors and take the time to build a solid program like Anwar did - who knows you could find the money you have been looking for all along.

Market Launchers Interview with Mark Reyland of the United Inventors Association

I am a big fan of Market Launchers and receive their newsletter, and I'm a huge fan of the United Inventor Association (UIA) since it's the forum our network follows and complies with as the go to resource for inventors.  I loved Paul Niemann's interview with Mark Reyland, who is the Executive Director of the non-profit United Inventors Association. Paul so generously gave me permission to share the interview with all of you.  I encourage you to visit their websites on a regular basis to retrieve important information pertaining to the inventor industry.  

PAUL: Hi Mark. Can I have an update on the UIA’s efforts to help inventors?  

MARK: Sure, the UIA was started in 26 years ago, and the USPTO funded it for the first 10 years. Carol Oldenburg was the constant force behind the UIA for 10 years until around 2008.

Warren Tuttle, who runs Monashee Marketing -- http://www.monasheemarketing.com -- and is President of the UIA, deserves so much credit for keeping it going through the tough times of a few years ago.  

    

PAUL: How many inventors belong to the UIA, and what is the cost these days to join?

MARK: There in 12,000 members, and the UIA provides everything for free except for the cost to exhibit at trade shows. This includes the Daily Inventor blog, the Inventor Education forum at www.theuiaforum.org (which is an interactive forum that has hundreds of Q and A’s), plus two very active LinkedIn groups, plus Facebook and Twitter, and the UIAUSA.org’s Resource Room, GotInventionRadio, and more.   

Now, these shows want to get involved with the UIA: CHITAG, Toy Fair, CES, a specialty foods association, and others.  

  

PAUL: How many inventor groups does the UIA have?  

  

MARK: There are 86 registered inventor clubs across America. We produce speakers for their Speakers Programs, we’ve had Skype Across America since 2011, and we provide a Skype kit for the groups.

PAUL: What are some inventor success stories?

MARK: The Minnesota Inventors Congress is in its 55th year and is the oldest of its kind in the US. They advised last year’s winner about his commercialization options. They provided the opportunity through one of their corporate members, Kenny Durham of Innovators Warehouse, to license it to John Deere.

The UIA also helped an inventor mom with tons of advice to get her kitchen colander into mass retails. There are easily dozens of these types of inventor success stories like this, that we don’t even hear about.

Inventing is often driven by emotion, and education is the antidote to emotion. The UIA has a three-fold mission:   

1.         To create no-cost educational programs to inventors, teaching about inventing and commercialization.

2.         To provide opportunity to their inventors, through trade show programs and mentors. One third of my day is devoted to brokering these relationships.

3.         Work with the PTO and congress to enact legislation that is favorable to the independent inventors.

In 2012 the UIA came up with several goals, including making sure that everything was free (such as seminars). And just to give you an idea of the UIA’s reach and clout in the business community, the UIA was approached by QVC, and this led to the creation of the SCOUTS program. This program introduces inventors to the buyers at QVC. One of the UIA Board members, Scott Hynd, is an on-air talent at QVC who specializes in getting inventors' products into QVC. Now they work very closely with the VP of QVC. They chose 24 out of the 37 products they reviewed at the Housewares Show.

Now the UIA is working on a follow-up program with QVC. Now Alibaba.com is interested in creating a program with the UIA to teach inventors the process of sourcing factories for inventors.

PAUL: Can you tell me about the “Fund-A-Geek” program that the UIA is partnering with?

MARK: In crowd funding, for example, you go in and you say “I need $10,000.” When seeking venture capital funding, you say, “I need $50,000” and they may give you $10,000 and ask you to prove yourself. In the “Fund-A-Geek” program, you approach a crowd of donors (as opposed to funders) for a certain amount of money, then you prove yourself throughout the various stages of inventing and commercialization. This is not a loan but rather a donation, from people who want to see you succeed.

For example, you can go to www.FundAGeek.com and say that you want to raise $1,000 in the next 30 days. Then you promote it to your people. One way is to use Facebook and other social media for this, and you must build momentum to increase your amount of support. More than 100 inventors signed up on the very first day. You can more info at  www.FundAGeek.com       

  

In addition, the UIA is working on creating a professional certification for inventors with Auburn University. This will help ease the way into companies who inventors pitch their products to.

How does an inventor become a member of the UIA?

Go to  www.uiausa.org and click on the big FREE banner to sign up. You will get your own user name and password. 

Visit Market Launchers at www.marketlaunchers.com/