A Journey in Patenting
By: Carole Long
As typical young adults do, I travelled to Central America to explore as much as possible in 3 months. I had no travel plans other than the suggestions from the large Central America Lonely Planet book I packed. Honduras was earmarked because of their scuba diving. I travelled to Utila, learnt to scuba dive and fell in love with it. I ended up staying a couple of extra weeks in Honduras to complete the advance diver course. The diving conditions were not what the locals were accustomed to, due to hurricane Mitch, the water temperature was cooler. Everyone was wearing wetsuits; demand was high and supply was low. Daily I would pick through the rental suits and find at least 2 suits to cover myself from my ankles to my wrists. Being cold in general is something I avoid; being cold while diving is a reason for me to end my dive. The rental wetsuits were bulky and loose-fitting and interfered with the enjoyment of my dives. I hated the restrictive feeling the bulky wetsuit gave me. The freedom you feel scuba diving is one of the reasons why I love it. The rental suits were ruining my dives, I decided I would buy my own wetsuit. I set out to buy a wetsuit on an island famous for its dive spots. There were a lot of selections and I tried on many wetsuits. None of the wetsuits fit all the ways I wanted to use them. I wanted to be able to take the wetsuit back to Thunder Bay and use it during multiple different water sports as well as take the wetsuit with me on future dive vacations.
“There has to be a better way”. As soon as I got back to Thunder Bay, I started doing research. I searched using google, patent search engines, read blogs and dive magazines all to see if there was there a wetsuit with detachable arms and legs. When I was satisfied, that there is no detachable wetsuit, I begin the journey of patenting. I read all related patents, including patents that weren’t wetsuit-related. I read articles about parenting, about wetsuit manufacturing, about wetsuit material, statistics of wetsuit wearers, who sells wetsuits and anything else I could find relating to wetsuits. I read for about 3 months, for hours each day. I would have two documents open as I read. One document was for the design of the wetsuit and the other was for information to support the reason for the wetsuit. The research rabbit hole is a real thing. I needed to be focused on what I was looking for and what information I needed, otherwise I’d read for hours and have nothing to show for it. Once I felt I had enough supporting research, I contacted Ade&Company. Ryan Dupuis was my patent agent, and he went over all the logistics of filing a patent. He helped strategies my patent process. We had agreed it would be best to file a provisional patent, meaning it gave me about a year to finalize my design. Ryan had advised me to research all the potential variations, this way it would better protect my patent. Over the course of about a year. I research more to refine my point of difference and to seek out potential buyers. Ryan helped me fill out the patent forms and file my patent. I had a couple of claims against my patent that Ryan’s agency took care of.
I had sent out marketing packages that included a CD Rom and a flysheet and had two interested parties. One of the interested parties had invited me to their design headquarters in California. In the design studio, I learnt pattern design as I had not yet made a prototype. Now, at that time in my life, I had purchased a franchise and it had consumed all of my resources. The wetsuit was at a point where the next steps would be to make a prototype and start selling the wetsuit. From my experience, most companies will not licence or buy your design without proof of concept, without seeing sales. I knew it wouldn’t be good for the franchise if I tried to run both businesses at the same time. I tried to sell only the design, but it was clear that companies aren’t willing to invest in an idea without proof of concept. However, I ended up making an agreement with a wetsuit company, that they could do further R&D and that they would only pay me if they made sales. As a patent owner, it was up to me to police my patent. Monthly I would search the Internet for a wetsuit with detachable arms and legs. During one of my searches, I was astonished to see my wetsuit design on the website of one of the companies I sent my marketing package to. In a panic, I called the Innovation Centre to see if they could help me in any way. They connected me with a local lawyer that ended up sitting with me, during a conference call to the wetsuit company. They pulled my wetsuit design off their website within hours of the conference call. It’s now been over 20 years and my patent is now public. There were never any sales of the wetsuit as the company never made the wetsuit public. However, I believe that if I didn’t have the franchise, I would have been able to get the wetsuit off of the ground. It’s not enough to have a patent, you need to prove that the market wants it.