Licensing a design?

[sambo.]

greetings and salutations fellow blade lovers;

a mate of mine has come up with an awesome design for a small survival axe.

seriously, there is simply nothing on the market that comes close to this design that i can find. once it's released, i rekon a lot of people are going to want one.

it's very compact (~12" LOA), versatile, solid and not ridiculously heavy but you could knock over a big old rivergum (or redwood for you Americans) with one.

not only that, but you can also cut out nocks and grooves in timber to make a solid log cabin with it and use it as a prybar if you must.

i can't show you a picture, because my mate is keeping it under wraps while we work out any kinks and knock out a dozen or so prototypes. as you can imagine, working 5/8" spring steel with a file and sandpaper is a pretty slow process and old'mate can't afford all the whizbang gadgetry to speed the process up just yet.

anyways, what i'm wondering is: anyone got any idea how he'd go about licensing (or selling) the design to a manufacturer?

any ideas on which manufacturers he should contact first? i was thinking either Cold Steel (they seem to love esoteric stuff) or Busse (who seems to love seriously solid stuff) might be interested.

any and all suggestions welcome!

 

[somniloquist]

First, get a patent lawyer and patent the design before you approach anyone. Without a patent, it is going to be very difficult and costly to protect your intellectual property if (when?) someone decides to copy it. Be warned though, the patent process is slow (about 18 months in Canada, for simple applications) and costly (you're looking at around 5 figures, again in Canada).

If you decide to forgo the patent, you run the very real risk of someone taking the design. It is not a quick or cheap process, but if you are serious about protecting your design, that's about the only good way to do it.

 

[sambo.]

i figured a patent or copyright registration was going to be required.....
it's a painful process in Australia too.