Della Williams, Patent Research Manager at Innovate Design, recently took part in the South Wilts Grammar School for Girls Industry Days programme. On Wednesday 5^th June, five Year 9 students came to Innovate Design in Salisbury where they were given a tour of the design studios and found out about the different services Innovate offer. The students were provided with a brief to design a trendy shopping trolley that can be collapsed and is convenient to carry for a younger market.

On Friday 7^th June, Della attended South Wilts school where the students presented their solution to the design brief and explained their thought processes behind it.  Della remarked on the high standard of the presentation, “The girls embraced the project extremely enthusiastically and asked some very probing questions during the design brief stage regarding pricing points and manufacture, which inevitably led to a very well thought out concept and solution. I was extremely impressed by the amount of effort and thought the students put into this project and commend them on their professional presentation which was the best I have seen for the past few years.”

Innovate Design would like to wish the students all the best of luck for their future studies and thank South Wilts Grammar School for Girls for inviting them to participate in the Industry days once more.

Pictured: Della Williams from Innovate Design, Matilda, Lucy, Hannah, Alexia and Grace from South Wilts Grammar School for Girls.

We thought that we would share with you some of our client’s products that would be great to have for the summer!

Gigwam

Gigwam is a brand new tent system for all types of festivals and outdoor events. A unique feature of the Gigwam is the tunnel that can be used to connect to other Gigwams, allowing groups of friends to create small communities.

BoginaBag

BoginaBag is a unique portable toilet that is extremely light weight, portable and very robust. It provides the owner with a solution to that age old question of needing to go and having nowhere to go! It folds out as a seat in all places, but when nature calls you then remove the cover insert one of the specially designed degradable bags, relax and relieve yourself.

Sunny Mates

Sunnymates® Beach Towel Clips, are the ideal solution developed to keep your towel on your sun lounger, on the beach, by the pool, or on board your cruise liner. They also allow bathers to leave their personal belongings safely under the towel while they go for a little dip.

Baggee

Sunbreeze

Sunbreeze is a simple to fit attachment, both a safety device and an attractive awning which prevents patio doors from shutting unexpectedly and causing injuries. The unique and adjustable clamping system is designed to fit all sizes of French or Double Doors.

Recently, Innovate Product Design were pleased to return to Bournemouth and Poole College, for the fourth year, where their FDA Foundation Degree Business and Management students were set the task of delivering a product presentation to pitch to potential investors in the style of ‘Dragon’s Den’.

The students pitched a variety of products to Della Williams, Innovate’s Patent Research Manager, with consideration taken as to potential market size, component cost and suitable routes to market.  The presentations covered a diverse range of concepts, ranging from swimming accessories to concepts for new app and website businesses.

The variety of innovations presented showed that entrepreneurship is alive and kicking in the UK and the creative thinking shown by the individuals impressed Della: “It was fantastic to hear such innovative ideas from the students who had thoroughly researched their markets, competitive products and explored marketing routes for these.”

Innovate’s experience in helping individuals to take their products to market put them in an ideal position to be able to assess the quality of their presentations and also to pose the sorts of questions that they may be asked were the students ever to present to a real panel of potential investors.

The students coped admirably under pressure and Della was so impressed by a few of the presentations that she has recommended that they speak to Innovate to look at further developing their idea. In terms of general advice to offer the students, Della had this to say: “It is really worth practising your pitch in front of a full length mirror to iron out any nervous movements and body language and when presenting an idea to potential investors, it is really important to show your passion for the idea.”

Innovate would like to offer their thanks to Mike Plummer and the students of Bournemouth and Poole College (www.bpc.ac.uk) for their warm welcome and variety of fascinating presentations.

Innovate (www.innovate-design.co.uk) is always keen to hear from inventors of all ages. With over 10 years of expertise in helping inventors take their ideas to market, Innovate are uniquely positioned and are always happy to offer their thoughts and expertise on a new idea.

Recently, Innovate client ‘Putta Pal’ featured on Golf Today’s website.

Animations can be found throughout the Internet. The vast array of websites published poses a significant challenge on users’ limited attention resources.

In more recent times, various kinds of animation are widely used on websites in order to attract online users’ attention. The growing use of animation in Web pages testifies to the increasing ease with which such multimedia features can be created.

The increased use of multimedia technology is changing the face of the Internet and Web-based media.

Animations are popular objects that users encounter frequently, if not all the time. They have been used for different purposes, from the display of information to the advertising of a business. Only recently IBM created an animation out of atoms (see it here). Some companies use animations simply to convey messages, believing they are more powerful than text within a limited area of display.

Recently, Innovate have experienced clients using this form of media on a much larger scale. Below are two examples that have recently been created by our clients.

The Story of Alago –     Visit Their Website

How Chop-Cloc Works –     Visit Their Website

It’s World Intellectual Property Day today and Innovate are celebrating the invaluable contributions made by innovators and creators across the globe.

What is Intellectual Property?

Intellectual property (IP) rights reward artists and inventors for their works and encourage them to keep producing the songs, films, products and devices that help make our lives safer, more comfortable and more fun. They come in the form of patents (for inventions), trademarks (for brands), registered designs (protect the look of a product), and copyright (for music, art, and literature).

The broadest of these protections is copyright. Copyrights are intended to protect “original works of authorship” that are in a tangible form. For a set length of time, these works cannot be copied or reproduced without the copyright-holder’s permission.

Copyrights do not protect the ideas put forth by a particular piece of art; they only protect the way in which those ideas are presented. In many countries, any original work of authorship is automatically copyrighted as soon as it is created.

Other sorts of intellectual-property protection are much narrower in scope. Trademarks protect designs and phrases that businesses use to distinguish their product from other companies’ products, and trade secrets protect proprietary information that must be kept secret in order for a business to profit (the recipe for Coca-cola, for example).

Of all of the forms of intellectual-property protection, patents are the most complex and tightly regulated. Patents are basically copyrights for inventions, defined by U.S. patent law as “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.” Unlike copyrights, patents protect functionality of the invention, rather than the tangible form of the invention itself. Consequently, patenting something is a much trickier procedure than copyrighting something.

When inventors come up with a new device, the first thing they should do is patent it. Patents are a government’s way of giving an inventor ownership of his or her creation. For a certain period of time, patent-holders are allowed to control how their inventions are used, allowing them to reap the financial rewards of their work, in the countries that they have applied for protection in. Patents are a palpable, legally-binding manifestation of a person’s genius and innovation; they allow a person to actually own an idea.

How can Innovate Design help?

We provide:

• Expert advice on Intellectual Property (IP) protection, including patenting
• Global patent searching to establish originality
• Cost effective professional product design
• Prototyping of your new product idea
• Help with Intellectual Property applications
• Product marketing advice and assistance

Benefits of using Innovate Design

• We have over 10 years experience in developing ideas
• We offer a review of your idea free of charge
• You retain 100% of the idea and therefore 100% of the profits
• All information shared is 100% confidential
• We have been acknowledged as an approved consultant provider by Business Link | London since 2002
• Our business and documentation is formulated to be compliant with BS 8538:2011 - what this means

In the March 2013 issue of Inventors Digest two of Innovate’s US clients were featured.

The ‘Pizza Fretta Fryer’

A kitchen product designed to help the everyday chef to cook individually sized Pizza Frettas (deep fried pizza dough).

Fitting in to a frying pan, users can personalise their fretta with different sauces and toppings. Supplied with three different bases it provides the opportunity to cook a wide range of foods, as well as providing the option of removing dividers to produce bigger portioned segments.

Boat Toilet Seat Holder

Boat Toilet Seat Holder is a holder for your toilet seat for use on boats or moving vehicles. The product prevents the toilet seat from closing unexpectedly whilst on the moving vehicle and can also be used to keep the toilet seat closed when not in use.

Using a velcro mechanism to achieve its function, it also has interchangeable covers for the user to personalise.

Congratulations to both of our clients in the U.S.A!

The team here were really excited to see our client Tony Curtis of Alago being interviewed on BBC Points West on the 11th April. Alago gloves use heated glove technology to keep the user’s hands warm whilst playing a variety of outdoor sports.

Tony is working with the University of the West of England to come up with a pair of gloves that will stay warm for up to six hours. Exciting stuff, well done to everyone at Alago! We are avid fans here at Innovate.

Watch clip here