T.V. is all agog over Inventors

There's a series on the USA channel, Made in the USA , there will be one coming to a PBS station near you, and next year ABC will have it's own reality show based around inventors and their inventions. You may find yourself and your invention on T.V. in front of millions of potential users of your invention.

Here's the question, is it a good thing to put yourself and your invention on the air?

I took a look at the fine print on the application for American Inventor. If you are the "winner" of that show what you win is an advance on future royalties of your invention. You get to keep all of one million dollars that your invention generates... anything above and beyond that one million dollars apparently goes tot he producers of the reality show because one of the things that winning wins you is the transfer of ownership of your invention from yourself to the producers of the show. In other words the producers pay you your prize out of your own royalties, keeping everything beyond that one million to themselves. No mention what happens if someone drops the ball and your invention never gets around to generating one million dollars in royalties, I guess you could end up having to pay back the deficit.

But that is a bit luckier than being one of the nine finalists… they get nothing and the producers holds a option to license their inventions for the period of one year.

I am currently trying to figure out if I really want to submit my latest invention to this contest... if I win, I may end up a bigger loser.

Mousetraps Club

This is a blog for those that are out to build that "better mousetrap". If you're an inventor and you're looking for other inventors to give you support, and also offer up support to other this is the place for you. That's it, plain and simple. We'll help each other, we'll share tears and laughter (mostly laughter, I'm hoping).