Tips for Writing an Invention Proposal

Are you working on an idea that you believe may not be taken yet? Or perhaps you are looking to team up with another company using one of your already existing inventions. Sooner or later, you may have to write a proposal to take things further with your invention.

Patent writing is an important skill for engineers or aspiring inventors as you may need to convince someone of authority to approve of your projects. This article will go some of the primary aspects to keep in mind when drafting a proposal.

A Strong Start

While it’s a sad reality, there are so many functionaries that will be swayed more by a strong introduction than content in its entirety. This is why having an excellent introduction that sells yourself is important to get powerful people to make decisions. This could include looking for invention funding to collaborating with a company.

You will usually want to include a cover letter, or some sort of separate introduction page when sending out a company or governmental documents. This page is your opportunity to give a concise introduction to who you are, the point of your proposal, contact information, and perhaps a call to action that would want them to continue into the document.

An introduction can also include a short description of your invention. You may include how you came up with the invention, and it’s viability to be reproduced.

Note: If your proposal is highly complex, a table of contents may be aesthetically pleasing for the reader.

Needs & Benefits

The next section of your paper should go over the needs of your project, and the benefits of it for the reader. Be sure to include the requirements your project needs, and any issues that could be found along the way.

As for coming up with benefits, you should put yourself in the shoes of the company. They would want to see how your product would benefit the function of their company and/or how it can turn a profit.

Visual Evidence

At some point in the proposal, you will want clear visual evidence that the product exists in some form. This would simply be appeased by photographs, or if you are sending a digital proposal, videos would be even better.

If your invention is more abstract or something that would be a tangible object, diagrams, blueprints, or something to explain the concept will fill that void.

More likely than not, text unaccompanied by visual aids are less likely to sell the reader into trusting your project. At the very least, convincing illustrations would be better than nothing when you don’t have a prototype on-hand.

For Licensing

If your proposal is about licensing your already patented technology, you need to get the terms of your licensing out of the way and make sure it isn’t too stifling for the other party. When necessary, include sections like non-disclosure agreements, limitations, intellectual property, or any procedures.

Once everything about licensing, it would help to have an expert look over your work, and especially review parts regarding intellectual property.

Credentials

At the end of the paper, it would help to include information about yourself, where you studied, and basically why the reader should trust everything that they had read. Be sure to include relevant job experience and certifications to let them know that you didn’t just pull this invention out of a hat.

After having your first draft complete, you should consider touching up visual improvement to make your proposal stand out from the rest. You may want to include fancy border, company logos (if applicable), and breaking down sections with bolded font, sub-headers and bullet points to aid the reader along the more monotonous sections.