To help you better understand the PatentCafe® Invention Evaluation System Professional Edition, we've assembled these answers to the most frequently asked questions from inventors and small business owners:

• What is so special about the PatentCafe® Invention Evaluation
• How does the PatentCafe® Invention Evaluation compare with other invention assessment and evaluation services?
  
• How long does it take to complete the assessment?
• Why did you establish a 50 day evaluation period?
• Can I use your program for my commercial evaluation services?
• Can this evaluation guarantee that I'll profit from my invention?
• How will this evaluation help my invention / product succeed?
• Do I need to have my patent before evaluating my invention?
• Can I complete the invention evaluation myself?
• Is your online evaluation program secure?

• OUR APPROACH: Evaluation services "do your report for you". In reality, you learn nothing about the evaluation process. PatentCafe's report teaches you the vital evaluation points, what they mean, and how they effect your invention or product success probability. Once you or your manager learns the process, the improved evaluation skills can be applied to every future invention or product developed or brought to market!
  
  
• PRICE: The PatentCafe® Invention Evaluation System Professional Edition is not only more powerful and more feature packed than our industry-leading Invention Assessment software, you now get this superior evaluation system for twenty dollars LESS!
  
  
• TECHNOLOGY: Our exclusive System and Method for Adaptive Relational Testing (SMART™) is a proprietary technology that actually changes your evaluation to adapt to your individual invention or product. It customizes the questions and calculations along the way as you begin entering your answers. PatentCafe developed its SMART system more than 6 years ago, and has been refining and updating it ever since. It's still the leader.

Inventors and business managers skilled in the various areas that the evaluation covers can complete this evaluation in about 4-5 hours. But, if you need to take time for market or technology research, you can take as long as you need - up to a full 50 days (over 1-1/2 months) for each assessment. You can go at your own pace - take breaks whenever you want, do a little research, then come back later to continue from where you left off. Our evaluation program is designed to fit around your busy schedule.

We find that most inventors and managers want their answers much faster than 50 days, and complete the evaluation in just a couple of weeks so they can begin the evaluation results to their invention. But, there are good reasons for the time limits:

First: since our evaluation is adaptive (it uses our SMART™ technology), it's important to take a "snapshot" of your invention status within a narrow point in time. Evaluating part of your invention or product now, and part in 3-4 months would be like evaluating two completely different inventions -- too many conditions will have changed as your invention develops. Completing your evaluation smartly (within 1-1/2 months) will provide a much more accurate and realistic final report.

Also, to keep costs down, PatentCafe provides private, dedicated working space for your assessment on our servers for the full 50 days. If we need to keep all of the evaluations on our servers indefinitely, our very low costs would need to be increased in order to cover the cost of additional server storage - and we're committed to providing everyone access to the lowest cost, full featured evaluation program available.

Sorry. We've made this evaluation program easy to use for small business managers, inventors and innovators. We've done our best to keep costs down to make it available to everyone - so it's not a program commercial service providers can use to increase their profits.

Reselling reports or any of the information generated by PatentCafe's Invention Evaluation program and SMART™ technology to others would constitute a commercial use of this service - a violation of the copyright agreement and terms of service.

This Evaluation Program is only to be used by the purchaser of the service to evaluate his / her own innovations or the innovations of their employer.

Practically speaking, if we could make that guarantee (and we can't), we could charge thousands - or $10s of thousands - for such an evaluation.

Unfortunately, no invention or product evaluation program, and no legal or business professional can ever guarantee success - although they can point out areas that should be improved upon and refined. Innovation is a business, and like every business, there are factors that nobody can control.

Also, as with any business, there're too many uncontrollable factors that influence financial success - there is always a risk of success or failure. This invention and product evaluation is intended to help you identify and continually reduce the risks that can lead to commercial failure.

The PatentCafe Invention Evaluation will help you quickly identify weaknesses and strengths related to your innovation - whether it's an innovation in the formative stages, or if you've been marketing and selling the product for years.

It will teach you why these are important to the "success formula", and provide some tips on how to improve them. Innovation is a continual improvement process, not a single event. Therefore, refinement and improvement should continue forever - and each time you run the evaluation, you will identify more areas of improvement.

No. Patents are expensive, and one of the best methods to determine how strong, successful or valuable your patent or product might be is to complete your invention evaluation BEFORE you file your patent application. As we show in the sample evaluation report, an early evaluation could save you thousands in ill-spent patent, prototyping and engineering fees! In fact, if you decide to proceed with a patent after completing this invention evaluation, you can use our patenting software to prepare your patent application - saving even more attorney fees.

Yes, you (or your business development staff) can. Our experience has shown us that all inventors, engineers and business professionals have a certain set of skills. Since the evaluation includes questions related to product design, marketing, finance, manufacturing and patents, many different skills are required. Each section includes a printable question and answer sheet so you can meet with your helpers without needing an Internet connection. Circle the answers with a pen, then enter them online later. Easy - convenient.

If you need help answering any of the evaluation points, you can obtain free or very low cost confidential assistance from professionals at your local government SBDC, a PTDL, from a SCORE counselor, or from friends you know who are strong in your weakest evaluation areas.

Be sure to use appropriate confidential disclosure forms when sharing your invention with friends and helpers.

Of course! PatentCafe uses the industry-standard secure socket layer (SSL) encryption technology, and our servers are secured by Entrust™.

Your personal workspace is 100% password protected - available only to you (or whomever you share your password with). And remember - your invention details NEVER get put on our servers - not even for a minute!

Our shopping cart is similarly secured - so you can signup with safety and confidence - right here.

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