Don Costar remembers two decades ago when the half dozen members of the Nevada Inventors Association would run garage sales to raise money to pay the postage for a newsletter produced on a typewriter.
These days, the Reno-based association's membership numbers more than 70, and its new president expects that membership will grow by at least 10 percent in the next year as the group focuses a bit more on the business of bringing an invention to market.
The group's monthly meetings often focus on protection of inventors' ideas before they're patented, says Andy Flagg, its president and the owner of Mountain Computers.
That presents something of a challenge for members who want to talk about their ideas, but fear losing them. Periodically, members of the group sign confidentiality agreements, lock themselves behind closed
doors and provide feedback to one another.
Members in the past have included inventors such as Jerry Lemelson of Incline Village, who received an average of one patent a month for 40 years, and John Kleppe, a retired University of Nevada, Reno, electrical engineering professor who is active in research, design and development.
But Costar says most members these days are more modest folks with one idea, generally low-tech, that they've devised. Often, they stick with the association for a couple of years, long enough either to get their idea to market or to become discouraged about their prospects.
Some successful inventors, or folks who are able to generate a steady stream of ideas, stick around as mentors to newcomers in the field.
"I view my job as explaining to neophytes about the scams that are out there and how to recognize them," says Costar. "There is no training for inventors."
He got his first patent on underwater gloves for use in gold panning and went on to win two more patents after writing and filing applications himself. That's a rarity in a field in which most inventors hire attorneys and other specialists to file applications.
Looking for a way to get his first idea to market, Costar came close to falling victim to a scam. And the first effort to launch an inventors network in the Reno area in the early 1980s fell victim to an organizer who disappeared with members' dues, leaving nothing behind.
Today, the Nevada Inventors Association's Web site, nevadainventors.org, is a storehouse of articles about the business of inventing and the political issues that face inventors.
And its meetings the fourth Saturday of each month at the Elks Lodge in Reno are structured to provide plenty of time for neophyte inventors to get tips from experienced developers of new products, says Flagg.
