Individual (Independent Inventor)Invents Drive Concept

Select Path

Begin to Develop theConcept

Determine Uniquenessof the Design

Recreational Marine Drive Commercialization Path Chartfor Independent Inventors with Drive ConceptsSomewhat Similar to Outboards & Stern Drives

(NOT for shaft driven surface drives or water jet drives)

Self Fund Design,Manufacturing and

MarketingLicense the Invention Joint Venture /

Strategic PartnerGive Idea to a Specific

CompanyDrop the Idea, Stop All

Work on the Project

This choice willtypically require a

minimum investmentof several hundredthousand to a few

million dollars toestablish sales of just

a few units, andtotal devotion of

several years of theinventors life.

Inventor must bewilling to expendenergy and funds(typically over onehundred thousand

dollars) to "prove" theinvention, secure

intellectual propertyprotection and obtain

high qualitypresentation

materials. They mustalso be willing to giveup control and accept

a REASONABLEroyalty.

Inventor must have ablend of a gooddesign, personalinvestment in theproject, expertise,

business sense andexpectations worthyto attract a partner

and be willing toshare decision

making and profitswith them.

Inventor must bewilling to give up the

idea for free and it stillstands a strong

possibility of neverbeing produced. If thedrive is not patented,it may be difficult to

even get them to lookat it.

STOP

byPolson Enterpriseswww.virtualpet.com

(800) 443-6543

The Boating IndustryInformation Company

Give Idea to the World

It still stands a strongpossibility of never

being produced. Youmay need to prove it

is unique (get apatent) and does notinfringe on others.Companies may be

reluctant to buildsomething theycannot protect.

It may takeconsiderable effort to

make the worldaware of it.

It is very hard for somepeople to give up and

move on.

November 2005

Give Idea to a Relativeor Friend

Go PublicCreate a Publicly Traded

Company

You must still be listedas inventor on

patents. Your friendor relative may not be

successful incommercializing the

drive.

You need to makesure you are no

longer liable for anydebts or injuries

associated with thedrive.

Some loosely formedgroups look for new

technologies toacquire and go public,often on the London

Alternative StockExchange. The

Pursuit Drive is anexample. Most of their

projects involvepretty radical

technology leaps.

A thorough search of U.S. and international patents, trade literature, historical archives and othersources will typically find over half the new drive concepts proposed have already been proposed byothers. Several of the remaining concepts will be found to be so close to drives already proposed byothers, they offer little incentive for a manufacturer to license their idea over the existing ones, and littleprevents manufacturers from creating their own variant of the concept from ideas already in theliterature. The faster you determine the level of uniqueness of your drive, the faster you can confidentlyadvance or eliminate your idea.

Many inventors select one path, try it for a while, then try another, or pursue several at once. The purposeof this chart is to point out their are a limited number of paths and each path has its own difficulties.

Finance with AngelInvestors & Venture

CapitalistsFinance with

Government Grants

Angel Investors,Venture Capitalistsand Venture Capital

Funds require strongmanagement teams,want some control,and a solid strategyto large returns on

their investment in ahurry - These

situations are rarelypresent in newmarine drives

inventions.

SBIR and STTR andother government

grants might be usedto develop some

technologies in theirinfancy, but probablynot to develop a driveto a licensable state.

This is a very basic chart showing only a few of the thousands of steps involved. Together with its associated paper, Marketing New Marine Drive Concepts Similar to Outboards and Stern Drives: aDifficult Path for Independent Inventors and Small Companies , its purpose is to show the difficulties associated with bringing a new drive to market and especially those associated with trying to license amarine drive. We hope this analysis will cause Independent Inventors to consider the difficulties ahead before investing thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in a project that may have no future.It is certainly possible to successfully license a marine drive, but among drives similar outboards and stern drives, the only successful license by an Independent Inventor we are aware of is the original sterndrive licensed to Volvo back in 1958, and most insiders think that drive was not actually invented by an "independent" inventor. For those wishing to proceed, we (Polson Enterprises) provide a wide range ofmarket, technical, and patent research services to support the development of new marine drives of all types.

Copyright 2005by Polson Enterprises

all rights reserved

C

This chart, and the accompanyingpaper, focus on drive conceptssomewhat similar to outboards andstern drives, and especially thosetargeting the mainstream marketbetween 40 and 300 horsepower.

Many other scenarios are possible forsmaller drives and for drives targetinglow volume, specific niches.