There are many men so extraordinarily gifted that it is possible for them to succeed in diverse directions, even in those for which they have not been especially equipped by training. That is conspicuously true in invention.
Useful inventions have been invented, and fortunes made by the inventors who were not engineers so far as training was concerned, nor were they even machinists, yet their extraordinary gifts have out-balanced the disadvantage of the lack of training for mechanical creation; but they all had to enlist, more or less, the services of others to make up for their own deficiencies. No doubt there will be many more inventors from outside the ranks of mechanical engineers, and they will find the following suggestions useful.
Understand thoroughly what you have to accomplish, first of all. After conceiving your ideas of a mechanical contrivance to do it with, try and make some kind of a sketch of the whole and the part respectively.
[ CHAPTER 14
How to Make Sketches and Specifications]
The fact that you are not a draftsman or have even no idea of how drawings are made, need not deter you from making sketches that will be understood. A sketch or drawing is a representation more or less correct of the imaginary object in your brain. Drawings or sketches are the easiest kind of writing. They are picture writing, usually the first mode of writing employed by primitive people, and any man who has the intelligence to invent, no doubt has sufficient ability to make some kind of sketches with pencil on paper of the pictures he conceives in his brain.
In making your sketch, remember that nearly every object has many sides to it, and your sketch is to impart a conception of the shape and form of that object to somebody else who has no knowledge of it, and must necessarily get his ideas from your sketches as he cannot look inside of your brain; therefore make as many sketches of your object as there are sides to it, and mark them, front, side, back, top and bottom, and every separate piece, 1, 2, 3, etc.
Write up explanations or specifications of the same. You can learn how to do that by reading standard works on applied mechanics.
[ CHAPTER 15
The Necessity of Competent Engineering for Successful Invention]
Having done that much, now do not make a "bee line" for the Patent Office. Do not imagine that the goal of your ambition, or the end of your tribulations lies in the Patent Office, that the obtaining of some kind of a patent places an "Aladdin's Lamp" at your disposal. You have not got anything positive as yet to get a patent on—the fact is you only think you have something—but your judgment may not be the very best on the subject for your own good. Take your sketches and your specifications and consult a competent, reputable engineer, and he will tell you what are the prospects and probabilities of your invention. If your invention is a valuable one, engage his services to re-design it for you, and to make it practical. Don't think that because you are an inventor you are necessarily a "natural born engineer." They don't grow that way. But be wise enough "to know what you don't know," and to get the right services from the right man. After your engineer has incorporated your invented idea in a suitable body, try to get your protection in the Patent Office on the form in which you intend utilizing your idea. No patents are granted on ideas.