Ten inventors enter with a bit of cash.
You invite ten inventors to stay at a local hotel for the weekend. (Actually ask 100s inventors until 10 agree to come) Ask the 10 to bring a patentable idea and cash that covers the hotel bill and one tenth of the fee required to apply for a patent. Lawyer provides some documents everyone signs to cover the situation. One bit involves a small interest the financial outcome of the winning idea.
Friday night / Saturday morning each inventor pitches his idea to the group. Then lunch with alcohol. At 1.00 pm every inventor votes a priority list for the ten ideas. 10 votes for first, 9 votes for 2nd ... down to 1 vote for 10th. (of course each votes 10 for his own idea, and the 9 and 8 to his friends, but at some point he starts voting for the best (most likely to win financially)) The top vote getter wins the application fee. And the top three vote getter s are the subject to a group effort for remainder of Saturday and Sunday to write draft applications, lists of claims, and sketches of illustrations. And some time telling lies and showing "baby" pictures.
One inventor leaves with a quality application and the cash to apply for a patent. Two other inventors also leave with quality applications. A good time had by all.
Even the inventor with only 25 votes, learned something.-- popbottle, Jun 10 2014 I'll code the site if you'll pay for hosting-- Voice, Jun 10 2014 It would seem that ideas are pretty cheap, looking around here. It seems that way to me. But maybe I am like someone who frequents a fetish site and gets a skewed vision of what is normal. (_like_ that person, I said. Similar to.)
How much are new ideas really worth? To what degree is idea poverty a limiting factor for endeavors that better the human race and produce prodigious profits?-- bungston, Jun 10 2014 Good questions, bungston. I have wondered the same (for example, my HB post 'late inventions').
I'm not sure to what degree idea poverty is a limiting factor. I can think of very few examples where it was only the naked invention idea (that was then developed by someone else) which created huge value. The narrative that we tend to hear is a good (but not particularly original idea) that is executed very well (e.g. Elon Musk and the electric car).
It is the original ideas in science (rather than in technology) which seem to create value.
Having said that, I still cling to the hope that the occassional armchair inventor (such as myself) could come up with valuable ideas; that there are 'low hanging fruit' just waiting to be spotted by an observant (but not particularly well resourced) individual.
Indeed, this is one of my motivations for posting here -- to see if any of my ideas are good enough (and unique enough to be identifiable as *my* idea) that someone else eventually develops (and profits from) the idea. I don't have any definitive 'hits' in this regard, but I am eternally optimistic. I am always impressed when any idea from HB gets cited in a patent application.-- xaviergisz, Jun 10 2014 So you get 10 idiots who have no idea what constitutes an invention into a hotel with a lawyer, and tell the idiots that somebody's going to make money.
Well, you haven't lied to them, even though all 10 will be disappointed.-- lurch, Jun 11 2014 How about we each chip in $10, print off this entire Web Site, and file it.-- the porpoise, Jun 11 2014 Breathe, [bigsleep].-- pertinax, Jun 11 2014 In 2014 if an inventor needs money to develop their dubious idea they can always get it from Kickstarter.-- DIYMatt, Jun 11 2014 Do you really think that any good un-patented original invention with far-reaching applications would make it through the Kickstarter process without being stolen by a person or company with no need of group funding?-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 11 2014 random, halfbakery