The Inventor's Desk Top Companion [Paperback]

Richard C. Levy (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 470 pages
• Publisher: Cengage Gale; 1st edition (January 31, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810379430
• ISBN-13: 978-0810379435
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,033,374 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a must read for aspiring inventors!, July 15, 1998

By 

Laura L. Windsor "Just the Facts" (Prairie Village, KS) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Inventor's Desktop Companion: The Guide to Successfully Marketing and Protecting Your Ideas (Paperback)

This is one of the best books on the entire patent process in the U.S. Levy, an experienced inventor himself, gives great tips on what to avoid, common pitfalls, and GREAT advice for the novice as well as experienced entrepreneurs/inventors. I'm a professional who has done patent searching for years. All the questions I get from people are all answered thoroughly by Levy's work. Great job!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than his other book, he is stuck in toys., November 14, 1999

By 

R. Bolton "Read A Lot" (Orange, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Inventor's Desktop Companion: The Guide to Successfully Marketing and Protecting Your Ideas (Paperback)

I liked this book. Has good intructions and resources generally, plus the usual fluff of forms and inventors councils. His product report is worth reading as his other books. Perhaps best from the library, but a good book to buy for reference. For a good way on what to invent, I would choose Mosley's "Marketing your invention" and for processes to avoid failure bringing ot market Robert G. Cooper's "Winning at new products" Levy has had one big winner, the game Adverteasing, but is a good author overall. His advice should be taken into account with other invention books for an overall picture.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good contact resources - becoming dated, November 14, 2001

By 

Stephen Funk - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Inventor's Desktop Companion: The Guide to Successfully Marketing and Protecting Your Ideas (Paperback)

This book is titled as a "Companion" and it lives up to that name. It is a collection of wide ranging topics related to inventing and marketing an invention. He covers a lot about the patent and copyright processes and then covers how to market your invention with a short chapter on how to get a prototype made.
A large part of the books 400+ pages are forms examples and lists of helpful organizations listed by state. The resource lists are for everything from Inventors Organizations to patent search Internet sites and University Innovation Centers. Going through the list can help with ideas on how to get help solving a problem.
This book is copyrighted in 1995 so at least some of the patent search and application data is out of date. There has been one major change in the patent laws since then, several changes in the fee schedule presented, and large changes in the Internet patent search addresses. I have not read Levy's new "Compete Idiot's Guide...." but I suspect that it is an update of this book.