Hi Lisa, do you mind elaborating on following comment you provided under "Education" section,

You don’t need to make a full blown prototype in the early stages and in some cases not at all. Often, if you are going to license, all you need to do is properly communicate what exactly the idea is and the company you are licensing to will pick it up from there if they like it.

Did you already have a patent on your product when the company picked it up? If yes, was it a provisional patent? Did you set up an appointment to meet with the company you wanted to license to to communicate your idea? And what did you instead of a prototype use to communicate your idea (pictures, text...)?

Thanks so much for your assistance!

I am not sure how you want me to elaborate. Please clarify your question and I would be happy to answer.

Did you already have a patent on your product when the company picked it up?
-No, in all of my licenses, I was patent pending. It depends on the industry and companies what stage they require you to be in when they will license.

Did you set up an appointment to meet with the company you wanted to license to to communicate your idea?
- No, most of them I did by phone, fax and email. I did do one major license at a trade show I attended to solicit the license.

And what did you instead of a prototype use to communicate your idea (pictures, text...)?
- In all but one I was able to make working models from simple household items. I used a toilet paper roll to make Soft Claws, plastic rods from Ace Hardware shaped into a Bobby Stick for Scunci, etc. The Sprayer had a non-working model and then really good sketches from a design engineer to show what it could look like. They were assured that we could make it do what we were promising by leveraging the success of all the other CO2 products that my mfg. made.

Happy Inventing!

Lisa

Your response to those specific questions is the elaboration that I was looking for. Sorry I didn't make myself clear. Thanks for your response...most helpful!