Is the US a good place for inventors?How do inventors generally make money here?

6 comments

1. Honestly I can’t remember the last time I heard of something being invented elsewhere

2. The United States has strong intellectual property laws and American juries love inventors. Intellectual property rights are written into the U.S. Constitution. Innovators are well rewarded here.

   That said, it does take money to hire a good intellectual property lawyer, and even more money to turn an innovative product into a thriving business. Also, be wary of scam artists who prey on would-be inventors.

3. We tend to use the term R&D (research and development) rather than “inventing” whatever, and most R&D is done by teams of experts, often groups of scientists and engineers, many with PhDs in their field. Case in point, Moderna in Cambridge MA, which “invents” using RNA in cancer treatments, but is now more widely known for “inventing” Covid-19 vaccines, using the same underlying RNA technology.

   So if you earn a PhD in the US, especially in a niche that is directly applicable to industrial R&D, then you could count on getting a job that pays fairly well.

4. Inventors usually file design patent claims through the US Patent Office, which grants the sole right to produce and sell inventions for a set period of time (usually 15 years). You can then either make money by building a company to sell your patented item directly, selling the patent to an established company, or leasing the patent to an established company.

5. I don’t want to maybe dash your dream but “inventor” isn’t really a job. People creating new products are often engineers, scientists, or possibly industrial designers. They are employed by a company, almost always working with others.

6. I sware we had this exact same question before. Like Thai is oddly specific