Solving a Problem

When Craig's son was batting below average in little league, Craig felt that much of the problem was because his son was taking his eye off the ball and not watching it make contact with the bat. To solve this problem Craig modified an existing helmet to take away his peripheral vision. This would force his son to watch the ball make contact with the bat. Within a few months his son's batting average doubled from .200 to .400. Craig knew he had a winner. Shortly thereafter our team assisted Craig with a patent search and then filing a utility patent application on his invention.

Industrial Design

After his patent application was filed Craig began to introduce his innovation to major companies in hopes of finding a company to partner with him to manufacture and market his product. Unfortunately, having only a crude prototype it was difficult to generate strong interest in his invention. After a year of effort Craig felt that having a high quality prototype would help. At this point I began working with Craig to design his product so that a high quality prototype could be built and tested.

Cost Reduction

During the industrial design process we performed basic costing and sourcing exercises. It was determined that tooling costs for a one piece helmet would be cost prohibitive. It was then that the idea of modular / retrofit version was born.

Design Refinement & Prototyping

The challenge now was to create a new version of Craig's training aid that could be quickly and secure to an existing helmet, had strong consumer appeal and could be produced cost effectively. After months of work a new design emerged that required no tools nor hardware to helmet attach. It also fit snugly using a custom designed three point external locking system using the helmet's visor and ear and screw holes. This new design was completely theoretical and had never been tested prior to the first prototype being made. When Craig received the first prototype of his helmet it was near perfect and exceeded everyone's expectations. We nailed it.

Generating Interest & Investment

Using his high quality prototype Craig secured over $10,000 in pre production order. Enough in fact to cover the costs for tooling. The first production samples were perfect. Within a week of receiving the first production samples it was presented to the brass at one of the world leaders in baseball in a face to face meeting. They loved it! Now we are working on a final commercial version of his new product in hopes of securing a joint venture with this corporation.

Building an IP Portfolio

Once Craig received his prototype of his new modular version he truly felt he had a winner. At this point our legal team members assisted Craig in preparing and filing a new patent application on his new modular version as well as additional design patents on the ornamental appearance of his product by itself and also in conjunction with several of the most popular helmets on the market today. Once the final design being developed is completed, additional protection will be filed as well.