My first patented product is called The NO Splatter Ring and I came up with the idea while micro-waving a bowl of spaghetti and sauce.  We all know what happens when food like this goes into the microwave uncovered – the microwave winds up a splattered mess.  So what do most of us do?  We rest a paper towel atop our meal and hope that it stays there for the duration of the cooking time.  In most cases, as the microwave turns the paper towel gets hung up on the walls of the microwave and within a short time your food is uncovered again.  This results in more messy microwaves.

So, someone thought they were smart and invented the plastic microwave food dome.  This would seem like a great idea – it covers the food while it cooks.  BUT once the cooking is complete, the inside of the dome is a splattered mess.  Now we wind up with TWO things to clean – the spaghetti dish and the microwave food dome.  The last thing anyone wants is more dishes to clean after a meal. 

This is where The NO Splatter Ring comes in.  This is a plastic, microwavable ring that clamps down on an ordinary paper towel.  Simply open the ring, place a paper towel inside and close.  Place the ring on top of your food and microwave.  The weight from the ring keeps the paper towel in place and your food stays covered for the entire cooking time.  Upon completion simply open the ring, remove the soiled paper towel and discard.  Simple, easy and there’s nothing extra to clean! 

This entire idea hit me while standing in front of the microwave.  I told my wife, my mother and my mother-in-law and they all thought it was something I should pursue.  I called a local plastic injection molding company and the guy basically said that it would be nearly impossible to pursue selling such a product by manufacturing it myself.  He recommended that I hired a CAD designer to design my product and then have a prototype made.  Then he said that I could try and sell my idea to a major product distributor.

 I followed his advice and had a CAD design made – I used a freelancer and it only cost me $160.  I then paid $700 to a company called Protogenic to create my plastic prototype.  Then I took the images of the product to a local patent attorney and got a provisional patent which protects me for up to one year while I try to sell the product.   The patent attorney had me write the product description in a manner that would cover the NO Splatter Ring on any variation of manufacturing.  In other words, when we filed the patent we used terms like “may be circular or other shaped” and “may hold paper towels, plastic wrap, wax paper or other retaining materials” and “may or may not have a clasp or hinge located on the product”.

Once these steps were complete, I filmed a video that show me using the product and explaining its benefits.  I posted this video on YouTube and I just submitted my video to four companies that specialize in those “As Seen On TV” commercials.  Since my product seems to have the feel of one of those “$19.99” products that you see on TV all the time – I though that was the best place to start.  I found four companies that I was able to submit my product to and many of these companies had a “product submission” page right on their website.  Here is a list of the “As Seen On TV” companies that I submitted The NO Splatter Ring to…

As Seen On TV Companies

TV Winners
Sullivan Productions
As Seen On TV
Tristar Products
TELEBrands

Now I simply have to sit back and wait to see if one of these companies contacts me with interest in my product.  Most of this companies indicate on their website that the product review time can take 4 to 6 weeks, so I don’t expect to get a response anytime soon.  My product should be attractive to these companies, because there is not much to making these NO Splatter Rings.  There are no electronic components or major moving parts.  A simple plastic mold can make the NO Splatter Ring and my guess is that the mark-up will be more than enough to profit off of the manufacturing cost.  

You can see the demonstration video that I created for the NO Splatter Ring here:

 You can visit the NO Splatter Ring website by clicking here: The NO Splatter Ring

I guess if none of the afformentioned companies call me back — there’s always The Shark Tank!

Any feedback on the NO Splatter Ring would be greatly appreciated!  Good idea?  Bad idea? Needs changes?  Please let me know what you think!  If any of you have patented a product in the past or if you have experience with manufacturing or selling your product – feel free to give me your advice by commenting below.  Also, if you or anyone that you know has ever produced an “As Seen On TV” product — I would love to hear about it!

Best regards, 

Michael-John Wolfe

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After all, getting a patent is expensive – you have to hire a patent attorney and file with the US patent office, a process which can cost between $3,000 and $5,000.  With my prior product ideas, spending that much money seemed like more of a risk than I cared to take.  So I always wondered if I would ever find a product that I was so confident in that I would actually purchase a patent.

I found that product last week.  I was sound asleep when my newborn son woke my wife  and I up screaming for his pacifier.  You see, when he moves at night he sometimes loses his pacifier and immediatley begins screaming.  Since it was dark in the room, my wife and I were rustling through the sheets trying to locate the missing pacifier.  While we were rummaging through the sheets, we were only aggrivating my son even more.  Unable to locate the paci, we  finally had to turn on the light and find it.  Turning on the light completely annoyed my son even more and he broke out into a crying frenzy.  This is not fun at 3:30 am.

This is when my wife said to me “This is ridiculous!  You need to invent glow in the dark pacifiers!”  In my sleepy daze I replied “Don’t they make those already?” and my wife said “No, I have never seen them at Baby’s-R-Us or Target” – I believed my wife, since we have two young children and she frequents both stores.  So we finally calmed my son down and I laid there in bed thinking.  I wanted to sleep but the idea of these glow in the dark pacifiers was stuck in my head.  It was 4 am and within ten minutes I was wide awake.  I was thinking that I had found the perfect product!  After all, how many other parents have a hard time locating their child’s pacifier in the dark?  My bet was that many parents had this very same problem – and I had the solution!  (Well, actually my wife did!) 

Unable to sleep, I went downstairs and fired up the computer to begin my research on glow in the dark pacifiers.  I was prepared to hunker down and do some hard core research.  I was seriously considering going to a patent attorney that day if I could not find glow in the dark pacifiers anywhere online.  Groggily, I typed the search term into Google – “glow in the dark pac”  — I got to the “c” in pacifier and Google slapped me in the face with cold hard reality.  Google had filled in the rest of the term in the search engine results before I even finished typing.  I knew I was in trouble!

Sure enough – there they were, all different brands and types of glow in the dark pacifiers – all available for sale.  Right there, my perfect product patent idea was finished.  But I did not feel so bad afterwards, because this meant that if I keep thinking of ideas I will eventually get it right.  The glow in the dark pacifier stood for the fact that my idea was indeed a good one and it would have been worth patenting.  So I was able to recognize a good idea when I had one.  Now I just have to find one that isn’t already taken.

You can buy glow in the dark pacifiers here, unfortunately: Glow In The Dark Pacifiers

MJ

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