If you a great idea for an alternative engine, but don't have the means to put it into production....?

Question

Could you find someone honest enough not to steal your idea and what business wouldn't mind producing your idea and give you compenstation for what you came up with? I don't really care about getting obsenely rich, but I would like to be able to provide my family with a modest living. Is that too much to ask? What are some good alternative veihical companies that will produce independant Ideas? Would Tesla motors be a good company to contact? Do you know anyone else who would be interested?

Answer 1

FIRST and foremost. License or patent your idea. That's about a 2 year process. You have to provide documentation to make sure you PROTECT the idea and it is not just a rehash of someone else's idea.

Once you patent or license your idea, it is YOURS and only YOURS. Anyone who copies or reverse engineers it will have to face legal action from you.

Once  you have all that done, approach any company with the basic idea: I have a alternative engine that wil save fuel, provide equal or greater economy, etc.

Many companies are "under pressure" to meet the "green" platform people are asking for. Good luck and hope you make your millions soon.

Answer 2

Wait upon the Lord!

Answer 3

Go off to the nearest comprehensive engineering library and start researching engines of the type you're interested in.  Almost everything you need won't be on the Web, so you'll be sitting there flipping through issues of the Journal of the Society of Automotive Engineers, and old Popular Mechanics, and professional mechanical engineering journals.  The goal here is to learn about such engines and find out what has been tried before.  Most likely you'll learn that your idea has been tried previously and didn't work very well, but that's no reason to despair: what you learn in the process will help you in future research, and it happens to everyone.  Note that very similar ideas may have very different names, and may show up in widely-varying fields.  

If you really think you've got a unique idea you can learn the patent system and do an on-line search for free, but that's a step that should come much later when you'll be in a position to understand what you're looking at.  

Meantime, go off and become an expert.  There should be a comprehensive engineering library at any large university that has an engineering school.  Go in and make friends with the librarian, pay whatever fees are necessary to use the stacks (you may have to buy a membership to their 'friends of the library') and buy a copy-machine card so you can copy articles to take home and read later.  Expect to spend at least a few days and possibly several weeks at the task.  The more you learn the better off you'll be.

Answer 4

Go to a court house and file a disclosure form. Or see a lawyer and register it with him. A patent takes years.

Answer 5

any company already on the cutting edge of alternative engine technology have more than likely already heard your idea, built a mock up and maybe even tested it....they hire top of the field engineers who are chin deep in this stuff....not to say your idea isn't good or original...but unless you've come up with a Mr. Trash for a Flux Capacitor to create 1.21 Jigawatts....someone has probably already come up with your idea, or patented something similar.

Answer 6

vivianna, The very first thing to do would be to get a patent in your name.Actualy General Moters would pay you very well for it. The big three are searching for the next big thing !

Answer 7

Go to a venture capitalist and run the idea by them. Patent it first.

Answer 8

I'd get your idea copyrighted before you ever find a financer or manufacturer.

I know!  I have come up with plenty of bright ideas which someone else used later.  Although I never let my ideas out of the bag either, but if I had copyrighted them I could have sued the companies which produced it like Ford.

Answer 9

It doesn't cost much to get a pattens for something like that.

That would be the best way to go.  The gov. would make sure that what is your idea, is filed with the gov. so no one can steal your idea.  But there is always someone smart enough to modify your ideas enough to make it there own.