About Karla Hunter
 - Karla Hunter
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Hi, I’m Karla Hunter, an experienced inventor with 10 U.S. patents and a licensed attorney. My passion is helping inventors understand how to protect their great ideas, negotiate win-win licensing agreements, and create brands with trademarks.
Working with inventors on their legal questions I discovered a big gap in the marketplace to get trustworthy advice for inventors. I watched a lot of great ideas fall by the wayside because inventors made expensive and time consuming mistakes. I began to see a pattern of pitfalls where inventors fail. One example, is inventors shelling out thousands of dollars to marketing firms that don’t deliver. Another problem was applying for patents before the inventor had worked out the kinks in their product and then being issued a patent that didn’t cover their product design. or choosing the wrong initial manufacturing process. One inventor came to me after negotiating her own licensing contract that allowed the licensee to deduct expenses that almost completely wiped out her royalty payment. The path from idea to successful inventing is paved with pitfalls for the novice. I decided that along with my legal services, it made sense to help inventors learn how to avoid the pitfalls. |
| I searched for a partner that brought complementary skills to mine, so we could give inventors soup to nuts advice on inventing. I found the perfect match, Jack Lander, a respected inventor, author, and manufacturer. Jack became my partner to create affordable educational materials for independent inventors. We developed and delivered, “The Successful Inventor Blueprint” seminars. We have also written two books to help inventors, with a third one being published in fall 2010. These books focus on specific aspects of inventing where we have seen inventors make a lot of mistakes. Produce Your Own Invention guides the inventor in choosing the right manufacturing process taking into account the inventors money constraints and goals. For example, instead of paying thousands of dollars for steel molds, what about using water jet technology. It costs more per piece, but the start up inventor preserves thousands of their start up dollars that would have gone to expensive molds. Using cheaper manufacturing processes you can prove in the marketability of your product and perfect the design. |
| Our second book, Create the Perfect Sellsheet, focuses on how to define your product’s benefits and present them effectively. The sell sheet forces the inventor to get very clear on their product’s uniqueness, their target customer, and uses a proven formula for presenting your product in a compelling way. It can be used to develop your website, to solicit potential licenees, become your product packaging, shared to gauge buyer’s interest and even to help your patent attorney understand the critical innovation your product brings to the table. It is a critical tool that forces the inventor to develop a laser focus on what makes their product unique and marketable. Some successful inventors create a sell sheet before they even create their first prototype. They show their paper sell-sheet to potential customers and buyers to get their feedback on the features, benefits, and potential retail price. This is successful inventing. |
| Our third book will focus on how to choose the right distribution outlets for selling your product based on where you are in the inventing process. The book answers common questions on how to use various types of intellectual property. For example, “Can you patent improvements to existing products?”, “When do provisional patents make sense?”, and “Are you protected when you apply for a patent?”. It also shows you how to create your own website with free software and no programming skills. |
- Karla tossing a coin into the ‘Trevi fountain” Rome Italy
Beyond, legal work and writing I love to travel. This picture was taken in Rome. It is the most magnificent city I have ever visited. The city’s architecture and art from thousands of years ago, created by the masters. saw a figure trying to escape from it? That was the figure he would carved from the marble. Doesn’t that sound like an inventor? We look at problems and see solutions “trying to escape”.
Thank you for stopping by and letting me share with you a little about my passions.
Best Wishes,
Karla Hunter
