Word: mahaffey
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...tough industry," Melinda Miller, ISC's publicity manager, explains. "It is a disappointment, but it is the nature of the industry. Mahaffey's case was not unusual. Consumers have to do their homework." She says that of the 5,324 clients the company represented from 1997 to 1999, only 11 had made more money than they invested. Consumer advocates say even that number is inflated. While no one questions the risks inherent in developing a new invention, experts say the odds shouldn't be that low. In 1996 federal authorities forced ISC, which has more than 70 offices worldwide...
...enthusiastic ISC salesman told him the idea was brilliant--just what every inventor wants to hear--and pressured him to sign up before someone else came up with the same concept. Mahaffey quickly ponied up $625, borrowed from family and friends, for the patent search. "They told me everything out there was based on radio transmissions," he recalls. "I had an original idea, and I had to hurry to protect it. My father had invented the pop-top soda can but couldn't afford to follow through. He still regrets it. I didn't want that to happen...
Within six months of borrowing the money, Mahaffey began to feel frustrated. His first inkling that ISC's promised patent search wasn't as thorough as it told him was a simple Internet search, which turned up several similar devices that were already on the market. As for the advertised promotion efforts, those consisted of "a few brochures and a couple of lines of advertising on the Web," Mahaffey says, calling the promise "a lot of baloney." With no money coming in from the invention, the loan payments to the ISC subsidiary became a burden. "We really struggled...
...treatment of Mahaffey wasn't illegal. However, experts say it is among the nicer things that happen to naive inventors who rely on any one of the dozen or so major players in the industry. Richard Apley, director of the Independent Inventor Programs for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, says flatly that the majority of companies now advertising these inventor services, which generate about $200 million a year, are scams. "They offer a service of sorts but don't really do what they say they will do," says Apley. Nearly every one of their patent searches comes back with...
...learned one thing," says Mahaffey, who only too late began to do some research on the industry. "These companies don't do what they promise. They just make sure they get the money and you don't." Or, as Todd Dickinson, director of the Patent and Trademark Office, says, "Their best invention is themselves...