[Jammer]

Related to making an invention and getting a patent:

As far as pursuing a US Patent, I know a little bit about the process. I am NO car expert, but I have played a 5-string banjo since I was 8 years old. When I was in my 20's I became obsessed with the idea of inventing a small modification to a standard banjo that would allow it to be plugged into normal off the wall guitar electronics so it could sound like a hard rock guitar. It took me the better part of a decade, but I finally did come up with the modification that made "Heavy Metal Banjo" a reality. Without my little invention a banjo can NOT be forced to over drive an amp into heavy distortion correctly UNLESS it is a solid body banjo, OR one is using headphones. When I finally got the results I wanted, and got MP3s posted etc... I discovered that nobody, and I mean NOBODY gave a dam. I often wondered it it would of gone over better if I had found it in the 1960's instead, but there were other complications...

My closest friends told me to patent the devise I came up with. I could not afford a full fledged patent search by the pros, so I had to do it on my own. After searching for almost 2 years another banjo player on a banjo-player's site posted a link. That link lead me straight to the invention a guy made to a banjo in the 1920's during the Jazz era. To my shock this invention was EXACTLY the same thing I had made- A Banjo Head-Mute that could mute the head to be extremely quiet, so much that flipping the head hardly makes almost NO sound whatsoever- It was the important first step needed to over drive a tube amp to distortion without a loud whistling noise that would give anyone brain damage long before turning up past #3 on the volume knob.....

What I learned was somebody else had already invented what I had thought I invented in the 1990's- but the first one came out in the 1920's, and was intended to silent the instrument, where I had came up with the device for the exact opposite purpose. I still get credit for coming up with the application and style of playing "Heavy Metal Banjo" and it used to come up on a Google search. But, boy I learned it is a lot of work....

What I learned:

It's amazing how many ideas on almost everything have already been patented. It seems every-time I think I have a new idea, if I search long enough, I discover somebody else has already thought of it. And a real full fledged patent search can take a VERY long time, I guess that is why inventors normally get a "Patent Pending" issued first, because it takes so very long to do a complete search of older patents.