There are times in life when I find myself wishing for more time to spend with my family. Being off at college can be tough. Sometimes I miss my mother’s Sunday morning pre-church bacon and egg breakfast, or even her semi-dry meatloaf, more than I would like to admit. The constant late night study session with my classmates and prepping for a summer internship at a local law office can really stress me out. Thankfully, I am always welcomed back home for a day, or a week when needed.
My last trip home allowed me to get in some quality time with my father. For Christmas he had the bright idea to remodel the back yard for my mother’s gift. As he often does, I do not believe this plan was thought out well. With the best of intentions we set off to no less than 7 stores to pick up everything from bricks and plants, to rugs and one of those cool Coolaroo shade sails. Three full car loads later we found ourselves surrounded by equipment and greenery with no real course of action.
We took a few minutes to gather our thoughts before we both decided it was best to get an expert in backyard design to at the very least start us off on our way. It took five seconds for my mother to point to a plant and an area to place it. Before we knew it there was a basic layout where Dad and I only had to fill in the gaps. These made things much easier than two guys standing there looking at dirt with no clue of what to do.
Then to my surprise my father wheeled out a small contraption I have never seen before. Upon closer inspection I found it to be an old ottoman from the living room put onto wheels. He also added an old tool belt to the sides for a place for his “every day” gardening tools. My father has always been a very smart man but I would not call him handy by any means. So I was extremely surprised when he told me he came up with the idea himself.
He went on to explain he was tired of always bending down or kneeling on the floor every time Mom wanted something done in the yard. When they upgraded their living room set he thought it would be a waste to just simply toss out all the furniture so he reworked the ottoman to give him a nice height to comfortably sit or kneel in order to reduce the back stress of gardening. To my surprise he opened the top to the ottoman to reveal gloves, towels, and other cleaning supplies. I can imagine how happy my mom was when he thought up this idea. No more dragging in the dirt!
As simple as this idea seemed I did not recall seeing this anywhere else. My lovely education kicked in and I was intrigued on patenting this invention. Knowing that some 85% of all inventions will never be picked up and marketed to the general public I knew it was a long shot to get my father’s invention out to the people. As we finished laying down the bricks, and hanging our new shade I asked if I could look into patenting this for him. Reluctantly he agreed.
Sadly, after looking into the patents on gardening equipment there were several products on the market much like my father’s ottoman. However, this experience was not a complete loss. I realized how many ideas he had when it came to gardening equipment. By explaining to him his wish list could potentially make him money and solve his problems if he allowed me to become his patent lawyer his ideas are being to come to life. Although currently we do not have a product on the market we are on our way to doing so, and have more to talk about than ever before.
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