Invention Home Or Jacob Enterprises This company is a scam. Their success rate is close to zero. Monroeville Pennsylvania
My girlfriend first contacted Invention Home about an idea that we had. Jeff called her and told her to send information in on a confidential form so that a patent search could be done. They did send a packet with most of the prices (which were all ridiculous).
Jeff said that we had to spend $350 on a patent search that wouldn't even give us any guarantees that the product isn't out there. After doing some research I found out that you can do that on your own at www.google.com/patents for free. $350 for something i can type on my own in about 15 seconds? He told us once we get through that the next step would be to get a provisional patent. Jeff told us that we could get a provisional patent on pretty much anything, no matter what the results of the search were like. UUUHHH, well then once again why would we do a patent search?
After talking to someone who isn't a scam artist, we learned that a provisional patent doesn't even give you any protection unless you follow through with the full patent. So for the year that you have the provisional, somebody else could file a full patent at any time on the exact same idea.
When we asked him about their success rate he basically refused to answer the question. He kept telling stories about his own alleged success and that of their owner but he refused to give us the actual numbers. After talking to a different rep at the company and pressing for it we finally found out it was well under 1%. Jeff made it sound like we couldnt lose with their marketing system. What a joke.
Their website and packet look good but I'm glad we asked the tough questions.
Mark
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
U.S.A.
3 Updates & Rebuttals
Steve
Phila,Pennsylvania,
U.S.A.
invention
#4Consumer Comment
Tue, May 05, 2009
I want to say that I had an idea for an invention that did not go through.
All I will say is to anyone out there make sure you talk about different things first.
Jake
Ft. Lauderdale,Florida,
U.S.A.
Licensing Deals
#4Author of original report
Mon, December 15, 2008
Thank you Michael for responding. Since you are willing to be so honest, why don't you tell us all about your success rate? You say you have "close to 60" licensing deals (whatever that means). Well that means nothing. How many of those have made any money?? How many of those have made more money than what you have charged them? I would truly appreciate a sincere answer on this. Then, if its not too much to ask...how many customers have paid you over 1000 dollars to do this work? You claim to be the least expensive. Well, using your clever analogy, there may be a really cheap set of brakes out there, but if they only work less than 1% of the time then they are still a scam. You don't have to operate under any other name. You scam people well enough under your own name. Invention Home.
So a recap Michael. We would like to hear how many people have actually made more money than they have paid you. And how many people have actually sent you their money to have you try to "license" their idea. I suspect that the 1% is actually ridiculously higher than what your real success rate is.
Thanks,
"The guy"
Michael
Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania,
U.S.A.
Response to consumer complaint
#4UPDATE Employee
Fri, December 12, 2008
I have worked for Jacob Enterprises for about three years. As far as I can tell this complaint really doesn't establish anything. The guy thinks our prices are too high. He's entitled to his opinion but in fact we have the lowest prices in our industry for a full-service invention assistance company. He then asserts that you can do your own patent search. True. You can also fix your own brakes. Better know what you are doing. Many attorneys charge a thousand dollars and up for this service, whose purpose is to prevent an inventor from making a potentially expensive legal mistake. Then the guy complains that a Provisional Patent offers no protection until converted into a full patent. That's true. But once converted, the date of claim reverts to the date the Provisional Patent was filed, giving the inventor a relatively advantageous date of claim. Check with www.uspto.gov and draw your own conclusions. When the inventor was told that a Provisional Patent can be filed on anything, that was simply an honest statement that no scam company would make. The point is that it obviously behooves the inventor to make sure their invention is worthwhile. Filing a Provisional Patent does not make your invention a "winner". As for success rates, this persons scorns 1%. If the potential return on investment is more than 100 times the investment, the a 1% chance may represent excellent odds. Especially if the use of the invention company's services improves the odds vs. what the inventor could accomplish on their own. How many products has this guy licensed, I wonder? InventionHome has licensed close to 60 in just a few years. By the way, InventionHome operates under NO OTHER NAMES. We're not Inventech, or InventHelp, etc. We are a family-owned business with many unprecedented industry affiliations, due to our ethical repuatation. We may not be right for everyone's pocketbook or ambitions, but we perform a valuable and honest service for many.