Thank you all for your input. I don't plan on staying with the stolen stuff
I'm working with now, it's just a proof of concept. I've sent emails to the
people who own the proper patents for the device I've modified but have
gotten no response. I was vague, but hoped to get a response of some kind.

My best bet at this point is to simply finish my proof of concept, document
it fully, and patent it fully. Then I can openly try to sell the idea to
those who already are tooled and making products like it.

Don't mistake my comment about products like it to mean it's not unique...
it's just that a few key changes to some existing tech make for a huge
benefit and a brand new device that doesn't replace the old stuff, but will
be added along side.

Don't worry, I didn't take 'Walter Harley' serious...

I haven't read the article he mentioned yet, but here's an interesting
thought... his low number was 12M in gross sales... ooooo scary number...
No, actually that's not much actually in the grand scheme of things.

Think about it. Take your average $50 electronic device, surely the patent
owner is making at least 5 bucks on it per unit... that can't be so much of
a stretch, right?

To make the 12M gross sales, you need to sell 240,000 units. If you get a
product into a nationwide chain like Wal-Mart or Staples or Office Max or
Fry's etc... then you've got 50 states selling your product. You only need
4800 sales per state to make your 12M mark.

If you further break that down to only 10 stores in each state (not
different stores, but physical locations) - then you get to 480 sales per
store per state. You end up with 40 sales per month in a year. That's
really not that scary, and is actually quite tiny compared to most anything
on the shelf right now.

Yes, the big assumption is being picked up by one of those chains... but if
you actually did get picked up by one of them you'd have hundreds of stores
in each state selling your product. Surely you could expect at least 3
sales a week from each store for the first year... and beyond.

3 sales a week at each of 100 stores in each state for a year... hmmm...
That's 780,000 sales in a year grossing me 3.9M. Is that worth the 10 grand
for a patent? I'll have to sleep on it.

Not to mention that more than likely the real result will be the sale of the
patent for a couple million... that's more than enough for me on this one.
I'm not greedy, and I don't need to support a huge company. I have a good
idea and want to see it on the shelf. If I make my first million because of
it, that's just icing.

....he who dies with the most toys, still dies...

--
Shawn Wilson