What invention do you want to see me build next?!

The only way around someone stealing your designs is to get even MORE unnecessary!

Factories in China monitor Kickstarter, Shark Tank, your channel - anywhere new ideas pop up. They then pump out cheap knockoffs and dump them on Aliexpress where vendors buy them in bulk and list them on Amazon, Walmart, etc. I've talked to so many inventors over the years who have dealt with this and it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle once it's out.

Back in the early 1900's (can't remember the exact date), a child at the age of 12, whose father was a chemist, discovered how to make synthetic emeralds. His emeralds not only are the best still know to date, but are still not patent. He didn't want to have to give the recipe up so he never did. His son took up the business and still makes the emeralds today. No one has replicated as good of a synthetic emerald, still. Amazing

Not gonna lie, your charger cover looks way better

You could claim copyright on your own image (as the photographer), throw out a cease and desist letter (or issue a DMCA electronically) at them asking them to remove (the image). They may "accidently" just take the whole product page down rather than deal with figuring out which image is DMCA and which is not :P

As an IP lawyer myself: you are focussing entirely on patents - which makes sense considering your channel title - but you are overseeing the other potential IP rights. Just like Crocs never addressed you based on their patent, they levered their other IP right: trademarks. Similarly, you also have a copyright (yes you do, it's automatic and free) to some aspects of your designs (provided they are not purely technical in nature, which is indeed a difficult assessment) but also most notably to your pictures. Therefore, anyone who blatantly copies your original photos of the product is infringing upon your copyright. Not exactly as satisfying, but still a way to address this behavior.

Walmart is basically Amazon these days with 3rd party sellers doing sketchy and illegal crap, the big difference is you can return your crap directly to Walmart instead of shipping it back to crappy amazon

Dude I can’t believe that people are doing this stuff. You don’t deserve this at all. I hope that they get what they deserve. And also I would love to see a series of this stuff!

I've had a few of my designs show up on Aliexpress. One was even while the Kickstarter was still running! That was scary. Also, the current patent system is archaic and terrible. Its broken.

The sad reality of it is that the factories in china producing these things don't care about patent laws or intellectual property. They believe that business is about who can work harder, and do it faster and cheaper. You sign a contract with them where they promise not to manufacture or sell the product themselves. Since there's a contract, they stick to it. But then, whoever makes the molds and tools up the factory will share that equipment with a different factory. Now you've got an unrelated company that isn't bound by contract who can make them. If its popular you'll even get multiple companies doing it, all competing with cheaper and cheaper materials and quality control standards.

3:02 It's astounding how similar the USB cover patent and your cover are. It makes sense, when designing a cover for the same ubiquitous cube, the cover is going to look the same but it still feels wild.

I actually find it adorable when inventors actually talk with each other on stuff like this.

Oh man, imagine spending three years developing a product and getting it ready for launch, only to see an extremely similar idea pop up on a channel called "unnecessary inventions"

Heard about a new web search engine years back ( it only lasted a few months ). Checked it out and found they were using images from my web site and then linking said images to my competitors web sites. . Sent them a letter saying that if they wanted to use my images them they had to pay me or I would take them to court. They deleted my images from their search engine.

This was a great video! Not just the subject matter - but also the way you helped out other inventors by showcasing their products - excellent.

Back when I used to run a web and app development business, one of my best clients was a couple whose 11 year old daughter had invented a pretty neat sleeping bag / backpack combo thinggie for sleepovers. It was such a good idea that they actually developed a product, went to the whole legal process of registering the trademark, copyrighting, and production. They hired me to develop their online shopping site. (This was back in 2006, Amazon wasn't that huge just yet) . Everything was going really well for about 2 years and then right after the 2008 financial crisis they discovered some goddamn Chinese company have ripped off their design, their idea, their photos, and had a distribution deal with Kmart, where they eventually found it. Eventually these clients had to take down their site because the lack of sales and the last thing I know is that they were involved in a major lawsuit against Kmart over the whole situation. They lost a business, I lost the business, and some f****** douchebag in China made a bunch of money.

The fact that it costs $25 grand for an inventor to protect their investment from some asshat that wants to swoop in and steal the credit for someone else's innovation and hard work shows just how fucked this place really is.

I am gonna say walmart website acts as a marketplace where people can sell their own stuff befkre watching the video, but I imagine that would clear it up. If you complain to walmart about it they should be able to help you.

This is the first time I stumbled on your channel, but loving the quality of this content! Subscribed. 👍

5:00 genius cover the holes so you can't use the controller... lol

You should create an annual “Unnecessary Invention Convention” to bring together all sorts of makers and people interested in trying out the crazy things you all design. It would be a blast!

The fact that your taking this in stride and making a comedic bit out of an otherwise pretty sucky situation is really admirable.

Sorry someone stole your design man, but the clear plastic on both sides is definitely something I think you should adopt. It makes it so that the top side can be the bottom and the bottom side can be the top because now it no longer matters what hand goes in what hole. Hopefully that makes sense.. Okay I'm going to go binge watch your videos now lol (new viewer to the channel)

this is the same reason I don't post my "Best(according to me lol) product designs" online . I've documented them, maybe in future can work on those.

I would LOVE to see a series of you buying similar and/or knockoffs of your inventions

You are such an amazing stand up guy. Bravo for how you handle literally everything.

Shout out to you for sharing other designers trying to make a living

your power brick looks nicer IMO. It doesnt stick out as much like theirs.

I like that LOKT didn't do anything legal and just went like hey we exist, here's our product. Yes do the series!

You can patent specific features. That's extremely common. You don't have to pay lawyers to submit patents. You can submit them yourself.

I had a very good idea. I made a rough prototype and showed a few friends and neighbors who agreed that my invention made a common task easier. I did my research on how to get a patent and found out it would take 4 years and $20k. In that time I would be ripped off and hardly able to make a profit. So in my opinion, it just wasn't worth it to me!

Upon seeing how slowly that Lego vacuum worked, despite decent suction, my first thought was of course why would I ever use that vacuum when it’s way faster to just pick it up. I mean, the sorting one makes things a little different but still, I could just pick it up for free. That said, I then thought of how often I would just leave my legos sitting out when I used to play as a kid, and honestly if I had a device like that as a kid, you’d beat believe I would throw my legos on the ground purely to vacuum them up afterwards

LMAO the Lokt charger bending with the screw in the centre. UI's one looked far better lmao

Brilliant-ish idea for the controller bubble. Not sure how comfortable it would be. The suggestion I always give is keep a stuffed animal or old already broken controller next to you. Throw those around. I live 45 minutes from the nearest store that has controllers. Lego vac is useless. You could literally take a broom and sweep them in a box turned on it’s side without using a dustpan.

definitely do a series. also, can you do a hat that cools you down?

Yes make a series reviewing knock-offs of your inventions I would love to see that and I want to see what to but

I just appreciate him putting the similar products he reviewed today in the description. And when he said the other person's brick vacuum took 3 years it's not an exaggeration as it takes time to create , make , test and sell.

yeah people please keep sending your inventions as this is a great series

I'm so proud of your positive attitude and hard work

To be able to use your platform to highlight these products seems like a win either way; people out of curiosity want to see other takes on your inventions so you'll get the views and ad revenue, and viewers can also buy what they've always been begging for in the comments of every invention video. And if it helps highlight some small businesses as opposed to the dropship mass produced knock-off type products then that's always a good thing too.

I used to work in a small injection moulding shop. One of the things we used to make was a sink unblocker by using compression. While out at a Boot sale one day, I saw a blue one. Exactly the same as the one we made. I spoke to the boss who designed the device. Told him I had seen it, and he said yes, it's a Chinese knockoff. How did I know? We only made them in red or yellow. Happens with everything.

Yes. YES. More testing similar inventions please. And showing more crossover with other designs it’s so interesting

Its cool that people that sent you contact were chill with you instead of straight up throwing a summons to you.

Imagine dedicating three years to your life to make a product and you see it on unnecessary inventions.

8:45 I am an engineer, and to be honest reverse engineering something simple like a blow up toy from just a video or a few photos is surprisingly simple. Most of the time in engineering is doing the designing to make it functional and visually pleasing, and if someone already made those choices, then its pretty easy for someone to copy it ever with just a few photos XD

Never seen this channel. I clicked on the thumbnail expecting someone crying with a sob story about big corp scumbag and a cancer story. I was delighted to find out you’re a pretty cool dude with a fun and interesting channel. I subscribed immediately 😊

Walmart isn't selling them. It's just on their marketplace. It's the individual sellers you'd have to go after. But I worked for a company that has their stuff ripped off by Chinese reverse engineers.

The patent thing is very scary 😔. I have 2 inventions that I believe are really good. The thing is... I'm scared to actually release them 😔. I kinda struggle with money, if any big company would copy my design, my project will most probably fail and I will be unable to even make a patent. Which means, I would not be able to use these inventions to be financially stable. Sad

Love it when more education about copyrights and patents is shared. "Similar" doesn't automatically mean infringement (for better and for worse). The Lawful Masses channel has a lot of great breakdowns about copyright cases.

Also if you're doing a collaboration with Crocs and they do not get back to you it's probably best to try and call them or email them and keep emailing them until they actually answer since no wide and well-known company should really ignore customers

I quite like your attitude to creation and design.

I worked for a toy company that had a similar problem. They made and sold an inflatable product. About a year later we got a customer complaint that the product was not holding air, kept deflating on it's own. We replaced the item, asking for the old one back so we could see what went wrong. When we got the defective sample in, we were astonished. It was identical to ours. Even replicated the packaging. On closer inspection, however, it became apparent that the inflatable product was made of a cheaper, non-airtight plastic material, which is why it kept deflating. More than that, the packaging was OUR packaging - just with another company's logo covering ours with a sticker. They'd thoughtfully left our contact information uncovered, though, which is how the customer get ahold of us. What had happened was that the factory over in Asia that manufactured our product, after finishing our ordered production run, decided to just keep making more with cheaper materials. Sold the product directly to retailers since they already had the sales contact information from our deal, cutting our company out entirely. Needless to say, our company owner had some harsh words with the factory. Started legal proceedings. Didn't do a damn thing, because the factory just dissolved their corporation, and "sold" the facility to someone else. That someone else just being one of their partners. We could probably have tried to still file a lawsuit against the new owners claiming it was a fraudulent transfer just designed to block litigation, but that would have required both time and money we couldn't afford and some inside connections to the local government over there to even get the case considered. So we just dropped the issue and went to another factory.

I can understand why you haven't bothered with selling products, it's a pain. Plus there's all the upfront cost before you can even begin to make money back, and the issue of where to store everything. But if you Did do it, I'd say go with 3D print on demand, include a selfie postcard, and sign it over Zoom. You have become the "product" in demand 😆

I think your freakin cool for promoting other products and thats why i personally subscribed! yay!

Subbed just because this guy is humble enough to ad the other inventions. 5*

one thing to note is that walmart doesn’t manage the online items usually, there’s so many fake controllers and clothes and other items that will say “sold and shipped by” and if it doesn’t say walmart then they usually can’t help

You should sue them

I fabricate things for cars using metal and my own tools. I use to go to NOPI shows and SEMA and show them off. Then I started getting people telling me I copied their design. Things that I had no idea would become very popular and I didn't think of getting patents or anything because it was just stuff I was throwing together. No way for me to prove I'm the original designer. An attorney told me the cost of fighting it was more then the cost of a patent. To this day, I still don't patent things. I just make things till someone tells me I'm duplicating their stuff. Then I tell them to look at my other UKposts channels that was posted yrs ago and then tell me who came up with it. One good example is a supercharger adapter I made to install a supercharger on top of a non supercharged factory engine. Yrs after I posted a video, a guy contacted me and told me I stole his design. I said nope, I'm sure you seen it at the show and decided to make it yourself after you found out it wasn't patented. It was almost a perfect copy of mine. I found out his whole business was built on making the adapter and people flocked to him as if he came up with it. People steal ideas all the time. And it sucks that other people get rich off designs they didn't come up with.

The only way to keep your inventions safe from being copied is to not tell anyone about it

In all seriousness, I am sorry this happened. Plagiarism is not a victimless crime and I believe that you deserve better than to have a company steal your creativity and hard work. Stay awesome, I hope everything goes well. ⭐️

You should definitely make a series out of this! It’s really entertaining watching you see them!

i love this channel can you make more fun inventions

Is your studio on Church St? Dang, shit's too loud for me, man. Goddamn Jazz Fest. Great video, super interesting!

Mad respect to you for your attitude towards creative design and handling all this with such poise. Keep up the great work.

So they aren’t that uneccassery if people sell them!

Patent or not, Walmart is still using YOUR photo. That is Copyright as long as you own the original and can provide EXIF Data. Go after Walmart for Copyright Infringement!

I love this idea. The implementation and manufacturing are great. I would have used this as a kid no question.

I wrote my law school Capstone paper on drop-shipping, it will be published very soon. The conclusion of the paper was that IP law offers very few avenues for inventors to protect their IP from dropshippers. (Though technically your issue here is a counterfeit, and not just drop shipping). I am really interested in what inventors are doing to try and protect themselves and this video is a totally new approach I haven’t seen yet! Love what you are doing.

In case of the croc and cable thingy I think the tag of "unnecessary invention" hits the company more deeply than the infringement

This same thing happened to a guy I know of on Facebook. He invented a skid plate that fits on the underside of various Aventon electric bike models to protect the wiring that are located under the pedal crank. After his product being such a success, someone in China comes along and duplicates his product. The Chinese knockoff is currently being sold on eBay. It’s such a rotten thing to do, but what legal recourse does a small time manufacturer have against someone in China that’s outside our legal jurisdiction? It’s just morally wrong to steal someone’s idea and market it as your own to begin with, but some people just don’t care.

I work for a company that manufactures drain valves, we do a lot of injection molding. We've had some of our molds manufactured by a machine shop in China, not long after we launched the product, exact knock offs started coming out of China. We send them the specs to build a mold for us, and they clearly made a mold for themselves as well.

So many of your inventions are very sellable, and not at all unnecessary, which i love

This was honestly a very entertaining and fun video to watch! Great work, keep it up.

Unnecessary but genius

Patents don't have to be for an entire product. You can patent a unique design feature. Also it doesn't have to be expensive to file if you do it all yourself rather then through a patent attorney. USPTO has a Pro Se assistance program to help any small independent inventors.

Really appreciate your videos like this where you explain the logistics around invention.

Awesome video, about the knock-off serie. Yes! Defintly would watch it, it sounds quite interesting to see what other people made that looks quite the same of what you made

Your version of the charger protector looked 100% better and was more flush with the wall when installed.

Yes a series of knock off inventions 👍🏻. The knock of the controller invention (is too bulky I think). Especially when playing a intense game you don’t want a bulky thing on your lap, you want to be able to move around easily.

You should build an invention that takes in a scrambled rubix cube and dispenses a solved one so you don’t have to peel the stickers off. It doesn’t have to solve it, it can just store the scrambled one into a compartment on the side for someone else to try and solve.💡💡💡

Ya know, every time I'm gaming for hours on end I'm always thinking " how can I make my hands sweatyrrr???" Thank you for your contribution to society, looks like I gotta buy one

You're a real one for advertising your Lego vacuum "competitor" 😂

I would have also loved to have seen him open and look at the rage controller cover that he found online

Would love to see videos of knockoffs or better yet similar items being tested, especially for products you don't plan to produce or sell yourself

im a 3d artist thats just getting into the flow of trying to sell my designs and characters, and i am horribly afraid of having someone steal my product and easily redistribute the files around the internet essentially making my hard months of work for nothing. I really wish there were better ways to help prevent pirating or stealing peoples hard work and designs without having to bend over backwards to stop as little as one person, when there could be so many distributing it at once... Maybe theres nothing I can do, and i should just live with the premises that im never going to be able to prevent someone from stealing my stuff, and that I should keep making things for me, at least then when or if I sell them, by the end of the day i'd still get use out of what I put effort into...

Cup-o-worms..... Those lawyers over at the Cup-o-noodles ears just perked up....

Congrats on being an awesome inventor!

7:34 yes,yes you should

Excellent description of how patents have become worse than worthless! I design autonomous agricultural robots for a living, and out of the hundreds of innovative solutions I've put out into the market, I've filed for and received only one patent. The cost was around $30,000 by the time it was done, it took over 5 years to actually be granted, I had to disclose literally everything about the invention making it extremely easy to knock off, and when someone did attempt to knock off my invention, it cost over $50,000 in legal fees to defend the patent. Another little known fact: if you don't sue to defend a patent, you lose it.

When one of my designs got ripped off ,(I'm a fashion designer) it really hurt, and I almost gave up..I dnt knw how you do it, with it happening to you all the time, your def a better person than I am..I'm willing to bet a lot of company's watch your channel just to steal your ideas..People steal, cheat, and do whatever they have to in order to get ahead, but there will always be karma..

I’d love to see you test knockoffs and coincidental products!

Well you can technically SUE wallmark, for using your pics without consent

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it (it's the internet, so someone probably did...), but there's a different kind of patent called a "Utility Patent". These are incredibly potent things. It's a patent not for a specific thing, but an effect. In your case, you could get a Utility Patent for an inflatable device that protects controllers from being damaged when thrown or dropped. That would mean any inflatable device, no matter its shape, composition, color, material, etc. that is intended to protect a controller from being thrown in rage (or for any other reason) would be subject to your patent. Getting a Utility Patent is .... not easy or cheap, even by patent standards, but they rather effectively give you control over that particular kind of product.

The way i see it, your product isn’t your inventions, but rather the content you create related to them. Using the people who knock off your inventions to create more content for your channel seems a fitting quid pro quo. I think you should do more showcase videos like this.

You need invent a miniature Walmart, so Walmart can make that and the cycle will be complete.

You might not be able to sue on the grounds of them stealing your idea, but you can defiantly sue for them using your pictures. Copyright is automatic. And winning that suit means you get punitive damages. Depending on where you sue that could be in the area of $400k. Which is why Walmart will probably settle out of court for a pretty penny. This is payday for you and whatever lawyer you hire. I say, call Leonard French.

Yes you should make a that series.

We need an apartment tour!

@6:47 I wish I could find the words to express how incredible of a person you are to help these small inventors get their product out there.