Any Bright Ideas?

Daniel Davala, an inventor from Fairfax, knows this basic truth: "You can have a great idea, you can build it, you can show people -- but nobody else is going to sell it for you."

(Incidentally, inventors lecture ad nauseam about the perils of marketing scam companies -- firms that promise to help develop and promote your invention but often do little besides drain your wallet. The patent office has a scam prevention brochure -- found on its Web site, http://www.uspto.gov, in the Inventor Support section under Inventor Resources -- that warns about these companies.)

Davala, 29, has a patent pending on a knife for measuring butter -- a kitchen tool that he says he expects will be "as common as a measuring cup in the near future."

While fixing macaroni and cheese one night in 2000, he grew annoyed with reading the greasy measuring wrappers on partially used sticks of butter, and -- cue the light bulb -- conceived of the need for a ruler-cum-butter-knife.

Davala recently decided to become a full-time inventor ("I have a very supportive wife," he says). Though he has roughly 80 ideas he'd like to pursue, he chose the butter knife as his first real foray into inventing because of its simplicity. The purpose and mechanics of the knife are relatively straightforward, making it easier for Davala to write the patent, which he did without a patent agent or lawyer. He also made his own prototype.

Now, he's moving on marketing his knife. To start, he walked into a household goods store and jotted down customer service numbers for similar products. He then called them, asking to be redirected to the department that handles outside inventions. Before he submitted his knife to a company for review, he looked up the patent for another product marketed by the firm and cold-called the inventor for advice on how best to approach the firm.

This kind of exhaustive research is imperative, Davala says, because "your job is to convince the world that they need a product that they've never needed before."

Of course, need is relative. Does the world really need artificial bubble rings, the doughnuts of air (think smoke rings underwater) that inventor David Whiteis of Germantown makes with his RingMachine? Probably not. But, well, they're cool.

They're also expensive: Each prototype costs Whiteis roughly $1,000. So he has taken to lending his machines to aquariums, which use them to entertain their dolphins. Unfortunately, he's discovered, aquariums don't budget much for buying toys.

It's been frustrating, he says. Nine years have elapsed since he received his patent and began marketing to aquariums. (A patent typically protects an invention for 20.) These days, the computer network administrator is banking on the success of a smaller version (with its own patent) that is suitable for swimming pools. It was there, after all, where the idea began: With Whiteis lying face up beneath the surface of a pool and blowing bubble rings with his mouth.

Whiteis, 44, is optimistic that the RingMachine will pay off. But until then, "it's just another thing that costs money," he says. "And my wife says, 'When is enough enough?' "

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But, hey, who was it that said, "Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up"?

Ah, yes: It was you, Tom Edison. You recognized the plight of the inventor, the passion and the pluckiness that it takes to persevere. You knew that inventing is so much more than just an idea, which is why you also said, "I have more respect for the fellow with a single idea who gets there than for the fellow with a thousand ideas who does nothing."

Thanks, man, for shedding some light.

MORE IN SUNDAY SOURCE: Tips from local inventors and resources to get your idea off the ground.