Before I really begin, I should state that I have no experience in product design and have absolutely zero qualifications when it comes to any legal aspect, so please do not take any of my choices as gospel in anyway. This is ‘my’ journey showing what ‘I’ have found out, with decisions specific to ‘my’ circumstance. Yours will be different. Possibly easier, possibly harder, but you should always seek to gather all the facts and information available and appropriate for ‘your’ circumstances. Hopefully through my example you will have a better picture and understanding of where to look.

About four years ago I came up with an idea for shelving that I thought was rather clever and could potentially be useful in several environments. Please know that I’m still mid process on the idea so I won’t be revealing much more about the specifics. I intend on making money from the idea in the future, so protection of the idea is paramount for me.
Initially all I had were sketches which I reworked over the course of a few months and then illustrated digitally until I was happy the potential function was in line with what I had originally envisaged. I then set about creating a working prototype from some wood, which worked, but to call it crude was too kind. It didn’t matter. Here I was with a working proof of concept made by my hands, derived from my imagination.

Life and work stepped in for a bit and two years later (yes, 2!) I find myself asking why I had not gone any further with the idea.
My next step was to get hold of a 3D CAD package so that I could refine the idea further and play with a virtual 3D object. I took the knowledge I had from design and applied it to SketchUp which was once a free package to download. The version I had was a much older version (8), but it was free and had a nice interface that made sense to me. There are a lot of options out there, some of which cost a lot of money. It’s worth noting that you can use the free version of SketchUp online without even having to install any software. The interface appears to still be clear and there are helpful prompts if needed.
If you don’t have any experience in tweaking nodes or manipulating objects, then the learning curve can be huge. Sorry, but it can be a difficult process for some. If you aren’t confident in your own abilities, then this could be your initial stumbling block. You’ll need to either put your trust in a friend or outsource this work to someone where you get some sort of protection via a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). If this project were to take off, then I would be looking to upgrade to the Pro versions of the software I use, but you can get a lot done with the free software that is out there.

This brings me to another topic regarding protection of an idea which I will cover in future post.

You don’t need 3D files or renders of your idea to move forward. In many cases, just having a well-defined sketch and being able to articulate your idea verbally may be enough to get your idea to the next stage. For me, that next stage was to be able to physically play with and test the idea by means of 3D printing.