inventor-incentive

Inventor Incentive program

As a gesture to help budding inventors, we are able produce proof of concept prototypes, in most cases for a fxed fee, based on the circuit complexity. The minimum fee is $200 (includes GST). This allows inventors to take the prototype to potential investor, clients and manufacturers for assessment and market research.
Conditions:

Offer is open to individuals, and small businesses but not to corporations.
The application of this offer is soley at the discretion of Cinereus Systems, according to project suitability and staff resources.
Must be some reasonable expectation that the project has future development potential.
Projects are built to a functional specification. (i.e the project will be bigger and uglier than a production model!)
Any changes to the function or appearance of the prototype will be normal time and materials charges.
Any Intellectual Property (circuits, software etc) generated remains the property of Cinereus Systems.
Minimal documentation will be provided.
A delivery date cannot be guaranteed
A limited NDA would apply, as you would have rights only over your invention, and not the means we choose to implement it.

To minimise costs we would normally try to piggyback the PCB's with another board run, or use a modular design approach, using existing general purpose circuit boards. Essentially this is managed internally by charging any amounts over $200 to an "IP accrual" account, If at some later stage you wish to have your project manufactured, then you can buy back the IP by paying off the IP accrual account.

Where you do not continue development of a project then :

Any circuit designs, software, pcbs used for project maybe used by us to manufacture similar devices, with possibly some royalties being debited to your IP accrual account.
With your consent we may choose to: develop at our cost, manufacture and sell your invention, and royalties will be payable to you only after the IP accrual account has been paid off.

If you like your project to be considered for this program then email inventor@cinereus.com with a brief outline of what you propose, (you do not have to disclose your invention!), . (e.g. I envisage my invention to be in a 100x100x50 plastic box, run off batteries, have a keyboard and LCD, two external temperature probes and a serial port)