Get-rich plan of glow-in-the-dark tattoos patently wrong

Tired of reading stories about college dropouts who think up one stinking idea and then spend the rest of their lives burning through their billions of dollars, I decided to get in the game.

Brainstorming with my brother (also not a billionaire), I came up with the idea -- glow-in-the-dark tattoos.

This way, people could cover themselves in ink that would draw mad props at parties, while still appearing perfectly boring during their day jobs as bank tellers, waitresses, neurosurgeons or Utah congressmen.

All I had to do was patent the idea, wait for somebody to invent the process, and then sue them.

"It doesn't quite work like that," counters the bubble-bursting John Calvert, administrator of the inventors assistance programs for the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

"A patent cannot be obtained upon a mere idea or suggestion," warns the patent Web site at www.uspto.gov.

To qualify for a patent, an idea "has to be new, non-obvious, useful and clearly described," Calvert says.

My tattoo inspiration is new, non-obvious and useful, but the description of how everything would work is about as clear as ink.

"A lot of times that's a real problem," Calvert says, recalling other doomed inventors. "They have this great idea and skip over all the details. … We get some people who think they have reinvented the wheel, and it just doesn't work."

Getting a patent is not a lark.

"It can be very costly," Calvert says. The filing fee is $500, and an inventor spends another $1,000 or so during the process of getting a patent. Once awarded, a patent has maintenance fees of more than $3,000 during its 20-year run.

Still, the office is getting a record number of applications, and approving fewer, about half, says Jennifer Rankin Byrne, a patent office spokeswoman.

"It is overwhelming in this age of innovation," Byrne says. The office received 444,000 applications in 2006, and about 9,000 a week now. Large companies, such as Motorola or Caterpillar, seek thousands of patents a year.

With a backlog of nearly 800,000 applications, "we're hiring about 1,200 examiners a year," Byrne adds. According to the Web site, examiner salaries range from $38,435 a year to $145,400.

The 5,000 examiners are experts in their fields. Calvert used to examine patents for the textile industry.

"So I saw a lot of socks and underwear," he says. While inventors may seem to have pushed the underwear and socks envelope as far as it can go, "there's always something there," he adds.

Thomas Edison was a great inventor, with more than 1,000 patents. But Donald A. Weder of Highland Supply Co. in southern Illinois actually has been awarded more total patents, Calvert says.

Weder's company (www.highlandsupply.com) is a leading manufacturer of floral and decorative packaging, including that fake grass found in Easter baskets. In a phone chat Wednesday, Weder downplays the fact that he has more patents than Edison.

"Could be, but I wouldn't want to be compared to Thomas Edison. He invented great things. Mine are simple little things. It's not the electric light," says Weder, 60, who runs the company, founded by his father in 1937. "He (Edison) changed the world. I haven't done that. I've just done a few things to make life a little more comfortable for our customers."

As prolific as Weder has been, he has his failures.

"Oh, absolutely; heart-breaking things that have happened," Weder says.

Sometimes, he unwittingly invents products that already exist. Once he patented a device to stop vases from tipping during delivery, only to discover that in the real world, "sometimes the containers tipped over and water spilled out and made a mess," recalls Weder, who pulled that product.

That's important. Even if I did patent glow-in-the-dark tattoos, my fortune wouldn't be ensured.

"A patent doesn't guarantee that somebody is going to make any money," Calvert says. "The only way you get any money is if you commercialize your idea."