QuadCrate
The Project
Quadcrate fits onto the back of a quad bike, and has a number of uses for carrying heavy loads around the farm.
“I found Innovate were very helpful and professional in all areas of the patent research process. The designs were done well, in 3D, and the advice was brilliant.”
Client:Â William Allingham
Website:Â www.quadcrate.co.ukÂ
Quadcrate has a UK and international patent pending. Â
The challenge
William Allingham first came to Innovate Product Design with his idea after his trailer slowed down and often stopped his quad bike. He William’s invention was for a crate which could be fitted directly onto his quad bike and he came to Innovate looking for help with the patent, design and assistance then in taking the product to market. - See more at: http://www.innovate-design.com/invention-case-studies/25/#sthash.GfHku5iE.dpuf
The Innovate Solution
William understood the need for clarity regarding existing intellectual property and before working on the visualisation of the product used Innovate to perform a thorough patent search. Once the results from this came through and the potential for the project was confirmed, William sat down with Innovate’s product design team and engineers to look to develop the idea from William’s sketch into something that he could patent and then commercialize.
During the product design phase of the project, William sat down with Innovate to define the exactly what he was looking for from the product. After these deliverables were defined, in line with the results of the patent research and William’s vision for the product, Innovate produced a number of variations on the basic idea. Once William’s preferred concept was confirmed, Innovate proceeded to develop this concept to produce presentation boards and supporting materials. These helped William to present his idea to manufacturers, as well as give a visual support to William’s application for patent. From here, William began with the hard work of taking his invention to market!
The Process
With Innovate Design's assistance and advice William was able to:
- Confirm a suitably sized potential market for the Quadcrate to enter into
- Establish the suitability for patent via a thorough intellectual property search
- Use Innovate’s Product Design team to develop the idea into a visualized concept
- Produce photorealistic CAD visualizations
- Assist with providing supporting materials and advice for patent application
- Help explain the manufacturing process
- Explain the potential routes to market and potential obstacles to overcome
The Results
Since the Quadcrate product launched in 2009, the product has won a number of awards including the Eircom Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Eircom Best Rural Business of the Year, as well as featuring in the Smarta 100 list of top new businesses and being a finalist in the Shell Livewire Young Entreprenur of the Year Awards.