Paved with good inventions.

• Author: Taylor, Mike
• Position: Money Matters - Rocky Mountain Inventors' Conference - Brief Article

A DIGITAL FAUCET THAT REGULATES THE TEMPERATURE OF TAP water. A leaf-scooping and bagging system that purportedly cuts fall raking chores in half. A snow plow that fits on the bumper of the common car. An easy-grip pen holder for teaching penmanship to tots.

These are just a few of the inventions displayed at the 24th Annual Rocky Mountain Inventors' Conference held Feb. 16 at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden and hosted by the Rocky Mountain Inventors and Entrepreneur's Congress.

Creating a product is only a small part of the battle for inventors hoping to take their products to market. Most of the products on display were looking for a home -- preferably a home on the shelf of a big-box retailer.

But applying for a patent -- which most of these inventors already have -- getting a licensing agreement and churning out mass quantities of a product takes money -- more money than most of these inventors have, or at least more than they're willing to spend.

"You've got to be as creative in finding money as you are in inventing your product," said Roger Jackson, a patent attorney who had a booth at conference. "You can't expect someone else to put up money for your invention if you aren't willing to risk anything."

Len Hierath, a mechanical engineer, was an exception in the Saturday crowd of inventors. He wasn't looking for funding. Hierath still is enjoying the fruits of a past success; about 10 years ago he invented a tennis score-keeping apparatus that he marketed himself for about eight years, making $105,000 in the product's best year. He later accepted a cash buyout for $100,000. That supplied him with the startup capital for his two most recent creations: the leaf scooper, and a composting system.

During the day-long conference, Hierath, his wife Carrie, and partner Daniel Voorhees manned a booth that included a bin of leaves -- a mosh pit, one observer quipped -- that allowed for first-hand testing of the scoop. "Anyone who's got deciduous trees in their yard can appreciate how this could cut down on their work by 50 percent," said Voorhees.

Brent Price of Colorado Springs is the inventor of a clamp for holding bikes upright in a pickup truck. The clamps are available in bike shops across the country -- an average of one bike shop per state, Price says -- and at every bike shop in Colorado Springs.

"I'm fortunate...