An encyclopedia of invention
About iInvent.
An encyclopedia for the people who actually invent things. 218 articles, 31 country guides, 9 templates, two interactive tools mapping every stage from idea to grant. Free. Always.
Our mission
Most inventors have the idea. They lack the map.
The patent system is global, technical, and unforgiving — and the best information about it sits behind paywalls, inside law-firm CRMs, or scattered across a dozen national patent offices in a dozen languages. iInvent exists to put that knowledge in one place, in plain language, for the inventor who is doing this for the first time.
We are not a law firm. We are not a marketplace. We are not a filing service. We are a reference library — the one we wished had existed when each of us was filing our first patent.
Our story
It started with a question.
How does a solo inventor file a patent in a country they don't live in?
The answer existed, but it was scattered across a hundred sources, half of them out of date, the other half written for lawyers. So we started writing it down. One article became ten. Ten became a hundred. Two hundred and eighteen articles, thirty-one country guides, and a year later, iInvent is what that question grew into.
We chose to build the encyclopedia first because everything else — the community, the directory, the relationships with patent professionals — only matters if the underlying knowledge is right. A wrong fact in an article is a wrong filing in real life. So we cite our sources, we date our updates, and we treat the article surface as something the rest of the platform sits on top of, never something we monetise through.
Why now
Two forces have converged.
The independent inventor has been historically underserved, but AI is changing what's possible. Tasks that once required expensive specialists — prior-art research, technical drafting, jurisdictional translation, learning patent law — are now achievable by individuals at modest cost. A retired engineer in Karachi, a software developer in Lagos, a designer in São Paulo, a small-team inventor in Manila: each of them can now do work that would have required a research team a decade ago.
The pool of people who can credibly attempt to invent is growing fastest in the markets where institutional IP support is least available. More inventors are entering the system. Most of them are entering without corporate backing, retained counsel, or budgets to file in fifty jurisdictions. iInvent exists for them.
For the record
What iInvent is — and isn't.
What iInvent is
- A reference library, kept current and citable.
- An interactive map of the inventor's journey, from idea capture to portfolio scaling.
- A directory where inventors find vetted patent attorneys, designers, and prototyping firms — organised by jurisdiction, sector, and language.
- A community where inventors learn from each other and from the professionals who serve them.
What iInvent is not
- Not a law firm. We do not give legal advice.
- Not a filing service. We do not file applications on your behalf.
- Not a marketplace. We do not take a cut of any work between an inventor and an attorney.
- Not a payment middleman. iInvent never holds third-party funds.
- Not advertising-supported. No ads, email-walls, paywalls, or in-article promotions.
- Not investor-backed. Bootstrapped, dividend-oriented, no exit on the horizon.
218
Articles
31
Country Guides
30
Walkthroughs
9
Templates
The community compact
Seven principles, printed on the wall.
These are the rules iInvent is governed by. They apply to how we work with patent attorneys, designers, prototyping firms, and other professionals who serve inventors through the platform. They will not change without public notice.
01
The encyclopedia stays free, forever.
No paywalls, no email-walls, no premium tier. The article surface is a public good.
02
Free to join the directory.
Patent attorneys, designers, prototyping firms, and other professionals join at no cost. Visibility is earned through engagement, not purchased.
03
Merit-based discovery.
Search rankings reflect community engagement and profile completeness. No pay-for-placement, ever.
04
iInvent never handles third-party funds.
Where sponsors fund inventor work, the sponsor pays the stakeholder directly. iInvent provides the transparent reporting layer — not the wallet.
05
Inventors are the customer, always.
Institutions interact with iInvent only as sponsors funding inventors. We do not sell to universities, accelerators, governments, or corporations as primary customers.
06
AI is a tool; humans are responsible.
Where iInvent uses AI to assist research or summarise content, qualified humans review the output before it carries iInvent's name.
07
Editorial integrity is non-negotiable.
Every article is sourced. Every claim is traceable. Every fee figure is dated. When a claim becomes stale, it is corrected.
How iInvent operates
Bootstrapped.
Free in Year One.
iInvent is operated by Taprano LLC, a privately-held entity. We are bootstrapped and dividend-oriented. There is no institutional equity, no venture-capital cap table, no pressure to optimise for an exit.
For Year 1, the encyclopedia and community are entirely free. There are no paid products, no subscriptions, and no commercial transactions on the platform. The cost of operating iInvent is borne by the founder.
In Year 2 and beyond, we may introduce optional services — AI-assisted research outputs, sponsor-an-inventor coordination, and similar — designed to support the encyclopedia and community without compromising their accessibility. The principles in the Community Compact will continue to govern any future commercial layer.
Licence
Open Use
The entire iInvent encyclopedia is published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 licence. Quote it, translate it, build on it — credit iInvent.
Read the licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The standard
The patent system penalises imprecision.
Inventors lose rights to typos, missed deadlines, mistranslated claims, and out-of-date country information. So we hold the encyclopedia to a higher standard than commentary, blog posts, or AI-generated summaries.
Every claim is sourced. Every fee is dated. Every country guide is reviewed against the national patent office's most recent fee schedule. When a fact changes, we update it.
If you find something wrong, tell us. We will fix it, credit you in the article, and ship the correction the same day where we can.
Get involved
Four ways in.
Inventors
Start with the Encyclopedia
Begin with the encyclopedia or the journey. Join the community when you're ready to ask questions or find a professional in your jurisdiction.
Browse the encyclopedia
Patent professionals
Join the directory
Patent attorneys, design firms, prototyping shops, translators — free to list, merit-ranked, no pay-for-placement. Help inventors find you.
Read the Compact
Sponsors
Sponsor an inventor
Governments, foundations, family offices, individual sponsors. The sponsor-an-inventor programme activates once the community has reached scale.
Get in touch
Everyone else
Read. Share. Tell an inventor.
The encyclopedia exists to be read and circulated. If an article helped you, send it to someone else who might benefit from it.
Open the library