yabbie balls.

I have faced a similar issue with my yabbie balls, the red tape has made it a very anoying process.

I've been an aquaponics fan for about 6-7 years now and I teach marine science at a high school where I've been wanted to setup an aquaponics system for... forever! I now have one one and am loving it...

So, I'm after advice on how to progress past this point of an idea to turn it into something polished enough and tested to be worthwhile and then how to actually start producing it. I really have no idea. I can make it myself... I'm pretty handy and practical and enjoy getting my hands dirty...

...but realistically I don't think I can do it and teach at the same time and I can't just stop teaching as I'm the sole breadwinner with three kids and a wife to support as well as maintain my small farm and all my other 'addictions'. Money is really tight as well so actually getting things together will be difficult. I also don't want to get taken for a ride and ripped off.

I had a business that patented a device that isn't really related to AP, It was a sand bag filling tool. I live In Utah in the U.S., we used a law firm that we learned about after a lot of research. The way our attorney described the provisional patent (first step in the U.S.) is like a plot of land. You want to draw up your provisional patent with as much ground covered as possible, you should read the patent he wrote "may be used for this," "in this orientation," a lot of vagaries in the description help you in the event of someone doing something similar to what you propose. It cost us around a thousand to file and pay fees, but that only bought us a year, and we have to file the full patent to proceed now.

I don't know the Australian patent process, but if there's an equivalent of a provisional patent, I would have it done professionally if at all possible. Not only will it protect you immensely, it also adds an air of professionalism when you present your idea to potential angel investors.

Right now though I'd recommend 3 things. Research, research, and then a lot more research. Know what's out there, your potential market, and what your cost of production could be, opposed to your planned price point. Fixed costs, variable costs, there's a reason universities charge so much for a business degree. (Which I need to get back to, I'm vegging on BYAP rather then finishing the marketing reading for my class tonight.)

Having looked at IP protection before, can I suggest you consider long and hard exactly how much you want to invest into patents.

Patent costs of submission, enforcement and litigation costs alot of money. Especially if you're talking about multi territorial patents, you'll need to submit to every area you wish to 'protect'.

If what you're patenting is hard to replicate, then that's a tick in the box. If it can be replicated easily, it would be difficult to police and enforce across jurisdictions.

If there are substitutes/options, that's cross in the list.

Maybe being recognized as the 'inventor' of your particular 'solution' and have the product/design/process established or credited as 'yours' in the industry may be enough to give you the sufficient impetus to kickstart your aquaponics 'business venture'.

eg. Aquaponics systems - there are so many variants... you wish to patent a particular type, for a particular species/purpose -- that's all fine and good, but you've got to ensure that the costs of doing all this is less than the expected/realised returns.

Either way, all the best .

Aquaponics to me starts off as a hobby/interest which doesn't necessarily mean big dollar investments. If you're targeting the commercial sector, then different factors come into play, as I'd view that as quite different from the DIY/home type setup.

"What do I know, i'm just a noob"...