Toilet Overflow Protection

So a friend of mine mentioned one invention idea he'd had, a while ago, that got knocked down by naysayers. I'm here to pick it back up. As he puts it,

I came up with an awfully tremendous idea one day while shaving. I'd pulled up the stopper lever in the sink, and as it filled up with rinse water I started thinking about the little overflow hole near the top -- the one that channels excess water back down to the drain instead of letting it spill over the vanity top and onto the floor.

"Hmmm..." I wondered, "What if you did the same thing with a toilet? Just put a few draining holes in the toilet lip, above the channels where the flush water enters. Then when you launch your next Trident nuclear submarine and torrents of water start filling up the hopelessly clogged bowl, the excess flows right into the holes and back down to the DWV pipe where it belongs! No more scrambling like a madman to remove the lid to the toilet tank and grab the float valve! No more having to mop feces and urine off the bathroom tile!"

So, firstly there are technical problems with this, such as:

• How do you clean the new drain channel? Engineering solutions could surely be found, though, ranging from mesh screens to an access point for dropping in some drain cleaner.
• How do you build a new drain channel? Currently, water flows from the main storage area into the front of the bowl and flows down and towards the back. Any overflow hole would need to allow for that "main" inflow channel to continue, and find its own drain path somewhere else which then joined up with the usual drain channel. But all this means is that the overflow hole has to only accept water, you can't intend for it to be an alternate exit point for the, um, clogging entities.

Let's assume for discussion that these engineering problems can be overcome. You then have some IP issues, because this isn't the first time someone's thought this might be useful. With thanks to Steve Mastroyin, we have Patent 1 (2005) and Patent 2 (2000). They are for slightly different procedures but represent the same idea, and there are other filings which haven't been approved or are still in process. Basically, you have an uphill battle.

So that's all of the bad news - well, that and the fact that you are probably not a major home retailer with an 8-figure advertising budget. As we all know, IP has limits in its usefulness. But there is some good news:

1. None of these patents have been successfully commercialized. You know this intuitively because no one has ever mentioned to you about that "clog-proof toilet" they just bought, or saw on TV, or heard from a friend. All of these patents - I've checked - have not been assigned to a corporation, so nobody's even given this a serious try. They paid their patent attorney so they could tell their friends at parties, "hey, I have a patent for a clog-proof toilet!", but never had the gumption to try and beat a major corporation at its own game. This means that they are likely available for sale, and there may be multiple offers that a bidder could choose from, i.e. the price will be attractive.
2. The market for this, I believe, would be huge. Properly constructed, this wouldn't cost much more than a normal toilet. But the savings when you don't have to mop up, ruin towels, ruin an evening, would all be well worth it. Any homeowner - particularly those who like their red meat, shall we say - would gladly spring for this. Between residential and business locations, there's almost certainly more than one toilet for every person in this country. Let's assume 2/3s - that's 200 million - are residential. Yeah, your 100 million US households have an average of 2 toilets apiece. Maybe it's 150 million. Whatever. You can: (A) charge a price premium, (B) defend against someone like the Home Depot encroaching on your turf, and (C) sell almost by word of mouth alone, not that I'd suggest it. The ability to have fewer dealings with bowel movements in your life is a really strong value proposition - imagine if you invented a self-cleaning baby diaper. Think new parents would buy those? Bet on it.

Yeah, you're not going to build out a national sales, distribution and maintenance infrastructure to support a single product line. The efficiencies just aren't there in today's market. But there is a clear path to profitability here, and I think it runs along these lines:

1. Approach the current holders of these patents, negotiate a purchase with one of them, and acquire the IP. cost: $2000-5000, plus 1-2 months. You could try to do this without one by just ignoring a bunch of guys who can't afford to enforce their IP - ask Xerox how they feel about MS Windows - but your credibility would be shot on the sales end. So do the legwork.
2. Build a working prototype (or buy it off the previous patent holder). Heck, build a few, refine the manufacturing process. Get a demo procedure going, where you show how the thing gets clogged, starts to overflow, and then is saved by your overflow valve. Cost: ~$5000, 3-6 months realistically.
3. Source the manufacturing from China, or somewhere where there are major porcelain works. Your American Standard toilet over in your bathroom is probably not manufactured in this country. If you're going to mass produce these things, at least secure rights to the supply chain. Maybe you don't sign contracts, but at least get bids or letters of intent. Cost: <$1000, 2-3 months, can run concurrently with #2.
   
4. Now you approach major toilet manufacturers and major home retailers. The Home Depots of the world would love to be able to sell this, because they have the expertise to know exactly how much of a price premium they can charge, and their whole business is built around selling middle-aged men on things they don't necessarily need, but can be convinced they want. They break even on the really commoditized stuff like lumber, but they make a killing on tools, cabinets and appliances. The secret sauce here is to get them interested, get multiple bidders, and either strike a joint venture deal where you retain 10-20% of the equity, or at least an exclusive licensing agreement that pays you a % of gross sales. You don't need to convince them that it will change their business, you just have to convince them that if they don't buy it, their competitor (say, Lowe's) will, and will then have an edge (in a niche market, admittedly) that they can't match.

Millions of toilets are sold every year as old ones break down or homes get built or renovated. Think this wouldn't be a selling point of a new installation, or a consideration in every contractor's offerings? The tough part is making the sale, and that can only be done by convincing a company that:

• You're the furthest along in developing store-ready technology here
• They can't straight-up copy you or you'd actually have the resources to enforce your IP. Basically, a credible enough threat that it's cheaper for them to work with you than against you.
• You have a supply chain, or a plan for one, that would be able to credibly enter their market and actually compete if you wanted to. They don't have to know that you have no intention of quitting your day job to do so.

Yeah, it sounds a bit like a Bud Light "Real Men of Genius" kind of subject matter. But there's also some commercial sense behind all this.