Most inventors fail not because their ideas are bad, but because there is no affordable path from concept to protection. Patent attorneys cost $10,000 or more per filing. Prototype development requires equipment most people don’t have access to. Market evaluation requires data most people don’t know how to find.
SmithWorks was built to close those gaps — one step at a time, in order, at prices an independent inventor can afford.
Step one: find out if it’s worth pursuing
SmithScore is a free tool that evaluates your invention concept across ten categories — market viability, technical feasibility, competitive landscape, and seven others. You describe your idea. SmithScore asks hard questions. At the end, you get a score and a roadmap that tells you where the concept is strong, where it’s weak, and what to work on next.
No cost. No account required. You can try it right now.
Step two: do the work most inventors skip
SmithForge is an AI business coach built specifically for inventors. It costs $99 — and it will not let you cut corners.
Most inventors jump straight from idea to patent filing and skip the work that determines whether the idea will actually sell. SmithForge forces the hard steps: talk to potential buyers, get real feedback, identify who the product is actually for, find out what they would pay, and document what you learn. It is designed to be direct. If you try to substitute a social media campaign for a phone call to a real customer, it will tell you no.
The $99 is not a fee for the tool. It is a commitment. The inventor who pays it and does the work is the inventor who is serious.
Step three: document it the way the patent office requires
Whether you file a patent yourself or hire an attorney to do it, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office requires the same documentation: invention disclosure, prior art research, drawings, development logs, materials and methods, and witness signatures on every page.
The Patent Ledger is a specialized notebook designed to hold all of it. Every page has dual witness signature blocks — because the patent office requires two, and every other lab notebook on the market only has one. The sections are structured to match what the patent office asks for, so nothing gets missed.
An IP attorney charges $500 to $800 an hour. The first two hours are typically spent just hearing your idea and gathering the information you already know. The Patent Ledger organizes that information before the attorney ever sees it — whether you hire one or decide to file on your own.
What we are building
The steps above are available now. What follows is what CrowdSmith is building toward — and it changes the math for inventors entirely.
CrowdSmith trains people through the SmithFellow credential program. Those graduates — researchers, fabricators, business planners, CAD technicians — need real projects to work on. Invention concepts are those projects. A SmithFellow in research validates your market. A SmithFellow in fabrication builds your prototype. A SmithFellow in entrepreneurship writes your business case. The inventor gets a team. The SmithFellow gets supervised experience on a live project as part of earning their credential.
At the end of that process, a donor funds the patent filing. The inventor keeps 100% ownership. No equity. No royalties. No ownership stake.
Thirty-seven concepts are already in the portfolio. The system exists because the founder needed it himself — and decided to build the room that didn’t exist for anyone who needs it.
Your idea. Your name. Your patent. That is how it is supposed to work.