Kristin Garcia ⋅ Norman, OK The University of Oklahoma, Tom Love Innovation Hub ⋅ 15 years experience

I love this idea, Parris. As somebody who travels and there's never enough blankets I can't wait to see what your idea is and to see it in stores soon. I'm working with Stanford to market their entrepreneur summer program for Veterans to give a crash course in business development. I encourage you to check it out and let me know if I can help you with your application. The deadline is 3 Mar 2016.
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/programs/stanford-ignite/campus/post-9-11-veterans

Justin Moodley ⋅ Columbus, OH LASANAN ⋅ 12 years experience

To answer your marketing question:

If you're taking an original product to market but don't have an advertising budget, I would focus energy on creating some kind of website/on-line store and PR.

1 - online store) There are some really affordable solutions like etsy and ebay. And if you're interested in building your own website, a domain and hosting account shouldn't cost you more than $150/year and there are platforms like WordPress that are free to utilize in order to build a website. Even without development experience you can download a free theme and customize things in a pretty straight-forward administration.

2 - PR) You don't need to hire a public relations firm in order to research publications that may be interested in your product, sending out some messages, and doing follow-up calls. There are websites like Fiverr.com where you can find people to help you create and distribute your press release as well. Chances are a veteran-owned small business revolving around a cool invention will get some attention.

George Valencia ⋅ Elk Grove, CA Financial Services ⋅ 20 years experience

Legalzoom.com has a good process for patent lawyer and preliminary work. I would ensure you find someone you can trust though. I have had a couple friends that had bad experiences with the patent process using lawyers that were not well versed and lost some patent leverage. Others had great experience, but you might determine what type of patent you are after and how you plan to progress. Some suggest get the patent process started prior to marketing and others start marketing and keep the design patent secretive until the patent is pending. So many options and might want to get more detailed advice from a lawyer.

Good for you sir on going down this path! The intellectual property rights can be priceless.

Godspeed.

Tom Cal, CFA ⋅ San Francisco, CA Army Veteran, Investment Manager ⋅ 25 years experience

Reach out to score.org and request to be matched with local and remote mentors with patent expertise, some or all of whom are lawyers.

Madalyn Mercado ⋅ New Rochelle, NY Bloomberg ⋅ 14 years experience

Hello Mr. Watson - You need to contact a Patent Attorney to guide with the application and possible incite into how to advertise your product. As you may know, patent applications are filed the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (www.uspto.gov). There you may obtain more information to the basic procedure in how to start the process.

Good Luck!