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You don’t need to come up with your own breakthrough idea to make a mint, you can just steal one. Take for example the Rabbit corkscrew. Originally, the product was called the Screwpull and retailed for $250, but after the patent expired Yet Riki Kane, founder of Metrokane, designed the Rabbit off of Screwpull technology.

She markets it at $50 and it’s now carried by 46 worldwide distributors. Last year she sold around 826,000, which would be over $20 million in sales at the wholesale price. So Metrokane built a product into $20 million in sales in seven years off of a “stolen” idea. Just fabulous.

Another genius idea Kane employs is branding similar products at different price levels. The Houdini is a Rabbit knock off that retails for a cheaper price, but it was created by the same company. They knew someone would create a cheaper similar product (like they originally did to the Screwpull) so they acted first, cannibalized a bit of their sales, but gained overall. Genius.

So next time you think you need a great idea try looking through patents that are about to expire and see if you can find some buried gold. You can start by checking out the US Patent and Trademark Office.

-Craig Sharkton