Tag: Patents

Ways we can help you:

• • • Drafting, filing, and prosecuting patent applications
    • Embedding with innovation teams to harvest, refine, and protect ideas
    • Identifying patentable ideas within startup technologies
    • Landscaping markets to identify new opportunities
    • Developing patent strategies for products and startup
    • Managing the patent creation process from concept to product launch
    • Searching ideas for prior art patents
    • Reviewing prior art patents with product development teams
    • Building IP for VC/PE portfolio companies

Learn more at www.Gr8BigIdeas.com

 

#patents #patentengineering #startups #entrepreneurs #breakthrough #intellectualproperty #corporateinnovation #innovation

When a flood of ideas has your innovation program feeling stuck in the mud with more ideas than budget to work on them it might be time to rethink your approach. While not every idea can be built, every idea in your company can be recorded and the employee inventors recognized.

An idea bank in combination with a provisional patent program gives a company and its employees a clear pathway for harvesting, evaluating, and inexpensively protecting ideas. It is also a great way to recognize your employee inventors. With ideas identified and protected the company now has the time to develop plans and prioritize what ideas to build, what patents to license, and what to pass on.

Setting up a program is easy and drives employee engagement. Here are three key steps:

1. An invention disclosure form lets employees record their ideas. Organizing the forms in a database creates an idea bank. An idea review team evaluates the entries in the idea bank and decides which ideas are worth protecting.
2. For ideas worth protecting, the invention disclosure form serves as the basis of a provisional patent application. A good description of an idea is all that is needed. A provisional patent records an invention date and grants a patent pending status for 12 months. Done right, a provisional patent can be prepared and filed on the cheap, stretching your budget, patenting more, and paying less.
3. Provisional patents get evaluated during the pending year by the idea team, those that protect company products or can be licensed get converted into non-provisional patent applications, the kind that gets examined and issue as patents.

So, what is keeping you from setting up a program for your company?

 

Ways we can help you:

• • • Drafting, filing, and prosecuting patent applications
    • Embedding with innovation teams to harvest, refine, and protect ideas
    • Identifying patentable ideas within startup technologies
    • Landscaping markets to identify new opportunities
    • Developing patent strategies for products and startup
    • Managing the patent creation process from concept to product launch
    • Searching ideas for prior art patents
    • Reviewing prior art patents with product development teams
    • Building IP for VC/PE portfolio companies

Learn more at www.Gr8BigIdeas.com

 

#patents #patentengineering #startups #entrepreneurs #breakthrough #intellectualproperty #corporateinnovation #innovation

One of the observations I have made, from my work with corporates, startups, and entrepreneurs, is how much employees like to be part of an ideation workshop and write down their ideas on post-it notes or flip-charts. They end up creating even bigger and better ideas when they know there is a good chance it will be considered for a patent application.

Once the raw ideas are captured the work begins. There is something inspirational in watching employees become inventors and refine their ideas during the patent drafting process. The passion, details, features, possibilities, everything begins to evolve as the inventors unravel their thoughts and share details that give shape and vibrancy to a new invention.

Don't underestimate how many great ideas are in the heads of your employees just waiting for an opportunity to be discovered and shared.

For an entrepreneur (and we are all entrepreneurs at heart), I believe ideation is truly therapeutic. Where just before there seemed no path forward, suddenly there are new products, business models, and a renewed energy that drives business development. For a company, it is one of the best opportunity areas to create a competitive advantage and build employee engagement.

I'd like to offer three ways to energize your innovation program, harvest new ideas to solve business needs, increase your competitive advantage, and drive employee engagement.

• • Idea Capture Workshops | A great way to stoke the innovation fire and engage your company in a new conversation about innovation is to conduct an idea harvesting workshop. A well-facilitated workshop can start with a business need and collaboratively journey with a group of employees to explore and evolve solutions that meet the need.

• • Patent Programs | While workshops are great at generating ideas, there needs to be a clear pathway to convert the ideas into value for the company. Too often workshops are held, ideas generated, and then nothing else really happens. While a company can't develop every harvested idea, a bootstrap patenting program can inexpensively refine the raw ideas into patentably ownable concepts that help the company create a long term competitive advantage.

• • Inventor Recognition | A Human Resource colleague once told me, recognition is the best way to build employee engagement. I believe it. Everyone has ideas and wants to be heard, they just need a comfortable forum, an opportunity to share, and a little recognition for the effort. Workshops are a great forum for sharing and a bootstrap patent program can capture the value created from the workshop. Now make sure your innovation program recognizes the employees that become inventors.

 

Ways we can help you:

• • • Drafting, filing, and prosecuting patent applications
    • Embedding with innovation teams to harvest, refine, and protect ideas
    • Identifying patentable ideas within startup technologies
    • Landscaping markets to identify new opportunities
    • Developing patent strategies for products and startup
    • Managing the patent creation process from concept to product launch
    • Searching ideas for prior art patents
    • Reviewing prior art patents with product development teams
    • Building IP for VC/PE portfolio companies

Learn more at www.Gr8BigIdeas.com

 

#patents #patentengineering #startups #entrepreneurs #breakthrough #intellectualproperty #corporateinnovation #innovation

One of the most popular questions I get from startups and entrepreneurs is should software inventions be patented? The why-not, self-rationalization, is that software can't be patented (which is not true) and if we tried the patent office would likely reject the patent application making the whole thing a giant waste of time and money.

While admittedly the US Patent Office has been a challenge when it comes to software patents for the past several years, in early 2019 they published guidance on how the Examiners would evaluate, and yes, grant software patents.

Consider how you can leverage intellectual property in your sales and marketing process to land customers.

While the end game in applying for a patent is having it granted, I'd like to offer three ways a pending patent application, software, or otherwise can be used as a sales and marketing tool for startups and entrepreneurs looking to land business with big customers.

• • • Competitive Advantage | Advertising that you have a patent pending on your own proprietary technology creates a competitive advantage and allows you to differentiate your product offering, in the marketplace, from competitors.
    • Blocking Competitors | Typically 18 months after filing a patent application it publishes. Upon publication, Examiners can begin using it as prior art to stop others from patenting your idea. While startups always fear the big tech companies, never underestimate the value of blocking your "customer" from becoming your "competitor" after they learn about your product.
    • Intangible Value Creation | Big companies are always afraid to work with small companies. Scale, field service, regulatory, going concern worry, just because, you name it any excuse will do. In my startup, I noticed we started having more sales and marketing success after being vocal in our industry about building a patent portfolio, and the applications started to be published and granted. Looking back our patents, as well as our experience, began to define us as an industry innovator and leader. Suddenly, wanting to become a customer or partner was an easy choice and our sales and business grew quickly.

As your company looks to create sales traction, if you are working on innovative software and algorithms consider patenting and organizing your sales and marketing efforts to leverage IP as a tool to close sales.

Ways we can help you:

• • • Drafting, filing, and prosecuting patent applications
    • Embedding with innovation teams to harvest, refine, and protect ideas
    • Identifying patentable ideas within startup technologies
    • Landscaping markets to identify new opportunities
    • Developing patent strategies for products and startup
    • Managing the patent creation process from concept to product launch
    • Searching ideas for prior art patents
    • Reviewing prior art patents with product development teams
    • Building IP for VC/PE portfolio companies

Learn more at www.Gr8BigIdeas.com

 

#patents #patentengineering #startups #entrepreneurs #breakthrough #intellectualproperty #corporateinnovation #innovation

I was recently working with an entrepreneur who had an idea in the health care space. The idea came to him through an observation of how people are shopping during COVID. Simple and elegant he started to build a prototype.

While the prototype was being built I did a patent search and discovered that while unique in solving a COVID type challenge, the parts, techniques, and processes had been mentioned in prior patents. The patent search results suggested that if we prepared and filed a patent application, on the original idea, it would be easy for the Patent Examiner to reject it.

When Patent Search Results Stand In Your Way, Reimagine A New Solution For The Problem Being Solved.

Instead of giving up on the idea, the entrepreneur looked more closely at the problem he was trying to solve and in view of what was learned, in the patent search, reimagined a new solution. The resulting new idea worked more seamlessly with shopper behavior, was easier and cheaper to manufacture, was adaptable to more store environments, targeted potentially bigger industries and partners, and perhaps most importantly looked like an idea that would be easier to get through the patent office. Enthusiasm went from a low when the patent search looked like a roadblock to a high when the original good idea evolved into a great idea.

Are you ready to turn your good idea into a great idea?

• • • Try patent searching your own idea on Google's patent search website patents.google.com and see what you find.
    • Then, in view of your search results, reimagine how you can solve the problem differently; faster, better, cheaper so to speak.

You might have just turned your good idea into a great idea.

This technique also works well in an innovation workshop format.

• • • Identify a problem to solve and refine a solution in a workshop group setting.
    • Do a patent search while the group is at lunch.
    • Have the group make the idea better in view of the patent search results.

Ways we can help you:

• • • Drafting, filing, and prosecuting patent applications
    • Embedding with innovation teams to harvest, refine, and protect ideas
    • Identifying patentable ideas within startup technologies
    • Landscaping markets to identify new opportunities
    • Developing patent strategies for products and startup
    • Managing the patent creation process from concept to product launch
    • Searching ideas for prior art patents
    • Reviewing prior art patents with product development teams
    • Building IP for VC/PE portfolio companies

Learn more at www.Gr8BigIdeas.com

 

#patents #patentengineering #startups #entrepreneurs #breakthrough #intellectualproperty #corporateinnovation #innovation

Sometimes executives know exactly what to do and just can't make innovation happen internally in their organization. Common symptoms might include your blood boiling as you pound sand in futile efforts pitching ideas that go nowhere with senior leadership or you feel like you have run out of runway, finding yourself at a dead-end in your organization. When your barriers to successfully advancing your innovative ideas become your Legal, Finance, or the flat-earth society members in your IT department, take this as a sign your ideas might be too disruptive for your organization and better developed, and piloted faster and more efficiently in the tech community.

Bring your business need into our Innovation Lab in Atlanta. We will patent protect your idea and develop a solution for you. Working in an innovation lab environment has lots of advantages including:

• • • Working around your internal barriers and with external experts who don't have your organization's innovation constraints;
    • Giving your tech talent a new home to work from. Innovation Labs in the tech community provide the perfect environment for workshops and team meetings. The labs are also a great place for your Associates to be around entrepreneurs and work remotely.
    • Encouraging senior leaders to meet offsite in a more innovative environment helps them focus, hear from entrepreneurs first-hand, and gain an appreciation for how the tech community can speed the development of innovative solutions.

 

Be your own startup with us. We also like to partner with executives transitioning (or thinking of transitioning) out of corporate who have great ideas of their own. In a similar manner, we can bring your idea into the innovation lab, create intellectual property to protect it, and then develop, pilot, and help you grow your business opportunity.

Ways we can help you:

• • • Drafting, filing, and prosecuting patent applications
    • Embedding with innovation teams to harvest, refine, and protect ideas
    • Identifying patentable ideas within startup technologies
    • Landscaping markets to identify new opportunities
    • Developing patent strategies for products and startup
    • Managing the patent creation process from concept to product launch
    • Searching ideas for prior art patents
    • Reviewing prior art patents with product development teams
    • Building IP for VC/PE portfolio companies

Learn more at www.Gr8BigIdeas.com

 

#patents #patentengineering #startups #entrepreneurs #breakthrough #intellectualproperty #corporateinnovation #innovation

Patent Services for Startups, Entrepreneurs, and Innovative Companies

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"My idea ... became 'our' idea"

When I meet with entrepreneurs to talk about their idea, often a concern they have is how to go back in time and document that they were the original owner of their idea. Why? So "friends" like family, business associates, and product developers don't start calling it their idea too. It is a valid concern and often the entrepreneur has come to this realization a bit too late.

"I had the idea and engaged some developers. Now my developers think it is their idea too."

Entrepreneurs often pitch their ideas to those around them to get feedback. Then to test out an idea, many entrepreneurs assemble a skilled team to build a prototype, website, marketing plan, develop a software application, and so on. Suddenly, usually about the time, the idea gets close to product launch and revenue generation, things change. Some of those people who were in the loop or doing the work become vocal about their contributions and perceived ownership interest in the idea. It can create a real worry and a big mess for the entrepreneur.

I wish I would have protected my idea before...

Sharing

Assembling a development team

Working with manufacturers

Pitching to investors

Pilot testing

Taking that meeting with what now looks to be a competitor

Public presentation at a trade show

Offering it for sale

To mitigate the risk of your idea getting away from you, consider filing a patent application. In particular, the US Patent and Trademark Office has a type of patent called a provisional patent. The provisional patent is low cost to file, provides a documented filing date, and perhaps most importantly establishes what the idea is and who owns it.

The provisional patent gives you a patent-pending status for a twelve-month period. Easy to prepare, the application only requires a cover sheet that identifies the inventors (and a few other things) and a description of the idea.

The application can be filed online at the US Patent and Trademark Office website. The filing fee is $70US, $140US, or $280US depending upon your filing status. Most startups and entrepreneurs fall into the $70US micro entity or $140US small entity filing status. The applications are held in secrecy at the Patent Office. They are not examined and do not mature into patents (There is a different type of patent application for that).

Need help protecting your idea? Patent services tailored to startups and entrepreneurs is what we do.

 

Ways we can help you:

• • • Drafting, filing, and prosecuting patent applications
    • Embedding with innovation teams to harvest, refine, and protect ideas
    • Identifying patentable ideas within startup technologies
    • Landscaping markets to identify new opportunities
    • Developing patent strategies for products and startup
    • Managing the patent creation process from concept to product launch
    • Searching ideas for prior art patents
    • Reviewing prior art patents with product development teams
    • Building IP for VC/PE portfolio companies

Learn more at www.Gr8BigIdeas.com

 

#patents #patentengineering #startups #entrepreneurs #breakthrough #intellectualproperty #corporateinnovation #innovation

I came across a hilarious list of things corporates try when they want to look more innovative. Sadly, you know the list is true if you are in Corporate Innovation and that's what makes it so funny. Credits to Tristan Kromer @ the Grasshopper Herder Lean Startup Blog for the list, with a few of my edits.

Might I suggest an alternative? Working with our Corporate Partners, we help them set goals and create an Innovation Roadmap around solving their challenges by leveraging the Tech Community. Then acting as a community facilitator for them, we tailor and facilitate events, accelerators, knowledge-building workshops, tech scouting, patent creation, and talent engagement opportunities to drive successful innovation outcomes in the tech community to meet their goals.

Enjoy the List:

1. Start an accelerator.

2. Buy hoodies for everyone in the accelerator!

3. Do a “find-and-replace” for the word “strategy” and replace it with an “innovation thesis.”

4. Anytime anyone on your team uses the word prototype, correct them with “MVP”.

5. Have the CEO talk about failure without actually admitting failure.

6. Create a stage-gate innovation process for the accelerator, but call it “metered funding.”

7. Rename the accelerator into an incubator.

8. Have the CEO talk optimistically about the incubator's innovation pipeline of new products, then fire an incubator team member or two because their roles have been eliminated.

9. Hire a consultant. And while you’re at it, hire another one.

10. Hire a Vice President of Innovation to oversee the incubator, but under no circumstances hire a President of Innovation.

11. Drop the phrase “Innovation Ecosystem” into random sentences. E.g. “The coffee makes for a great innovation ecosystem.”

12. Fire the consultant. And while you’re at it, fire the other one too.

13. Rename the incubator an Idea Lab.

14. Underfund the Idea Lab. It increases creative pressure.

15. Refuse to continue funding products from the Idea Lab because they don’t align with strategy. When asked what the strategy is, create a distraction, and run.

16. Now that the Idea Lab is up and running, create an Innovation Ecosystem consisting of two high potential employees and an intern.

17. Run a hackathon – no wait…make it an idea jam.

18. Change the floor plan in your office from cubicles to an open layout.

19. Assign all innovation team members to a minimum of 6 business-as-usual projects because “innovation is everyone’s job.”

20. Ensure that all workplaces are ergonomically optimized by using copies of the Lean Startup to adjust the height of everyone’s computer monitors.

21. Buy a lot of LEGOs.

22. Change the open floor layout by building cubicles out of LEGOs and insist it increases productivity.

23. Make sure all the office walls are covered in important-looking post-it notes.

24. Organize a safari to Silicon Valley. Wear hats and bring sunscreen.

25. Create a canvas. Insist that it is better than the Business Model Canvas.

26. Hire a different consultant.

27. Talk about embracing a culture of failure, then fail at embracing a culture of failure. Repeat Step 27 if necessary.

28. Test all ideas in one week with a design sprint. Don’t allow any extensions. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they probably could’ve done it in a week if they tried harder.

29. Implement a four-year plan to get rid of four-year business plans.

30. Go back to using the Business Model Canvas.

31. Train innovation catalysts, but give them no projects to work on.

32. Align the fiscal calendar with Eric Ries’ birthday, author of the Lean Startup book.

33. And lastly, hire McKinsey. No one ever got fired for hiring McKinsey.

There are always more ideas than money to protect them. Instead of spending a bunch of money to protect a few ideas why not try an approach that brings an in-house capability to protect all your ideas, on a shoestring budget, in true entrepreneurial bootstrap fashion.

We welcome the opportunity to work with VC and PE firms and their portfolio companies to identify, capture, and protect breakthrough opportunities.

Step 1: Marco Trends & Patent Landscape

Collaboratively, we'll study your area of interest and build a storyboard that identifies key trends, patents, and opportunity areas. The storyboard will be used as part of an ideation session with your team to harvest new products and services ideas.

Step 2: Idea Harvesting & Idea Map Creation

Ranking and scoring the harvested ideas we'll create an idea map that will identify patenting opportunities, inform a vision, and zero in on high-value business-impactful innovation opportunities.

Bundling the strong ideas we'll collaborate with you to develop an IP creation and patent strategy which will protect the company's core innovations, position ideas for licensing, and introduce blocking disruption to derail competitors.

Step 3: Building Strategic IP

Inventing differently, an in-house program is flexible and can be designed right into existing innovation processes. Bringing the creation of patent applications closer to the technical team doing the work gets them involved in the process which in turn makes better quality patent applications. Our Bootstrap Patenting approach shortens the distance between conceiving and protecting breakthrough ideas. Patent more, pay less, break the by-the-hour law model.

Ways we can help you:

• • • Drafting, filing, and prosecuting patent applications
    • Embedding with innovation teams to harvest, refine, and protect ideas
    • Identifying patentable ideas within startup technologies
    • Landscaping markets to identify new opportunities
    • Developing patent strategies for products and startup
    • Managing the patent creation process from concept to product launch
    • Searching ideas for prior art patents
    • Reviewing prior art patents with product development teams
    • Building IP for VC/PE portfolio companies

Learn more at www.Gr8BigIdeas.com

 

#patents #patentengineering #startups #entrepreneurs #breakthrough #intellectualproperty #corporateinnovation #innovation

It's a new game now. Were all in lean startup mode. Time to re-invention everything. How have the events of the last few weeks, with the virus outbreak, changed your industry, business, and customers forever? Let's Find out!

Jump Start Your Innovation Program

Step 1: Marco Trends & Patent Landscape

Collaboratively, we'll study your area of interest and build a storyboard that identifies key trends, patents, and opportunity areas. The storyboard will be used as part of an ideation session with your team to harvest new products and services ideas.

Step 2: Create and Innovation Roadmap

Ranking and scoring the ideas we'll create an idea map that will identify patenting opportunities, inform a vision, and zero in on high-value business-impactful innovation opportunities.

The deliverable will be an innovation roadmap complete with a proposal to organize entrepreneurial talent in the tech community to develop and pilot the solution.

Step 3: Develop & Pilot A Solution

Let us show you how the tech community accelerates innovation. We'll do the patent creation work, organize the talent, and develop and pilot a solution for you. We can get your idea patented and piloted this year!

Ways we can help you:

• • • Drafting, filing, and prosecuting patent applications
    • Embedding with innovation teams to harvest, refine, and protect ideas
    • Identifying patentable ideas within startup technologies
    • Landscaping markets to identify new opportunities
    • Developing patent strategies for products and startup
    • Managing the patent creation process from concept to product launch
    • Searching ideas for prior art patents
    • Reviewing prior art patents with product development teams
    • Building IP for VC/PE portfolio companies

Learn more at www.Gr8BigIdeas.com

 

#patents #patentengineering #startups #entrepreneurs #breakthrough #intellectualproperty #corporateinnovation #innovation