Archive for Patents
Business Model Innovation: E-Lynxx Makes Procurement Transparent with Automated Auctions
Ask the leaders of a business how much they spend on printing. The response can be interesting, even hilarious. It’s an expense that is easily overlooked yet can be substantial. Few companies know if they are being overbilled. Decisions may be handled by cloudy processes where influences other than quality and value sometimes hold sway. Indeed, the fundamentals of the procurement process in many companies leave inefficiency if not outright abuse. The problem isn’t just in printing, either. Many parts and services handled through standard procurement systems can result in excessive costs. Enter an interesting business model innovation: E-Lynxx. For added spice, we’re talking patented business model innovation. Yes, E-Lynxx has a business model enhanced with the aura of two US patents.
William Gindlesperger is the founder and CEO of E-Lynxx. My source tells me he has over 25 years of experience in the printing industry, where found that the decision making process was antiquated and left companies vulnerable in many ways. He pursued business model innovation to come up with a system that could make the process transparent and more efficient. Under his business model, be provides software and services up front at not cost, getting paid only when the client saves real money from his work. Then he gets a cut of the savings. Low risk.
When a company turns to E-Lynxx, they receive software and training in how to use E-Lynxx’s open auction system. Bids are offered to a large array of qualified vendors who then bid on the deal. The vendors can see the competitive bids and so can the client. This transparency helps bring costs down substantially, often reducing print costs by 25-50%. E-Lynxx gets part of the savings. What’s not to like? Well, those who aren’t getting as much gravy might not like it, but if it’s your business, these kind of cost savings should be welcome news.
E-Lynxx has three granted US patents and another pending. The granted patents are US 6,397,197; 7,451,106; and 7,788,143; all by the CEO and founder himself. Business method patents are still alive and can play important roles in some companies. Whether they are needed or not for this company, I like the innovative approach that E-Lynxx is taking to bring the procurement process into the light where more efficient transactions can occur with large costs savings.
For Corporations, Intellectual Asset Strategy Should Lead Innovation
A problem with many corporate IP management efforts is that they are reactive only. These IP systems typically focus on incoming invention disclosures and existing patent applications, leading to recommendations on which disclosures to file, which countries to file in, and which existing applications to abandon for cost control. These are vital components for intellectual asset (IA) management, but they typically fall short in providing strategy that can inform prospective inventors about what kind of inventions are needed.
Effective IA management begins not with the processing of existing documents, but with the development and articulation of vision to guide the process of IA generation and acquisition. It begins with a roadmap of what the corporation needs to own and protect, and that roadmap can then be infused into a written IA strategy statement that guides the IA-generating community to know what they need to create, and also guides IA committees to know what they should be approving.
Written strategy statements can help innovators be more successful and decision makers more disciplined, though there must also be leeway for out-of-the-strategy-box inventions that could lead to unexpected opportunities. However, most IA generating work in a corporation can and should be targeted and focused on specific objectives.
Once a clear vision is communicated regarding the IA needs of the corporation, IA generating activities can be used to supplement normal new product development and R&D. These exercises can be driven by the IA management team to achieve low-cost IA estates in targeted areas for specific objectives, such as averting a disruptive threat, laying a foundation for future IP in a potentially disruptive area where R&D investment is not yet available, weakening the IP potential of a competitive merger or acquisition, etc. At least a portion of the IA generating efforts of a corporation should be driven from the top with a clear objective in mind, rather than waiting for random invention disclosures to trickle up during the course of normal R&D activities. IA strategy should lead innovation.
Helping Clients Generate IP: Preparation is the Key
At Innovationedge, one of our favorite activities is working with a team in what we call an “Edge Session” to create new intellectual assets. It’s not not brainstorming, where a flood of bad ideas are welcome, but an iterative process in which the goal is enabled, good concepts that are fleshed out enough to support drafting of a meaningful invention disclosures. A key part of the Edge Session is refining problem statements, moving from broad, vague questions to more specific problem statements that guide inventors on what is needed. We introduce stimulus elements that are coupled with the problem statements to stimulate thinking. The stimulus elements can be used in addressing a problem directly or as associative thinking tools to change the way people look at the problem–all part of the steps along the way to creating records of an enabled invention that, in turn, can readily support IP generation such as drafting a patent application, documenting a trade secret, or preparing a defensive publication.
Preparation has been the key for success. A big part of the preparation is ours as we dig into the literature, patents, and competitive intelligence. Sometimes we conduct pre-workshop interviews to get a landscape of what the client already knows so that we can better begin with that starting point as we help them create and document more.
The preparation by the client is also critical. One key part of their preparation is the selection of team members. Groups of about 5 to 25 people work well, with maybe 7 to 15 being the preferred range. The group works well if there is sufficient diversity in experience and background. For example, even in dealing with highly technical problems, I like to have at least one marketer in the team, someone with great hands-on experience dealing with consumer insights or other sources of marketing information. The perspective a good marketing person can bring is often vital for the success of an IP-generation project.
Teams also can be more effective when the prepare by reading the materials we provide on the prior art, competitive efforts, etc. We recognize, though, that many times team members won’t have had adequate time or motivation to prepare other than showing up. We can still squeeze good information from the unprepared, for much of what they have to contribute creatively is already in their heads. It just may take a little more effort to get it out and documented,
Was a Nobel Laureate Initimidated into Not Filing a Patent for Graphene?
Graphene: A Two-Dimensional Planar Sheet of Carbon One Atom Thick
A number of people have commented about a recent story on Andre Geim, the inventor of graphene and new Nobel Laureate in physics, and his decision to not pursue a patent. One widely read recent tweet linked to a discussion on Slashdot that allegedly “Puts the lie to the claim that patents help small inventors.” The Slashdot page begins with an observation about why Dr. Geim didn’t patent graphene. Turns out he almost did, but chose not to after a conversation with someone from a big multinational company that could become a major user of graphene in the future. Here’s the content that supposedly shows why patents don’t help small business owners and lone inventors against the big boys of industry:
gbrumfiel writes
“As we discussed on Tuesday, Andre Geim won this year’s Nobel prize in physics for graphene, but he never patented it. In an interview with Nature News, he explains why: ‘We considered patenting; we prepared a patent and it was nearly filed. Then I had an interaction with a big, multinational electronics company. I approached a guy at a conference and said, “We’ve got this patent coming up, would you be interested in sponsoring it over the years?” It’s quite expensive to keep a patent alive for 20 years. The guy told me, “We are looking at graphene, and it might have a future in the long term. If after ten years we find it’s really as good as it promises, we will put a hundred patent lawyers on it to write a hundred patents a day, and you will spend the rest of your life, and the gross domestic product of your little island, suing us.” That’s a direct quote.’”
While some people, including some in the anti-patent community, see this as a self-evident case for the problem with patents, it’s actually just the opposite, in my opinion.
Look at the story again. A brilliant inventor on the verge of filing a foundational patent for a major breakthrough in technology approaches a large corporation who might benefit from the technology. The company learns that the inventor is about to file a patent. A valid patent would mean that the company would have to pay royalties for the invention, perhaps very expensive royalties. If no patent is filed, the company can use the technology for free and develop its own patents without having to cross-license or worry about what Andre Geim owns. Hmm, which would be better: paying a lot, or paying nothing? Having to work with an inventor or tech transfer office or new patent owner who may end up thinking an invention is worth billions, or having the whole thing pretty much gratis? Tough call, but I think the corporate leader was quick to recognize the advantages to nipping the patent threat in the bud. How could he talk the inventor out of a patent? What negotiating tactic to deploy? ah, how about the Hindenburg? That’s where you explain to the other party that their intended course of action would be a flaming disaster, with burning bodies falling out of the sky–oh, the humanity!–resulting in the adversary becoming toast themselves.
The Hindenburg
The Hindenberg it is. The corporate leader then explains that IF Geim is so foolish, so greedy, so inhumane as to file a patent, disastrous suffering will follow and he’ll be burned. “100 patents a day!” Overwhelming force! You’ll go into debt suing us for nothing! You’ll be toast, baby. One big flaming Hindenburg crashing into the ground.
All bluff and bluster. But the intimidation and scare tactics work. “OK, OK, I won’t file my patent. Sorry for even thinking about that. Now I see that patents don’t help the little guy, Mr. Big. Here, take what I’ve got for free.”
Patents are the great equalizer. It’s what gives lone inventors a fighting chance against the big corporation that wants to take what they’ve got for free. It’s not easy and may not work, but with patents you’ve got a chance and corporations know it. Good ones respect that and will work with out. Others will try to take what you’ve got anyway, or better yet if they can, talk you out of pursuing a patent. Without one, you’ve already surrendered. You might as well throw the keys of your car to any passing stranger and hope they will pay you someday after they drive away.
The story isn’t about why patents don’t help the little guy. In fact, I think it’s about how much some big corporations despise and loathe patents in the hands of little guys. So much so that they would make outrageous statements to trick a brilliant scientists into NOT doing the one thing that could have helped him most: filing a patent. Instead, he handed them his inventions for free. Score one for the big guys.
Introduction to Defensive Publications
Here’s a brief Pixetell video presentation introducing some of the issues you should be considering in terms of defensive publications. Assistance with low-cost intellectual asset strategy is an important service Innovationedge offers for its clients. If you would like to know how we can help you save money and improve the results you’re getting with your IP budget, contact us and let us show you what we can do for you.
Who’s Mining the Shop? The Need to Mine Inventions in Companies, Universities
“Who’s mining the shop?” This is a question that needs to be asked for every university, company, and organization capable of creating inventions. In my corporate and academic experience (am the former Corporate Patent Strategist at Kimberly-Clark Corp., and was a professor before that), numerous inventions never get the protection they deserve because nobody was there to coach the inventors, to recognize the potential for intellectual property, and to do the extra work required to develop a sound IP strategy for the work. Many inventors know almost nothing about intellectual property. Many don’t even recognize that what they have developed is an invention. This can be especially true in businesses when the invention is developed outside of a normal R&D department, such as a new business method or software tool. But even research scientists and professors may miss the patent potential of their work unless there is someone there to coach and guide them.
Technology transfer offices are charged with this task in many universities, and legal departments or patent review boards have this duty in many companies, but both can miss huge opportunities unless there is someone who goes out to mine the organization for inventions. That involves reaching out to groups and individuals, educating them (often in presentations or group meetings) about intellectual property, being available for one-on-one discussions, asking questions, looking for signs of exciting developments, being an advocate and mentor, and constantly mining for IP gold. These are activities that we at Innovationedge have done for some of our clients, with exciting results. Let us help you develop a plan to capture more of the inventions that are in your midst, and to generate new intellectual assets (including low-cost assets) to build a powerful portfolio.
One of the many exciting experiences I had at Kimberly-Clark came after recognizing that a particular remote mill had developed some clever solutions to a few problems they were facing. After further inquiries, I learned that the mill had some very bright engineers who were solving lots of problems in clever ways. I suggested that there may be some patent opportunities coming out of that mill, and arranged a trip where a couple of us would spend a couple days there giving presentations and doing interviews of team members to see what they might have. I found many exciting and potentially patentable advances from their work, and ended up working with them to generate nearly a dozen invention disclosures, several of which were filed as patents. This created a lot of excitement for the mill and helped them pay more attention to the IP potential of what they were doing.
As with that mill experience, part of successful mining involves helping people write up the initial invention disclosure. When people are very busy and writing disclosures doesn’t fit their job description, someone needs to be the assistant/mentor who basically writes it for them, taking away the pain of the IP process. It requires resources, but it can lead to substantial returns.
We would be happy to work with you to examine your organization and determine what you could achieve by applying some additional resources to help generate IP through proactive mining. Mining and generating intellectual assets for clients are among our favorite services that we offer. We consider it an important step toward overcoming innovation fatigue in some organizations.
Who’s mining the shop? Great question. Give us a call today and let us help you strengthen your mining efforts.
25 innovative companies by patent ranking
Not too long ago Businessweek published a list of the 25 most innovative companies in the world. Check out the slideshow to see who made the list. This particular ranking was compiled by Ocean Tomo an intellectual-property consulting firm. The firm sorted through U.S. patents granted to the world’s 1,000 biggest companies in the past four years. Ocean Tomo then assessed the patents’ value by tallying, among other things, patent filing trends, litigation rates, and how many times each was cited by other applicants or in scientific and technical journals.
Patents: Valuable Tools for Advancing the Public Good
Many of our readers understand how a sound patent system can advance the public good. The US patent system, for example, is based on a social compact between inventors and the public in which inventors are asked to teach the world their secrets in exchange for a limited monopoly on the invention. For a few years, the inventors can control the rights to what they have invented, and then the patent expires, making it available to all. Meanwhile, by teaching how to practice the invention, knowledge is advanced and everyone’s boat is lifted. Take away the respect for intellectual property rights inherent in the patent system, and inventors would be more likely to protect their invention through secrecy, limiting the advance of knowledge and taking us a step back toward the so-called Dark Ages when much practical knowledge was kept secret in the minds of a few masters and guilds. Chances are you already understand that.
Interestingly, even for those who do not want to profit from their inventions but wish to turn them over to the public, patents can still be useful tools to advance the public good. This is true when there is a need to protect and maintain the quality of the invention for the public good. A great example of this principle comes from the story behind the foundation of one of the world’s most successful technology transfer organizations, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, known as WARF. Here is an excerpt from the history of the founding of WARF:
WARF’s creation traces back to UW-Madison biochemistry professor Harry Steenbock, who demonstrated in late 1923 that irradiation with ultraviolet light increased the vitamin D content of foods and other materials. Steenbock knew his invention held the potential to eliminate rickets, a crippling bone disease of children caused by vitamin D deficiency. He also knew that without proper management his advance might never reach this potential.
Thirty years earlier, one of Steenbock’s predecessors in the biochemistry department, Stephen Babcock, developed a novel test for determining the butter fat content of milk. Babcock consciously chose not to patent the advance, instead giving it “freely to the world.”
But Babcock quickly learned that without patent protection he had no way to control the accuracy and reliability of the “Babcock tests” developed by companies. In the rush to meet the demands of dairies clamoring for the test, many manufacturers produced sub-standard testing equipment and supplies, resulting in Babcock tests that often failed to work. The situation eventually grew so serious that state legislators had to intervene with regulations for standardizing the test. Although the invention was eventually accepted worldwide, Babcock reportedly regretted his decision not to patent the technique.
Determined not to repeat Babcock’s experience, Steenbock moved quickly to file a patent application with $300 of his own money when he discovered that irradiating rodent chow with ultraviolet light cured rickets in laboratory rats. Soon afterward, Steenbock was approached by the Quaker Oats Company, which offered him a deal worth nearly one-million dollars for the exclusive rights to his invention.
But rather than sell his discovery to a commercial concern for his own profit, Steenbock strongly believed that any monetary gains resulting from his work should return to the UW-Madison to support scientific research.
Steenbock went on to form WARF to provide a means for patents from the university to benefit the university and further advance the public good. Today revenues from the patents coming from the University of Wisconsin provide many millions of dollars to advance research in many areas, further raising the water level in the sea of knowledge and further advancing the public good.
By protecting a health care invention with a patent, Steenbock was able to ensure that the invention was applied properly and used to advance health appropriately. The control that the patent provided was critical for the success of the technology that went on to advance the quality of life of people all over the globe.