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 Newsletter - February  2015
 
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Are Patents Worth it?

How  to defend your invention?


 

I frequently hear the argument that patents are not worth the time and money they cost to the average inventor.  The argument usually goes like the following.  Big companies will simply rip off your idea by inventing around it and when you try to defend yourself you will be crushed by their army of expensive attorneys.  So why should you try to patent anything?


 

Like all similar arguments this one contains a grain of truth while missing some very important points.  Certainly big companies have lots of assets and if they choose can make it very difficult for you to protect your invention should they choose to infringe it.  The question is,  will they bother to infringe it?  What is in their interest. We will discuss that issue in the following sections.


 

 

If your invention has no value, no company will bother stealing it,  so its only when your invention does have value that you need be concerned.  Of course every inventor thinks that his or her idea is worth a Million or more, but that is seldom the case.   There is a long commercialization road to follow before the true value of an invention can be determined. And big companies will seldom notice you until you have trecked a good ways up that long road.


 

But suppose that  you do succeed in manufacturing your invention and  attracting sufficient customers to attract the interest of big companies.  Will they choose to rip you off by copying your invention and ignoring your patent?

 

They may be reluctant to do so, and here is why.  Big companies by definition have deep pockets.  And those pockets are a magnet for enterprising attorneys who may be quite willing to take your case on a commission only basis.  


 

Also if you license your invention instead of making it yourself, the company you license it to may well have the resources  to defend the patent in court. The issue will be: is it likely the company you are trying to license the patent to will simply invent around it instead of licensing it.  If that should happen its where you need to be in touch with those commission based attorneys.


 

  So while you may well have to pay an attorney a big chunk of your settlement, you will still be able to collect it. Big companies know this and they may find it much more expedient to either leave you alone or buy you off.  After all they have no more interest in paying big legal fees or spending time in court than you do.

 

To learn more about how to get the full value out of your patents please contact us. Just call or email.

 

email  rblazey@businessmetamorphosis.com 

or  give us a call at  (585) 520-3539  

 


Finding the Right Person
getting contact information at targets

In some past issues of this newsletter we discussed how to identify target companies that might be interested in buying or licensing your invention.  But finding the right company is only the first step.  After you have found the company, you next need to find the person who has the authority to make a deal with you.

You may have to go through several different divisions and layers of authority to find the right person.

In days of old one could simply call the central switchboard of a a company and ask for the proper department or even describe what you are doing and asked to be directed to the right person.

Unfortunately those days are long gone.  The familiar switchboard operator/gatekeeper has been replaced by a digital voice who knows nothing about the company except which rung on the telephone tree to connect you to.  

Unless you know someone's extension you have to press 1 for sales, 2 for customer service ,etc.  Sometimes you can press 0 for operator and I've been told even if this option is not given,  pressing 0 will sometimes get you to a real person.

However, this new Internet world does offer some other routes to the proper contact.  Those include using various social media services such as Facebook, LinkedIn etc to find a name at the corporation of a person in the right department.

Once you know a persons name there are other ways to get an email address or phone number for them.  Besides LinkedIn there is a service called Data.com that will get you phone numbers and emails for a price.

You can also buy information from list brokers such as Dunn and Bradstreet and InfoUSA but those are usually unstructured lists organized by category.  They are not specific enough to get you the name and contact information of the director of marketing at XYZ corporation.

Most of this target hunting is something we do all the time at ITTr but it can be hurried up immensely if our client knows some of the information we might otherwise have to dig out.

For more information write to rblazey@ittrifecta.com or call (585) 520-3539

Complementary Services
Penguin Logo

Penguin's Market Sonar is complementary to services supplied by other companies.   For example Penguin neither provides online questionnaires nor does it do focus groups but Market Sonar can be of use to companies who do provide those services.

A company that sends a mass mailing or an Internet survey to thousands of customers, may want to examine the interests of a subset of the group they studied using Market Sonar. 

Or a company that does focus groups might want to use Market Sonar to pick participants in the groups or get post focus group reactions from them.

The advantage of Market Sonar is that it can be used to gather more detailed information from a smaller group of participants than the large groups selected for the survey or focus group.

Another use of Market Sonar could be to explore surprises that came out of a focus group.  For example when the results of the group didn't fall within expected bounds and the client who ordered the group wants to know why?

Suppose that a focus group is evaluating a new Pizza.  Clearly such factors as taste and appearance and perhaps even texture might have been explored in the focus group..  But suppose this new pizza was based on a flour that  produced a stiffer crust than usual. 

 The focus group testers might find out that some people noticed the stiff crust but the testers also wanted to know how many  participants noticed it  and what other features they might have observed that would be important to the marketability of the pizza.

So a post focus group session could be done using VOC techniques  to explore with some or all of the participants their reaction to the stiffer crust and what other features they may have noticed that were not expected results.

If you want to see how Penguin can help extend the results of your focus group or questionnaire, just contact us.

to rblazey@rochester.rr.com or
 visit our website at www.RochesterPenguinGroup.com
 or call us at (585) 520-3539
We appreciate your responses to our newsletters.  Please send us your comments.  We are always interested in what you want to know.  See the New Letters to the Editor link in the block below
 
Sincerely,
 

Richard Blazey
Business Metamorphosis LLC

Comments and Letters to the Editor

 

To Readers of the BML Newsletter:

 

Many of you have wished to comment on articles in the newsletter and up until now there has been no mechanism to do so.  Now if you wish to comment you can just reply to this article.  Please mention the issue of the Newsletter (Month, Yr) and the title of the article you are commenting on.  Add your name if you wish

 

Best Regards,

 

Dick Blazey

 




 

Disclaimers 

 
Please realize that this newsletter contains only our opinions on patent matters.  We are not authorized to give legal advice.  If you are seeking such advice please contact an attorney.
 

 

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