Patent Attorney and Founder
Every one JD Houvener your host of the bold Today Show or you the inventor entrepreneur business owner get your daily dose of inspiration so you can go out and make the world a better place [Music]
happy Monday everybody thank you for tuning in this is part six of our series about what are you gonna look at what are your real options on moving forward with your patent application so today we’re going to talk about option number one which is no patent at all it’s like saying I’m not gonna file that is an option and we want to explore it while I will say that if you’ve got something innovative and you want to make a market and block out the market share you’re gonna want to file an application but we need to explore all your options and that’s what I’m here to do today it supported the option of do nothing and no patent so let’s take a look at this in terms of five key areas all right your time money investors business risk and future business growth okay so each of these categories in terms of your time alright your time and effort building a business is super important right you’ve put in time to perhaps build prototypes those supply chains market sell the product and now it’s time to deliver it right all this effort you’ve built in this goodwill you’ve put into your business without protection in terms of patenting your new technology someone else can just rip that off okay that is really painful someone else can just go do exactly what you’re doing maybe they’ve got deeper pockets right thank Amazon Facebook Google Microsoft and they can go do whatever you’re up to way faster way quicker and they’ve got some big suppliers overseas perhaps that can just Bowl you over without having the protection for patenting and this is kind of those obvious things you’re you’re saying that hey look I not willing to invest I don’t believe in my product enough that it’s gonna make that much of a difference in the market and I don’t think anyone else can can do what I’m doing well that’s a pretty lofty thing to say you’ve got to build a bead truly a first mover in the market and be able to beat out the big dog some of those names I just mentioned so that’s the big time-waster okay now certainly in terms of money if you Pro this while your own money or maybe you’ve got shareholders or investors money that’s going into your business that is a large risk that that investment in the business is not going to be beaten by a competitor that sees that you don’t have any protection on your technology and they can also join in there’s another interesting case to look at when you look at the actual industry to see what kind of barriers there are to entry for a lot of software you know things that are just online the barriers are actually quite low and competitors can just jump in and if they see what you’re doing your first mover advantage is going to dissipate pretty quickly let’s take a look at overall investors right when you go in front of investors and trying to seek money seek funding one of the very first things they ask is do you have a patent on this technology are you bringing something to them you’re showing them something that they’ve probably never seen before whether it’s a new business method or a new product or new service how are you protecting this how are you going to be the only one that’s able to deliver this type of product to be able to lock in that market share without having a patented process or technology it’s a non-starter for a lot of investors they’re gonna move on to the next person long term business issues looking at the actual development of what’s called a portfolio of a business a true business of value is one that someone or some entity is willing to purchase and so it’s very difficult to be able to show value when you are pre-revenue for example if you don’t have anything like an IP asset so having trademarks or patents behind your business name all of a sudden now you can start to value your company and a much higher percentage and a much higher multiple than you could without it so being with value your company be able to sell the company eventually an exit to benefit of course you as the business owner or any shareholders is a big opportunity so that’s the option of not patenting well it certainly is an option as you’ve probably heard through this recording it’s not really that viable we’re going to talk tomorrow about you filing it on your own which it’s also really isn’t that bad great of an option but it is certainly something to consider so I’m your host JD Hoover Norrell you’ve learned a lot today if you have in your recurring listener to the bold Today Show and you think someone else might benefit from hearing this message just for the email to them they’ll be able to add themselves and join to the subscription from that point forward it’s been my pleasure to begin with you’re here today I get I’m your host JD Houvener of the bold Today Show have a great day everybody go big go bold
[Music]
you
you