51–60 of 65 posts
Chances are, if there's a company in the industry you want to target they've thought of your idea and realized that it's either not possible to make money on it or it's not possible to make as much money as they're currently making doing other things.
Very simple regarding what to do. A provisional patent application costs you $120 to file. No one even looks at it, until you file the real one. However, "patent pending" sends the message that ripping your idea off could cause legal repercussions and might not be worth it. If the person you're talking to thinks it's obvious, then both the patent application and NDA would have been ineffective. If it's something not…
1) the other party doesn't need to sign anything. 2) it's only binding if it's actually a patentable idea.
I'm a pretty big believer in the idea the ideas are emergent phenomena. On creative days, I can average an idea a minute. Most of these are things I've heard already and forgotten (except some small part in the back of my head) or combinations of 2 or 3 comments/blogs or papers or whatever I've read here or elsewhere. Also most of them are crap. An even higher portion of the "original" ones are crap. But the ones tha…
He discusses how there are two types of creativity, one comes from applying your knowledge and experiences to other situations, and the other comes from what he calls, "infinite knowledge" that is floating out there and can be tapped into under the right circumstances.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A patent is a lot more than an idea. Patents cover inventions. Originally, they required you to hand over a working model to get a patent. Take the idea "a good pocket lighter". That's not patentable. Now take a look at the patent for the Zippo lighter: http://www.google.com/patents/US2032695 Note the detailed diagrams and the careful description of the purposes of the various bits. You don't get that kind of detail…
So what is the definition of 'an idea' when people say ideas are worthless?
As an example, consider this: http://earthnationlive.org/
Or the classic X for Y pitch: http://www.itsthisforthat.com/
This goes back to the whole Jeff Atwood blog about banking buckets (I wish I could find the link!). Chances are, if there's a company in the industry you want to target they've thought of your idea and realized that it's either not possible to make money on it or it's not possible to make as much money as they're currently making doing other things.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A patent is a lot more than an idea. Patents cover inventions. Originally, they required you to hand over a working model to get a patent. Take the idea "a good pocket lighter". That's not patentable. Now take a look at the patent for the Zippo lighter: http://www.google.com/patents/US2032695 Note the detailed diagrams and the careful description of the purposes of the various bits. You don't get that kind of detail…
So what is the definition of 'an idea' when people say ideas are worthless?
This goes back to the whole Jeff Atwood blog about banking buckets (I wish I could find the link!). Chances are, if there's a company in the industry you want to target they've thought of your idea and realized that it's either not possible to make money on it or it's not possible to make as much money as they're currently making doing other things.
You'd never find it since it was Steve Yegge on Credit Card buckets :P : http://steve-yegge.blogspot.ca/2009/04/have-you-ever-legaliz...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely agreed. If you concede that it's all in the execution and can't make an argument for why you're the right person to see it executed -- then you've already admitted that you have nothing to offer. Further, the idea of not trying because you're afraid the entrenched interest would crush you if they tried isn't compelling. As said before: it's all in the execution. And what they're executing is as-important a…
this does not work so well if you're probably about number 500,000 on the list of people worldwide who could best execute it - but if you do it first, you still have a solid chance of publicity and a reasonable shot at making 10x-100x the investment, and maybe more, combined with an almost inability not to at least get bought out by someone more competent for a mild profit (loss if you consider your personal opportun…
And if you're championing the idea and the need to execute at a certain level, you're clearly among the more motivated and dedicated, to say nothing of everyone else not out trying to make this happen.
These are attributes that do make you compare more-favorably to the 499,999 other people who are perhaps more technically-capable of developing the solution.
Those other souls are either disinterested, unmotivated, undedicated, starting from further behind or perhaps running a would-be competitor that your would-be investor/partner has no ability to profit from.
If you can't sell that as uniquely qualifying you to execute, the problem isn't the existence of those 499,999 other people. It's either:
a.) your not leveraging the advantages you have. b.) your not actually having put the energy and thought and dedication into the problem as far as you could without further investment. c.) your inability to convince would-be investors and partners of a and b. (Some people are just flat-out bad in the room.)
I'm not saying that a given project won't run into more-capable teams who are objectively better choices. But if there's anything remotely close to a few dozen of them actively out there pursuing the same solution space, you wouldn't even be able to get an investor interested in the first place.