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19. Invention, intellectual property and income

This week it’s all about invention, intellectual property and income. The goal of this assignment is to develop a plan for dissemination of our final project. Are you going to give it away? Are you going to sell it? Are you going to license it? Is it a business, a product or a service?

Develop a plan for dissemination of your final project Prepare drafts of your summary slide (presentation.png, 1920x1080) and video clip (presentation.mp4, 1080p HTML5, < ~minute, < ~10 MB) and put them in your root directory

Invention

My final project contains two elements, one is the transilluminator with UV and Blue LED array and the image capturer. It also includes a C Code that is the firmware of the transilluminator that controls the intensity of the array with a Python3 script to make the GUI of the imagine capturer light controlling and color filtering. You can download all my files through my Fab Academy page.

Intellectual property:

All the Projects which have been generated through the Fab Academy are under an open license which means they are opensource so everybody can download and reuse the files. I decided to license my final project under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

What does this mean?

What Is Open Source Hardware?

Open Source Hardware is hardware whose design is made publicly available so that anyone can study, modify, distribute, make, and sell the design or hardware based on that design. Open hardware is paving the way for recent technological developments, especially in the field of Internet of Things (IoT) and 3D Printing. Here is all you need to know to about Open Source Hardware.

Issues Open Source Hardware

  • Electronics hardware design is done in software,
  • Some cases hardware is coupled with software. For example, audio codecs must be accompanied by their driver software.
  • OSHW involves production costs, labor costs, and high overhead costs compared to software.

Free software

Free software developers guarantee everyone equal rights to their programs; any user can study the source code, modify it, and share the program. By contrast, most software carries fine print that denies users these basic rights, leaving them susceptible to the whims of its owners and vulnerable to surveillance.

Cretive Commons

There are six main Creative Commons licenses you can use when you choose to publish your work under CC terms.

Conditions

  • Attribution Attribution (by)

All CC licenses require that others who use your work in any way must give you credit the way you request, but not in a way that suggests you endorse them or their use. If they want to use your work without giving you credit or for endorsement purposes, they must get your permission first.

  • ShareAlike ShareAlike (sa)

You let others copy, distribute, display, perform, and modify your work, as long as they distribute any modified work on the same terms. If they want to distribute modified works under other terms, they must get your permission first.

  • NonCommercial NonCommercial (nc)

You let others copy, distribute, display, perform, and (unless you have chosen NoDerivatives) modify and use your work for any purpose other than commercially unless they get your permission first.

  • NoDerivatives NoDerivatives (nd)

You let others copy, distribute, display and perform only original copies of your work. If they want to modify your work, they must get your permission first. License Types

Creative Commons offers six copyright licenses, based on combinations of the four conditions outlined above.

  • Attribution (CC BY)

  • Attribution ShareAlike (CC BY-SA)

  • Attribution-NoDerivs (CC BY-ND)

  • Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)

  • Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA)

  • Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.

Compatible licenses

A license designated as a “BY-SA Compatible License” as defined in BY-SA 4.0.

Free Art License: The Free Art license 1.3 was declared a “BY-SA–Compatible License” for version 4.0 on 21 October 2014. See the full analysis and comparison for more information.

GPLv3: The GNU General Public License version 3 was declared a “BY-SA–Compatible License” for version 4.0 on 8 October 2015. Note that compatibility with the GPLv3 is one-way only, which means you may license your contributions to adaptations of BY-SA 4.0 materials under GPLv3, but you may not license your contributions to adaptations of GPLv3 projects under BY-SA 4.0. Other special considerations apply. See the full analysis and comparison for more information.

Income:

I want to explore and research more about the Fab-transilluminator to see if the people in the Lab are interested in my product and are willing to invest money in it.

Develop a plan for dissemination:

  1. Offer a try of the Fabtransilluminator to labs in my university.
  2. Attend to make talks and share my knowledge about what I learned on conferences or labs.

Presentation files

Summary slide

Video clip

What I learned this week?

I learned about the many ways to license a product, and how protect your product. I found these interesting sources in my research: