Week 18: Invention, IP, and Income¶
Goals for Invention, IP, and Income¶
- Upload placeholder components for the slide/video
- Establish a copyright license for my Final project site wide.
- Develop an ideal project Dissemination plan
- ~Speak with an IP expert and gain better understanding of IP landscape~
~ are stretch goals ~
Presentation Slide and Video Placeholders¶
Producing a placeholder presentation slide was easily accomplished using Google Slides and being sure to export as a 1080p png named “Presentation.png”. Here it is below. Eventually, this will be updated with my final slide.
The video was a bit more involved. First, I created a simple placeholder 1080p video named “Presentation.mp4”. This presented two issues.
- The video came out to be 16 MB, larger than the recommended 10 MB.
- I had not taken any special steps to encode the video for HTML5.
Figuring I could solve both issues in one swoop, I began looking into what it takes to encode for HTML5. This guide here had a lot of good advice and also a suggestion to use Handbrake. I simply used the 1080p30 preset, which encoded the placeholder video and brought it down to 6.71 MB.
Project Dissemination Plan¶
The dissemination plan for my project will largely depend on the results and the time I am able to dedicate to the project. Therefore, I will outline a perfect world dissemination plan, which allow me a roadmap should I eventually return to the project. The order of these steps is negotiable, and some steps may occur in parallel.
- Open source and copyright requirements
- Successive spirals and soliciting feedback
- Product Testing
- Product Formalization
- Preliminary patent application
- Investment opportunities
- Commercialization options
Establishing a license¶
For the avoidance of doubt, the language on this page is simply interpretation of different licensing options. This text is for documentation purposes and does not affect the license terms outlined elsewhere on this site.
It took me sometime to understand the license options available to me. Since my final project may someday have commercial viability and/or patentability, I wanted to be sure to select the right license. I wanted to maximize protections of the IP while not restricting my own rights in the future to commercialize and protect the idea. Therefore, while the first prototype is open source, I reserve the right to take these future iterations closed source and protect them by any means.
Svetlana Shishkovets’ page was a good resource covering the various public license options we have available. The first one I heavily considered was the GNU GPL, since it follows a restrictive copyleft model (as opposed to a permissive model). However, upon reading deeper into this option, it seems better suited for a software oriented project where collaboration is king. As such, the GNU seems to offer a lot of detail and restrictions regarding the rights the licensor can/can’t assert. In reality, I need a license that does not restrict my future actions with this idea. As such, I would settle for a less restrictive license.
The one I have settled on is the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). My interpretation of this license is that it satisfies the open-source requirement of the class, while preventing license recipients from using my work commercially. Additionally, the ShareAlike clause seems similar to a copyLeft model whereby license recipients are required to use a similar license to redistribute the work/modifications and crucially, cannot impose a stronger license. I prefer this to a weaker license where a recipient might be able to restrict me from finding or using their modifications to my own work.
Without further ado, here is the license offered for all works shared on this site.
All works shared on this site 'A Fab Academy Journey with Charlie Horvath' by Charles W. Horvath are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Successive spirals and soliciting feedback¶
As outlined on my applications/implications page under the section How will it be evaluated?, this prototype will be tested in several spirals. For the sake of this class, I will be first testing the device using a known disturbance signal, as generated by a sort of function generator wand that can output a known sine wave. Assuming this works, this same prototype should be able to take mic. input as the disturbance signal, which will allow me to test a 2nd, more realistic spiral. In this stage, I will use something low-frequency such as an electric toothbrush to generate the disturbance. Finally, if the first two spirals are successful, this prototype could be used in a true dental setting with the mic. being attached to higher-frequency tools such as drills and polishers.
That said, future prototypes will be needed. Critically, I do not like the idea of a wire running between the dental tool and the headset. Ideally, this device would in no way inhibit the dentists’ ability to do their work and an extra wire would spoil that requirement. Additionally, a bulky microphone attached to the side of a dental tool would also potentially inhibit their work.
For the first issue, the wire could potentially be replaced with a wireless toolchain. However, this communication would need to be extremely fast (on the order of 100 microseconds) for the signal processing to still “beat” the disturbance signal reaching the ear. Neil mentioned nRF24L01+ can act as “an extremely simple wireless wire”, which may be a good avenue to look at. Even still, in our initial talk about the project, he cautioned about going wireless for this same reason of processing speed.
For the second issue, there may be a few options. First, the electret microphone could be replaced by a much smaller MEMs device, similar to what are used in smartphones. This MEMs device could be a normal air conducting microphone and/or bone conducting to detect vibration traveling through the dental tool. I imagine in practice, this device could become very small, and the processing/power/networking portion could be housed further down the drill and separated by a wire from the input signal. This is an area where feedback from dentists will be important. Perhaps a device that attaches to the outside of dental equipment is a nonstarter for some unknown reason. In this scenario, I see two other options. Perhaps the initial microphone tests make it clear that the microphone can be positioned further away from the tool and a microphone could be attached to the dentist or patients clothes for instance. In this instance, different noise cancelation techniques may need to be employed since the distance to this microphone would undoubtably “lose” the race compared to the disturbance signal reaching the inner-ear.
The final option that comes to mind, would be building a bone-conducting MEMs device into the core of the dental tools themselves. This would potentially be the cleanest and most usable solution with a sharp trade-off when it comes to business model. No-longer could the device simply be a drop-in add-on to the dentists existing equipment. Now, the dentist would need to consider buying all new equipment with these features integrated, at which point the value proposition begins to dwindle. Additionally, reconfiguring dental tooling makes this avenue a potential nonstarter.
I suspect there still exists other form factors that are unbeknownst to me at this point. I will remain open to other options, feedback from dentists, and the results from these initial tests to answer these questions. On the applications/implications page, I have add the question, “What form factor(s) makes the most sense for future spirals and the dental application?” in order to summarize these open questions.
Product Testing¶
In parallel to these future spirals, continuous product testing will be necessary to prove the technology is correctly meeting the market need and fulfilling its value proposition. For this step, I will more than likely be able to partner with my local Charlotte dentist, who has already expressed interest in the technology. Feedback from this phase will be essential to all other phases.
Product Formalization¶
Should a future spiral of this prototype seem to be a winner, I will begin working with electrical engineers to ensure that the product is electrically sound and following best practices. This is an important step so that the patent application is written in a manner that protects the correct technologies and methods.
Preliminary patent application¶
While the first prototype is open source, I reserve the right to take these future spirals closed source and protect them using patents. In fact, my current understanding is that this will be the better roadmap for this particular IP. The current open-source nature of the project is intended to fulfill the requirement of the class and receive help from the fab community while simply trying to get it off the ground. That said, as the project develops closer to a commercial entity, it seems that tighter control over the IP would be beneficial. That said, the initial work documented on this site will remain openly available forever.
Even before the successive spirals and product formalization steps, a preliminary patent application may be the logical next step. In America, these must be filed within 1-year of the initial disclosure of the invention to the public. Even if this invention is significantly different from this initial prototype, it is likely safe to assume that this 1-year clock has already started. In this worst case, this preliminary patent application would be due 1/26/2023.
The beauty of preliminary applications is that they can be always updated to include new spirals/developments and changes to the invention. Better yet, each time they are refiled, the clock to file an official application resets. Therefore, these spirals could each be captured in successive preliminary applications. This step is listed after the other two, only in the hope that the form-factor issue could be worked out before the first preliminary application is filed. However, I should consider the preliminary application regardless of any future development.
Investment/Partnership opportunities¶
After this preliminary application, it will make sense to begin speaking with investors. Ideally, I could find an investor who knows the space (consumer electronics, medical devices, etc.). While this class has enhanced my prototyping and manufacturing knowledge, commercialization still remains a theoretical field for me. While I would be happy to dive headfirst into this world and learn by doing, I understand that much of the knowledge I would seek is already known by industry veterans. On this front especially, I could greatly benefit from knowledgeable partners and investors. In a perfect world, I will find a business partner to act as CEO that would handle these business, sourcing and IP related matters which would allow me to act more as a CTO, and focus on the core technology.
Commercialization options¶
Again, this is an area where a knowledgeable partner would be beneficial. I anticipate existing dental supply and distribution chains are extremely well-established. Discovering and penetrating these existing chains would be extremely important to the commercial success of the product. Additionally, we will need to look at different advertising models in order to reach the decision makers at these different dental offices. One off-hand idea, would be to reach dental patients who have had extensive dental work done. If those patients were given an avenue to ask their dentists about the technology, it could catalyze sales. That said, I do not see this as being a consumer product as much as one that dental offices themselves would purchase. Since most dental equipment requires FDA approval, which likely increases cost across the board, we could demand a high price for this device without creating sticker shock. If by chance, our device is able to skirt around the need for FDA approval, then I anticipate high net margins will be possible.
All works shared on this site 'A Fab Academy Journey with Charlie Horvath' by Charles W. Horvath are licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International