Yesterday I met with a well-respected Intellectual Property law firm. For the first time, I feel we got real benefit from our membership in CEO Space, which we joined last July. This firm is a CEO Space member. I explained fact that we’ll be starting a nationwide marketing campaign within the next few weeks aimed at bringing the company into a real cash flow position. I also said we have no money to protect our IP at the present time. He offered to “just do it” (meaning file a provisional patent) to help us out, since we’re fellow CEO Space members. I promised him that I’ll write the description of our “invention” together with diagrams and send it within 2 weeks. I also told him we would pay eventually, but we just cannot pay right now. It costs $15,000 to $25,000 for each patent and typically takes 2 to 3 years. We don’t know exactly what elements of our business methods or software or combination thereof will qualify for a patent at this stage, but it’s very important that we protect the property we have worked so hard for and invested so much in. We also must officially trademark our company name and unique descriptive terms we use, before we spend millions promoting them.
Here’s a little IP factoid for you: The biggest reason for Trademark and Patent Protection is balance sheet value, not protection against competitors. . “Most” of the balance sheet value for corporate America is in the form of Intellectual Property. So, the biggest reason is not just the protection of an idea. It has more to do with valuation of a company. Case in point: Coca-Cola. According to the attorney I spoke to, the company is currently valued at about 180 billion dollars. About 40 billion is comprised of hard assets. The rest (140 billion) is all Intellectual Property. Impressive.
So along with everything else that’s going on right now, it’s essential that we put in place some protection for ourselves. I learned that for much of what we’re doing, if we release any information about certain aspects of our company or our processes, we will forfeit the right to IP protection. On other items, we have 1 year in which to apply for this kind of protection after disclosing the concept. So, while IP protection is just another item in my already-too-crowded-to-do-list, it’s essential for the long-term financial health of the company. I’ll do it. Will report back to you after something gets filed.
In the meantime, this morning I officially awarded the bid for completion of GroupCaller to a small company in Pakistan. The chief programmer there is starting on the project tonight. I expect we’ll be getting progress reports during the coming week, so I’ll pass them along as I get them (in ENGLISH, of course…ha!). Actually, he seems to speak English quite well in addition to his native language and hexadecimal programming language. This man worked for Dell Computers here in Salt Lake City in the past and also got his Bachelor’s Degree in New York. So although he’s in a foreign country, he has a solid American perspective on programming, business and culture. We welcome Ahmed to the team!
Today I am working on our lead distribution policy. We need a concise set of rules that govern who gets the leads we generate, when and how they are distributed, and so forth. It is more complex than you might think. I posted a policy a couple weeks ago, but I have made major revisions to it since yesterday. I’ll post the new policy here tonight or tomorrow, so check back and you can see what I mean. Although it’s complex, I must also be able to describe it in relatively simple terms. Let me know if I succeed at “simplicity” ! (“not!”)
TTYL!
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