Tim Bruening - Fab Academy 2016

Week #18 - Invention, intellectual Property and Business Models

In the eighteenth week we were tasked to create a license for our final projects. 

We also need to create a plan to disseminate of get our idea out to the populace.

Invention

I do not believe that anything I did or created making Grandpa's Vacuum Former warrants any special notice.  I merely made a version of a device that has been used for decades if not longer.  My only desire is to use it in Grandpa's FABlab with my grandchildren.

Intelectual Property

I spent a few hours looking at some of the ways I can protect my creative property.  Creative Commons (CC) licensing has many different choices depending on what type of protections or freedoms you are trying to offer.

There are four basic types of licensing under CC; Attribution (BY), Share-alike (SA), Non-commercial (NC) and No Derivative Works (ND).  These four licenses can be used incombination to offer different choices.

I also looked at the MIT license and think that is all I need to allow people to share my ideas and to possibly protect myself from any liability from anyone that decides to imitate what I did. 

Copyright (c) <2016> <Timothy A Bruening>

The protected software is to operate Grandpa's Vacuum Former.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Another area I researched is the United States Patent and Trademark office.  I went to Crystal City near Washington D.C. years to do a patent search for an idea I had.

I spent almost two days going through the stacks of material checking to see if my idea was worth patenting.  

That search would be a lot easier today with the use of computers.  I returned to Cleveland and talked with a patent attorney and was advised that a patent would not be valuable to me. 

 I was told that "Any patent attorney can write a patent around an existing patent.  If they have more money for lawyers you cannot win." 

The only way I believe my idea would give me any income was if I already had money enough to market it myself.  Think about all of the info-mercials on

TV today.  I did not have the funds to market the idea and it still remains an unused or patented product.

I believe I would have the same results with Granpa's Vacuum former.

Business Model

I guess I could market Granpa's Vacuum Former in a number of ways.

     I could sell the idea as a wood working plan.

     I could sell the idea as a wood working plan and also sell the parts as a kit to go with the plan.

     I could manufacture and sell it as a product through Ebay, Etsy or Amazon.

     I could manufacture and sell it as a product at a regular retail outlet.

     I could even market it as a kit and include all materials with the cost of tuition to run as a FABlab educational event.

As stated above I have no intention of trying to market "Grandpa's Vacuum Former".  I merely wish to use it for myself.

I have no problem with any other Fabber or Maker using my ideas to make a vacuum for their personal or public labs.  A vacum former is a perfect addition to any FABlab or MakerSpace.

If anyone wishes to see my ideas they are located in the FAB Academy archives.

Summary slide and presentation.

If you would like to see more about Granpa's Vacuum former and other projects please click on thlink for the FAB Academy archives.