Invention, intellectual property, and income

My project is a product that waters potted plants with just the right amount of water and at the right time. I got the idea of my project while planning for a workshop in the FabLab, however, I never got the chance to actually do it as a product until FabAcademy (it used to be sensor and an LED).

The idea itself is not a new one and after doing a google search, I found out some other products that serve the same purpose of my product. Though the mechanism and the structure and the shape of the product is different.

For my project, I want a license that will allow others to benefit from my project -in a non-profit way- and allow them to make improvements on it – if anyone wishes- but also, I want a license that will guarantee that no one makes money of my project and use it commercially.

I decided to learn more about Creative Commons and MIT licenses and choose the one that fulfills my wishes best.

Creative Commons

I first went into creative commons’ website (link here) to answer two questions:

1- What it is?

It’s a non-profit organization that provides creators with licenses that protects their work from being used in a way they don’t want. (For example, some might want their work and creativity to be shared and but not sold.) So, Creative Commons allows creators to choose the license under the conditions they wish.

2- How I can license my product using their website?

I found choosing the right license for my product via Creative Commons a simple and easy task, with only 4 steps.

Step1: Getting started

Step 2: Selecting the features I want for my license

Step 3: My license,

CC BY-SA

According to Creative Commons (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) , using this license allows people to share and build on my product. But they need to give me credit (attribution), not use it commercially, and if they were to build on it they have to publish their contribution using the same license as this one. (share alike)

Step 4: Add the license to my page on my FabAcademy page.

Creative Commons License
AutoFarm By Ahmed Abobaker is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The other license that I looked up is the MIT License, I already know about it and noticed that Neil uses it in his software text. https://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php/

In a few words, the MIT license is a software license that puts little to no restriction on software use and distribution as written below:


Copyright 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. ***

What I like about this license is that it frees the owner from all responsibilities that may arise with future use. What I don’t like is that it allows commercial use.

And Because it allows commercial use, I will go for the Creative commons license instead of this one.

The Future of my project

In the future, I’d love to take time off work after I have gained enough experience and pursue a project of my own. For this project, taking it a step further and selling it to people would require a detailed plan.

How to sell the project?

I want to sell it the way it is, as a product to be used by people.

Where Can I manufacture it?

For manufacturing my project, I’d want to go to China, but not knowing the language or having the experience in factories and manufacturing are an obstacle. So, I’ve looked up websites that will help me overcome this obstacle and I found https://makersrow.com

Basically, it’s a website that connects people wanting to manufacture their project with factories in the location they want. And the great thing about Maker’s Row is that their service doesn’t cost a lot. For (35-99$) per month, I will be able to search, message and get bids from factories in a reliable, easy way. https://makersrow.com/plans

Who will fund me?

I will go for family members for funding. Since a lot of my family are entrepreneurs themselves, and they are always keen to fund promising projects.

Who will benefit from my product?

My target market are people who want to keep their houses green and want to ensure that their plants stay healthy and hydrated at all times even when they’re away. I will focus on this point when marketing my product.

Summary Slide
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