Profiles in Innovation

  
Chet Thomas & Darrin Fletcher
Salt Lake City, Utah
Changing the Way Students Learn… Through Educational Software that Harnesses the Magic of Hollywood  

Technology is enabling young people to learn in new ways, utilizing tools and engaging in projects that simply weren’t available to previous generations. At Independent Student Media, we’ve developed a curriculum that leverages filmmaking’s disguised learning benefits and a proprietary tool to guide students, teachers and parents through the program.  Our software allows students to creatively expand their reading, writing, and math skills through filmmaking, and also collaborate with students, educators and professionals outside of the classroom, opening the door to worldwide participation and creative interaction. 

At the heart of ISM is our proprietary tool called the Notebook. Analogous to a massive media textbook that is constantly growing, this is where all student film projects start, are taught, managed, organized, tested and graded.  When projects are completed they can be publicly viewed in the Screening Room.   

Not Your Typical Online Learning Experience 

The Notebook guides students along the curriculum’s path and contains the step-by-step guidelines for teaching the roughly 400 learning objectives. Reading, writing, math and much more can all be taught in this cross-curricular environment. When appropriate in the learning process, the Notebook draws from other ISM utilities such as professional Interviews, Storyboard Artist, Screen Writer, Live Broadcaster, Crew, Scheduler, Production Meetings, Grade Book, tutorials and message boards.  

Each of these utilities can be accessed 24/7 by users outside of the Notebook for further study, but within the Notebook the user must follow a single “correct” path designed by ISM founders, to accomplish the objective of teaching filmmaking from a Hollywood professional’s viewpoint..   

Post-Production: Patent

As we developed our filmmaking curriculum and the technology to help guide kids through it while delivering the resources they need to be successful, we knew that what we were doing was new, innovative, and out of the ordinary.  And we also knew that we needed to protect it. 

Applying for a patent on the Notebook was a no-brainer.  The protection gives us a certain peace of mind as we develop the auxiliary business components–the marketing plan, funding avenues, etc.—before a wide-scale release, and the assurance that our hard work in developing the Notebook could pay off.  

Spending the time and money to apply for a patent to protect our intellectual property gives our investors confidence in ISM too.  An interesting, innovative product combined with a solid, experienced leadership team, a large market, and a strong value proposition makes the acquisition of capital easier.  

Harnessing Hollywood magic to capture student attention, with the mission of changing the way teachers teach and students learn is a serious undertaking.  We’re confident that the web-based software we created can do just that. 
  
 

About Profiles in Innovation and ACT
The Profiles in Innovation project is designed to highlight entrepreneurs who are driving technological innovation around the world and the critical role that patents and IP play in their success. While large multinationals often get the credit, small businesses are at the center of the innovation economy. For these small innovators, patents are critical to their ability to protect their innovations while building partnerships and raising capital. 
The Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) is an international trade association for the information technology industry that is dedicated to protecting small business innovation. ACT has more than 3,000 member companies around the world, most of which are small and mid-size technology firms.
 

Profiles in Innovation

  
David Quimby
St. Paul, Minnesota

Giving You the Information You Want, Not Dancing Bears. 

The world of online advertising has been dominated by banner ads with blinking graphics, flashy animations, and other gimmicks designed just to get you to click your mouse on that annoying little ad.  At Adaptive Avenue, we developed a new technology that turns banner ads into miniature storefronts designed by you. 

Our technology is already revolutionizing the way car dealerships advertise on the web.  Currently, the typical online banner ad for a dealership includes images and information about a particular model(s) they’re promoting right now, or maybe a special finance rate they’re offering.  You click on the ad and it takes you to the top of the dealership’s homepage, where you might be able to get more information about the specific car you’re looking to buy if you’re willing to “drill” into the site to find the car.  

Not anymore. 

With our patented, interactive advertising system, businesses can create ads that are directly linked to their inventory.  

Transforming Advertisements into Catalogs (With an Easy-to-Use Index) 

Using our technology, a car dealership’s banner ad can contain real time information about the cars they ACTUALLY have in stock.  You can find out if the dealership has the right model in the right color at the right price, directly from the ad!    

All of this happens without ever leaving the web page where you saw the ad. Adaptive Avenue’s technology brings the site to you, instead of bringing you to the site. It’s an experience that is engaging, fast, easy, and productive.  In addition, by clicking on the car of interest in the ad, you are taken to detailed information on that car at the dealership’s website. 

By improving the experience for customers, we have improved the effectiveness of ads for advertisers.  Our clients have seen real jumps in activity rates and return-on-investment.  Our clients have experienced user activity rates of up to ten times higher than with conventional ad formats.  It is ideally suited for products with perishable inventory such as travel, entertainment, retail promotions, and financial services. 

Patents helped us get here 

As an early stage company, we look at patents as a catalyst for business success.  We patented our technology because we knew that patent ownership helps small companies like ours get started by helping to protect the niche we’ve created for ourselves.  That protection also aids with the other factors—like first-to-market status, market share, and brand identity—that we see as crucial to building a successful business. 

Patent ownership is one of the factors that investors, advisors, partners, customers, and employees consider in making the decision to associate with a company.  Several prospective advisors have mentioned our patent coverage as a positive factor in their due diligence.  We’ve also had an inquiry from a company specializing in monetizing patents, so our patents could be a source of growth capital. 

Being issued a patent is one step along the path of maximizing the value of your innovation, and maximizing the value of your idea is one of the steps towards business success. 

Entrepreneurs on the Cutting Edge of Technology

  
Mike Daniels
Chantilly, Virginia

Sending Text Messages from the Great Wall of China to your Mom in Boise?  Mobile 365 Makes it Possible.

My company, Mobile 365, provides network interoperability and device compatability for global mobile messaging.  Mobile 365 reliably delivers nearly two billion mobile messages every month. How? We strive to create a seamless experience for mobile consumers throughout the world. Most countries have mobile networks that use different standards that will not easily interconnect and work together. Mobile 365′s technology creates interoperability that enables you to stand on the Great Wall of China and instantaneously send a text message about it to your mom back in Boise. Our network links the technology in your mobile device to all other mobile users—no matter where you are, what device you have,  or what network you are using. 

Patents Help Stimulate New Innovation at Mobile 365Mobile 365′s patent program increases the intangible value of our company. Patents do more than just protect our large investments in research and development. Promoting patents within the company helps create a reputation for innovation and inventiveness with customers and our competitors. And of course, patents provide additional sources of revenue through assignments, licensing, and other arrangements that can then be reinvested into our research and development activities. 

Our Internal Patent Program Fosters a Culture of IP Protection

Intellectual property protection is critical to our long-term success as a company. To ensure our intellectual assets are protected, we created a centralized patent program that substantially contribtes to the financial well-being and value of our company. To maximize the value of the program while limiting its impact on engineering resources, we have hired a technical expert within our legal team to manage and oversee all patent activities. The structure enables Mobile 365 to capture innovation for patent consideration and prosecution while reducing costs and improving effectiveness. 

We Set Company Goals for Protection of our Innovations

Given our modest size—and knowing the importance of protecting our innovations—Mobile 365 has sizeable goals for increasing the protection of our intellectual assets through patents. As part of our ongoing patent program, our goal is to complete an average of 1.5 new patent applications each month. 

The goals we set for patent protection are not costly, especially when considering the opportunity costs of not filing for patent protections. The filing fees for domestic patent applications at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office—particularly for provisional patent applications—are relatively modest.  The filing fees for foreign patent applications are somewhat more substantial, but even these may be managed to keep costs down. 

About Profiles in Innovation and ACT
The Profiles in Innovation project is designed to highlight entrepreneurs who are driving technological innovation around the world and the critical role that patents and IP play in their success. While large multinationals often get the credit, small businesses are at the center of the innovation economy. For these small innovators, patents are critical to their ability to protect their innovations while building partnerships and raising capital. 

The Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) is an international trade association for the information technology industry that is dedicated to protecting small business innovation. ACT has more than 3,000 member companies around the world, most of which are small and mid-size technology firms.
 

Profiles in Innovation

  
Gary Mueller
Herndon, Virginia

How Do You Protect Your “Emotional Property™”?

The information we store on computers, phones, portable music devices, cameras, and PDAs is increasingly vital—and often more valuable than the device itself. Yet as our important  keepsakes—our “emotional property™”—are digitized, they are susceptible to new threats of destruction and being lost. At the same time, we’re now recording infinitely more segments of our lives—thousand of pictures, hundreds of hours of video.  And we’re relying more and more on our personal records in purely digital form.  How we protect and organize our “emotional property™” for the future is as important as how we captured it in the first place. That’s why at Digital Now, we’re creating a way to better organize, access, and protect what’s important to you. 

Our Technology Helps Protect and Manage Your Important Digital Keepsakes

Do you have copies of every photograph, music file, and important document stored on your computer?  What would you do if that computer was stolen?  What we’re going to provide is an easy, secure, and remote way to store and protect that emotional property, with access from a variety of sources.  

As soon as you take a picture with your camera phone, you can wirelessly send a copy to your storage area for safekeeping.  And my company patented technology that automatically detects the orientation of a digital image and rotates it to the correct position.  No matter where the picture originates—your phone, a camera, a scanned print image, or even an old photo stored on your computer—the file is corrected and ready to be shared with family and friends.  

Patents Protect More Than Just My Intellectual Property   

Just like you want to keep and protect your emotional property, we see the importance of protecting our intellectual property. We’re a small company that  invested a lot of time and resources on the development of the auto-orientation technology, and applied for the patent because we knew it would help provide a return on investment. Patents represent a market opportunity created by research and development investment.  In terms of dollars, a small business like mine will spend the same amount as a large company in the development of a new technology.  But as a percentage of annual income or budget, the investment is a much riskier one for a small company.  Therefore, small businesses like Digital Now have a sense of urgency for patents to be granted quickly. In today’s fast-paced world, a patent delayed is a potential market denied. 

IP Protection Promotes Innovation and Investor Confidence

Digital Now was originally more of a hardware company focusing on the sale of hardware scanning and image correction machines. We utilized the patented technology on scanning and digitizing photos while the image rotation patent was pending.  Our patents gave us the flexibility to evolve into a software company as the market changed for hardware. Instead of pursuing a dying market by pushing hardware scanning devices, we’re capturing gains from the investment in a related market. 

As we move fully into this generation of Digital Now, having a unique and protected technology gives us access to capital that we otherwise would not have.  When I meet with venture capital firms or angel investors, the first question I’m asked is whether or not the core technology is patented.  Investors know that protection can help innovators earn a return on the large initial investment it takes to create new solutions. When I’ve taken the proper steps to protect my innovation, investors have more confidence in me and my company.  

About Profiles in Innovation and ACT
The Profiles in Innovation project is designed to highlight entrepreneurs who are driving technological innovation around the world and the critical role that patents and IP play in their success. While large multinationals often get the credit, small businesses are at the center of the innovation economy. For these small innovators, patents are critical to their ability to protect their innovations while building partnerships and raising capital. 

The Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) is an international trade association for the information technology industry that is dedicated to protecting small business innovation. ACT has more than 3,000 member companies around the world, most of which are small and mid-size technology firms.

Profiles in Innovation

Entrepreneurs on the Cutting Edge of Technology

What if Your Favorite Store Always Had Every Item You Ever Wanted in Stock?

My company, Tribeka Ltd, is revolutionizing the way people buy and sell software. With our technology a customer can walk into any store, choose from a potentially unlimited range of software, and walk away with a secure, up-to-date, boxed copy that was licensed and manufactured in under four minutes. Our SoftWide™ technology is already used to sell thousands of retail titles through “A World of Software” high-street stores and recently won two of the Wall Street Journal Europe’s Innovation Awards.

Our Technology Will Allow the Retail Software Market to Reach a Whole New Consumer

SoftWide eliminates logistics, warehousing, and stock while providing an identical product at a fraction of the cost.  Ours is an example of disruptive technology—it will allow the retail software market to explode by overcoming the stranglehold of inventory and making a full range of software available to High Street consumers.

SoftWide will also attract a new market segment: the 80% of computer owners who do not know that consumer software exists and/or do not purchase software.  By appealing to this customer by offering life-improving software in a familiar and service-oriented environment, Tribeka hopes to significantly alter and expand the sales and use of software and computers. As the computer becomes the center of the digital home SoftWide will ensure the software market expands to its fullest potential through retail outlets dedicated to presenting and always having available the right software for everyone—time and time again.

Patents Gave Us the Confidence to Grow  

Patenting our innovation early in the process gave our investors a higher level of confidence in our ability to monetize on SoftWide, and helped us to draw in high-level partners to offer products for PCs, Pocket PCs, and phones. And as we anticipated a certain amount of growth as a result of new partners and increased funding, an additional effect of the patents was our ability to recruit and employ additional creative, innovative staff. We also plan to license the SoftWide technology to retail partners outside the UK.

The cost of patenting our innovations was not large, especially given the collateral benefits we realized because of our patents (investor and partner confidence, increased staff, and eventual licensing revenue).  In our case, the total patent costs have been about 2.5% of R&D costs.

Tribeka started work on SoftWide™ in 1998, and we now operate a growing chain of software stores in the UK.  Our partners are 150 leading publishers like Eidos, McAfee, Sage, SCi, and Webroot. 

Lessons Learned

By protecting our Intellectual Property Tribeka gave investors the confidence they needed to and our company.  Their investment enabled us to hire the staff necessary to finish developing our technology and bring this innovation to market.  Patents and other IP protections provide SMEs like Tribeka the security to create award winning innovations and new jobs for the citizens of Europe.  Without them, we would not have been able to make SoftWide or our successful “A World of Software” stores a reality.

About Profiles in Innovation and ACT
The Profiles in Innovation project is designed to highlight entrepreneurs who are driving technological innovation around the world and the critical role that patents and IP play in their success. While large multinationals often get the credit, small businesses are at the center of the innovation economy. For these small innovators, patents are critical to their ability to protect their innovations while building partnerships and raising capital.

The Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) is an international trade association for the information technology industry that is dedicated to protecting small business innovation. ACT has more than 3,000 member companies around the world, most of which are small and mid-size technology firms.