Intellectual Property: 360-2020(TM)
Monday, October 12th, 2009After quite a bit of focus from me, 360-2020TM now has certificates to state that it is “patent-pending” and is logged with the UK Intellectual Property Office. The next stage will involve filing it with the US Patent Office, the Chinese Patent Office and WIPO.
Why go through the somewhat laborious and costly processes involved? For three simple reasons:
(1.) Business protection.
(2.) To facilitate the licensing process.
(3.) It’s cool if you work hard enough and innovate enough to earn a patent.
So what exactly is 360-2020TM? Well, it’s an analytical system that’s been distilling and organically synergizing in my head throughout my career (i.e., since the age of about 17). During this time I’ve seen marketers appropriate the 360O from mathematics without them realizing that there’s little point in examining anything from a 360O perspective if you’re not also 20/20 in terms of your accuracy of vision — and I have a maths degree and wear glasses, so this has been a source of constant amusement.
Ergo 360-2020TM.
I showed my good friend GC my brand logo (trademark registered with UKIPO) and he thinks it’s brilliant. Now, since he has very discerning classical as well as scientific tastes, this reassures me. He even suggested that I sell it and that any large company in the Science & Engineering sector would love to have it.
Hmmn…….except that the 360-2020TM brand is going to be (hopefully) as recognizable as the Google / Apple / Twitter logos over the next few years and it’s definitely for the Internet and digital media sectors.
As for the patent application for the system itself, well the initial examiner raised some pointers about what is and is not patentable. According to the rules, business methods (otherwise known as business models), mathematical proofs and computer languages are not patentable. I explained that 360-2020 is an original hybrid between these systems:
* Google Search
* MBTI/Belbin
* Bloomberg
Since all of these systems are patentable and since 360-2020’s algorithms are not in the form of Fermat’s Last Theorem or Black-Scholes and there are no references in the patent application about whether it’s going to operate a PPC/PPM/PPA model of revenue generation or its planned strategic alliance or route-to-market etc. (aka business methodology), then it should definitely qualify as “patent-pending”.
So…..UK IPO agreed and sent the certificates. Yippee!