Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Main zkimmer patent now lodged as full patent

The main zkimmer patent is now lodged as a full application. For visitors with access it can be seen here:


Re:       U.S. Patent Application No. 12/247,165
Filed:          October 7, 2008
Title:           System and Method for Displaying Digital Editions of Periodicals and Publications
Applicant:    Ric B. Richardson
Assignee:    zkimmer Inc.
Our Ref:      70333-00002
Subject:      U.S. Publication No. US 2010/0002935


Ric, Sky:

The above-referenced U.S. patent application has published as Publication No. US 2010/0002935 on January 7, 2010.  Attached for your records is a copy of the publication.
We will keep you informed of further developments in this matter.  Please contact me if you have any questions. 
Thanks,
John

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Raising Capital and Business Building options

This article was written in preparation for a symposium covering capital raising choices and business building strategies. The following ideas are only that... my personal ideas based on my personal experience so please take that into consideration as you consider the ideas and principles I explain.


Start with the end in mind
Like all good business books I agree with the adage that goals must be clearly defined and realistic. One of my favorite business books is Business Corps a book of lessons from the US Marine Corp and one of its key concepts... the visualization and clear definition of the end state. Where you want to be.

But this is easier said than done. With options ranging from boot strapping and organic growth, to a fully fledged VC backed market entry to tapping into government business development and R&D assistance programs, it's hard to know what combination of approaches best suit your business and opportunity.

I wish I could give you real-life examples of the pros and cons of each approach and speak from experience, but I can't.

On the other hand I, like you, are looking at these same options for my own inventions and prospective businesses and can at least share with you my gut feelings and instinct on how to choose a good combination for a wide variety of businesses and opportunities.

This brings me back to the key thought "start with the end in mind". This is such an important step you need to bring all your emotional and logical resources together to make a good solid decision that has a good probability of success, requires some courage (which also makes it fun) but is also realistic.
So let's start the process

For your business to be a major success will it eventually have to be based overseas? Maybe in the US? Are you prepared to go there for a decade? How much investors money are you willing to spend to learn to be a CEO of your company? If you haven't done it before then don't presume it is something you will just get the hang of in time.

To help further clarify, I find that business success is the combination of three main elements.
  • A great idea or technology from determined founders
  • A great execution team that have done this kind of business before.
  • Money from quality investors
These three things are the core of success as far as I can see. The weaker the core idea, the harder it is to sell in turn making it hard to execute for even the best team with tons of money.

But a killer idea will die on the vine if the opportunity window passes while the founders try and learn how to build and run a business... and even with the most supportive investors who may have the deepest pockets you run risk of spending a lot of money and not getting anywhere.

My magic formula is this:
  • A strong new idea with a value that is readily appreciated by the target customer. The idea need not be commercialized but it has to be baked, not still in R&D.
  • A CEO who has sold something like this before. Someone who knows exactly who to sell to for how much and can build a business plan that is based on real experience.
  • An investment group that is familiar with the market you are entering and may even be known to the CEO so that the decision to move is fast and the confidence in the business plan is well founded and reasonable.
  • The next thing is to be realistic about your end goal, what we called earlier the "end state".

An example 
For example, you may have a health care technology that may have international market opportunities but you know in your heart that if you can get adoption in major hospitals in every state of Australia you will have executed your plan to your satisfaction.

Unless you have already sold some technology to every major hospital in Australia, I'd start looking for someone else who has. Beg, borrow and steal. Do whatever it takes to find, the guy... or gal who has been there before. 

Someone who knows how to deal with state health departments and hospital management.  This may sound slow but going off half cocked and trying to start market entry yourself will take much longer than you think and could quite possibly kill the opportunity.

Kill the opportunity? Yes. I am a firm believer in opportunity momentum. It's the magic that happens when great people work on a great idea and are backed by the right resources.It's happened to me before and now that I know what it feels like I'll never try and run my own company again.

So you find someone to lead your team to your goal and now you need funding. They may love your idea and your aspirations, but what do they want to get out of it? What does your CEO want to get out of it?

Isn't the goal for both your team and your investors to build the business and then cash out? Is it realistic to expect a market entry maestro to spend the rest of his or her days maintaining the business and for investors to be happy with a quarterly dividend?

How does everybody exit?

The answer to these questions is the reason why the most important question to answer regarding the end state is "How does everyone exit?" What does your CEO , your investors and your family want in terms of an exit?

When you get your head around this it completely changes your game plan. Put plainly:

Your end state, your ultimate goal is your exit strategy.

It sounds crass and capitalistic to some of you I know, but it is a reality. It is the only way to execute your plan, and the earlier you decide what you want to do the easier it will be to execute a good plan. So here are some options to consider.

Example Exit Options

IPO - not for the feint hearted. Almost certainly requires a stellar VC backed US market entry and you better have a killer product and be ready to live in the states for a decade.

Acquisition or Merger - Have three target acquirers in mind from day one. Know what they need and how not only your product but your business plan and execution will fit with them as you  get ready to put your self on the market.

Back in California I was privy to the antics of a couple of quintessential entrepreneurs called the Steelburg brothers. They had tea shirts printed up for their shareholder meetings with "Google, Yahoo or Microsoft?" printed on the back that everyone was encouraged to wear. I don't think there was any doubt as to what their exit strategy was. They subsequently sold to Google in record time.

So there you have it... I hope these ideas are helpful. But please remember these are only the personal findings of moderately successful inventor who dabbles in entrepreneurship.

Other articles you may find interesting:

About Ric: Overview

Ric Richardson (born May, 1962) is an Australian inventor, technologist and founder of Uniloc, the software company he started in 1992. Uniloc recently received worldwide attention when a jury in Rhode Island sided with the company against Microsoft in a patent infringement dispute.The judge subsequently overturned the jury's decision and the case is now going to the appeal court in the US. During his career at Uniloc, Ric has held the positions of Chairman, CEO and CTO, and remains one of the largest individual shareholders.

Ric left day-to-day activities at Uniloc to begin working as a full-time independent inventor in late 2007. Since that time Ric has worked on a small number of major technology projects as well as a diverse assortment of smaller projects. Major projects include Logarex which is an ambitious logarithmic compression technology that he hopes will radically reduce the size of all stored digital data by between 50-98%, and zkimmer, a digital document viewing technology that uses digital mapping engines to elegantly handle large numbers of photographic quality magazine and publication images.

Ric stepped down as chairman of Uniloc in early 2009 but continues to develop inventions for the company on a regular basis. 

When must PCT or WIPO patents be filed?

A few of the visitors to this blog have asked when is the latest you can file your PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) application. This is not legal advice and I request that you always check with a lawyer but according to this link...

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/1800_1842.htm

... from the USPTO you have 12 months from your FULL national application to file your PCT application without losing your priority date.

So as far as I can tell this is how it is....

  • You have up to 12 months from when you first complete your invention to file a provisional.
  • Then you have 12 months from your provisional filing in which to file your full application (at least this is so in the US.
  • The according to the link above you have 12 months to file your PCT application.
Remeber your PCT application is only that... it is an application, NOT a patent in itself. All the PCT does is maintain a priority date while you explore in which individual countries you will proceed to do a full patent application. I have not researched the additional windows for each country but if you have got this far it is about time that you start using the services of a good international patent lawyer.

Ric's note: For such a common question I was surprised how long it took to find documentation on the subject... I kind of new this from experience but still it is something that should be readily available on the net or at least wikipedia.

Friday, March 5, 2010

View Australian Story Episode online Now - Updated

For a few months the online access to the ABC Australian Story episode featuring Ric Richardson has been restricted due to an ongoing legal situation regarding copyright for music used in the series.

As that issue nears resolution the Australian Story management has kindly re-established online access to the show which can be now viewed at:


Also on this page are links to the following videos:
  • Ric riding his dirt bike
  • Ric as a kid featured on a Johnny O'Keefe music video for Bandstand produced by his Dad and agrueably one of the first music video's made in Australia.
  • Background photos from the story
...

Sunday, February 28, 2010

The Tsunami watch

I was down Belongil beach this morning waiting to see if the Tsunami from Chile arrives... it hadn't by 9.10am so I headed home to attend to other matters. While down there I stood around with a couple of other locals watching surfers and people playing with dogs on the beach while having flashes of the images from the Indonesian tsunami and wondering whether I was a panic-ky girly man or just being sensible compared to all the other Aussies enjoying the ocean this Sunday morning.

There's something to be said for prudence.

On the other hand I came home to check the news feeds and saw hundreds of news items from the US. A small set of waves did hit Hawaii but the stories mushroomed into tales of emergency food buying and local panics. Its sad that some countries get no news about bad problems until it is too late and other get so much news that the news itself generates problems.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Australian Story Runs Again

Just got back from Sydney visiting my Dad who had a health scare to find that over 300 people have visited the site in the last hour due to a rerun of the Australian Story episode called "The Big Deal" talking about the struggle with Microsoft. I've also been so privileged to get a lot of wonderful comments on the site about the show and the website... click on the Australian Story icon above to look at articles relating to the show... its a real buzz to think so many fellow Aussies relate to our story... thanks for visiting. Ric

Sunday, January 3, 2010

A great idea made better - Pogoplug plus cloud services


The Pogoplug is a really great little solution to personal information and file management. It allows you to connect your hardrive full of stored music, files and videos to be accessed from anywhere on the interent... there is also a real cute interface to the drive system so you can access the drives as if they were local... cool.

But!!!

Wouldn't it be good if... the Pogoplug supplied a service that cached and forwarded copies of the most popular files that have been attempted to be downloaded on the cloud with the intent to increase speed and reduce dependence on your networks upload speed and avoid data caps. Also use dropbox's public linking system to allow some files to be accessed publicly. Maybe even a series of interfaces and API's to allow some of your files to be connected to secure web sites such as Flickr and Youtube etc.. just get the mind working.

The cache idea seems really important especially when you don't want permanent copies of your content anywhere but on your own hard drives. What do you think?

Friday, January 1, 2010

Early Years

Ric was born in Sydney, Australia, to Fred and Helen Richardson. His father is one of the original cameramen of the Australian television era, working for early Australian television programs such as Four Corners,This Day Tonight and later as a stringer news cameraman for national television station the ABC. At an early age Ric started working with his Dad initially as an assistant cameraman and eventually as a sound recordist doing film jobs for the news department at the ABC. It is during this time that Ric began a lifelong friendship with Jim Revitt, a leading Australian journalist and editor of the television news desk at the time.

Ric would often answer a call in the early morning hours, help his Dad load their family station wagon and head out to cover a wide range of news events ranging from suicide attempts to jump off the Sydney Harbour Bridge to car crashes, bush and house fires. At 12 Ric lived in Fiji for a few months while waiting for his father to join the family on a trip to the US that lasted another 10 months. During that trip the family visited all the major west coast national parks down to Mexico and up the mountain states through Denver to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. The family then travelled to Alaska to visit a long time friend of Ric's father and came home via Tokyo, Hong Kong and Manilla.

In his pre-teen years Ric started experimenting with trying to adapt the characteristics of dirt motorcycles with bicycle design at the time. His modifications would include adding motorcycle handlebars to dragster frames, using extended front forks to change the center of gravity and customized seat designs. Shortly after entering High School at Hunters Hill High in Sydney's northern suburbs, Ric opened the pages of the Amercian magazine Dirt Bike to see that all the design features he had envisioned had been encapsulated in a new bicycle called the Mongoose. The first BMX bike. In his first attempt at being an entreprenuer, Ric applied to become the Australian Distributor for Mongoose but failed to convince his parents to fund the $8,000 required purchase of the container load of bikes needed to establish the business. Ric later remarked that "it was amazing that my parents even considered backing me when only a decade earlier they didn't spend much more than that to buy our family home."

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Container dwellings

I have been looking at container based dwellings for some time now and am just amazed at the ingenuity that is being shown lately.

With a 40 foot container being available for less than $3000 it looks possible to get  a home decked out with IKEA gear for less than 20k. Also with its transportability the requirements of local government can be fairly easily accommodated and you end up with quite a respectable little place.


This looks cool... now if only you had a view out that window... maybe if you could locate it near a good coffee shop.. then you'd have... voila .. a dickmobile!