I needed financing for my startup based on this technology. After an initial financing search, it became clear it had to be patented to get financing.
To some degree, patents are a mechanism forcing early technology companies into expensive legal engagements, which drain resources from the company, triggering hefty financing requirements, and a dilution of the inventor's equity.
It is a carefully crafted system that benefits the 1% entirely, and the remaining 99% are merely the crop they farm.
Don't worry about the naysayers. I am in the same position as you right now as we are doing work with AR and computer vision that people/investors etc... don't get yet. Maybe we are too early in the market, but probably not. If we are too early then at least we have something that we can fall back on without losing everything we have put into it.
At the end of the day I have to be able to say that I did everything I could to make our technology "win" in the marketplace.
If we are too early then at least we have something that we can fall back on without losing everything we have put into it.
No, see, what'll happen is your patent will be bought up during your exit event/firesale, and then used to harass other people in the space.
Especially in AR/VR/whatever, there's a huge incentive to patent things which are fairly obvious with just a little applied engineering time, and which will be used to harass a lot of people later.
If you wanted your technology to "win", you should make it open and free (in the software sense) to use--as it is, you've just got some tepid AR entry in the backwards swamp that is AEC.
Ha thanks for all the kind words. Actually our patents don't have to do with AEC and are actually pretty novel in the computer vision realm.
I actually ran the idea of putting our work for "free" by our current investors because I am a fan of FOSS but it's a non-starter when it comes to raising money and it's just a fact of life that we need investment to keep going.
To some degree, patents are a mechanism forcing early technology companies into expensive legal engagements, which drain resources from the company, triggering hefty financing requirements, and a dilution of the inventor's equity.
It is a carefully crafted system that benefits the 1% entirely, and the remaining 99% are merely the crop they farm.