Well, I hope it won’t be a vanity patent, of course, but unless this is finally my winning lotto ticket that is what it will turn into.
As some of my reader(s) may know, I have been working on an idea for a DNA sequencing chip for a number of years (looking at my notes, since mid 2007). I had pretty much given up on it a couple of years ago when I found a competitor doing something quite similar, but at the instigation of an investor friend, a couple of weeks ago I met with some patent lawyers to discuss the prospects. Surprisingly to me, they felt my idea was quite distinct from competitor, so I started to explore the idea of getting a patent. They did some research pro bono and found what they initially thought was a deal killing patent and sent it to me, but when I looked at it it seemed to me my idea was equally distinct from it as it was from the previous one, though it took an in-person meeting to get my point across (images might be worth a thousand words, but if most of those words are interpreted incorrectly there is no substitute for arm waving and scribbles on paper). After that meeting (last Tuesday) we decided to go forward with the patent application. The cost is not trivial (I expect to pay between $15-25K, at a minimum) and that caused some friction with my better half, but we are off to the races.
I have been doing a lot of reading on the details of the patent process as well as commercializing a patent and think that there is a pretty good chance (better than 50%) that I can find an interested buyer even if I don’t have a working prototype. Failing that, I believe there is an even stronger chance (likely 90%+) that I can get enough interest in current DNA sequencing companies to pay a (relatively) small licensing fee that I can use to pay for the research, so I won’t need to give up 90% of the equity just to get the money to do the research. There remains the chance, of course, that I won’t be taken seriously even with a patent, but that still leaves me with the opportunity to find investors and do the research the ‘old fashioned’ way (i.e., by giving up 90% of the equity).
Of course, my idea might not work, or at least I might not be able to make it work, thus the potential for a vanity patent. Still a lotto ticket, but the odds are way better than one in 175,000,000 (more like 9 in 10 in my estimation), so I feel good about it. My wife remains quite skeptical, for good reason, but I think this might be ‘the one’ and the cost is considerably less than the cost of our greenhouse/pool and the potential payback is astronomical in comparison so have kind of run roughshod over her objections.
Wish me luck!
