By David French
In preparing materials for a recent presentation I boldly summarized the patenting process as follows:
It’s very easy to obtain a patent. Just file an application … for a useful idea that includes a description on how to make it happen, and which specifies a feature that is new (done in one or more “claims”).
Easily said, but challenging to fully understand the consequences of these requirements.
The patent novelty requirement
Discussing these issues with aspiring inventors, I’ve come to realize that one of the sticking points in going forward is appreciating the feature that is being patented. This is the feature referenced above that must be “new.”
Inventors often do not fully appreciate the novelty requirement of patent law. Patents are not issued simply because an inventor has conceived of something which is useful. Patents only issue for things which are new. The Golden Rule of patent law is that a patent cannot take away from the public anything that was previously available. “Previously available” includes “obvious variants” on what was already known, disclosed, or put into use anywhere in the world, in any way, at any time prior to the filing of a patent application.
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By Hailley Griffis 
Happy Friday everyone. This week, as usual, we have our favourite articles of the week lined up for you. Since we’ve been talking about startups and entrepreneurship in Ottawa in a few posts on the blog this week (look to Leo and Francis’ duelling posts), our first article talks about why startups should opt for digital marketing. Next we take a look at the latest change to Facebook and what that means for B2B marketers. Finally, the last two articles we’ve rounded up talk about how to combine your customer service and marketing efforts by making your marketing useful and avoiding silly mistakes on social media. We pulled this week’s content from Nashville Business Journal, Convince and Convert, Social Media B2B and Memeburn. Let us know what you think!
4 reasons startups should invest in digital marketing
Samantha Owns Pyle, Owner of Green Apple Strategy, looks into some excellent reasons why entrepreneurs should consider beginning their marketing efforts with digital marketing, as opposed to jumping into traditional mass marketing. Cost effectiveness is a big one for startups, as is setting up early-stage personal branding.
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By Francis Moran
When Ottawa’s newly reconstituted economic development agency Invest Ottawa earlier this year unveiled its proposal to convert a disused former city workshop in the Bayview Yards into a hub for the city’s technology and startup communities, I thought it was one of the boldest initiatives from an organization whose hallmark, at least in its previous incarnations, was not exactly one of bold and innovative thinking. I have long looked covetously at Kitchener-Waterloo’s Communitech Hub, Toronto’s MaRS Discovery District or Campus London in the British city’s east end, and I welcomed the IO effort to create a similar locus and anchor point for Ottawa’s considerable but largely fractured technology communities.
(And I use the plural of community advisedly here. Ottawa’s tech sector is an amalgam of communities that, best efforts of many people notwithstanding, continues to fracture between the older, west-end companies focused mainly on communications infrastructure and the younger, downtown companies working on software and apps.) Read More
By Hailley Griffis
Last month’s lineup featured great posts that shattered common myths about how your brain functionality affects sales and marketing and whether or not your software demo may be killing your sales. We looked at worst practices in the world of social media marketing (and how to avoid them), as well as how to pitch an investor slide by slide. Most notably, our website was redesigned and we are happy to present to you the new and improved layout. Let us know what you think!
In case you missed any of it, here is a handy recap of our posts, as ranked by the enthusiasm of our readers:
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By Hailley Griffis
We’ve rounded up some of the best posts we came across this week. Today we’re looking at the justification for online marketing and some tips for implementing a real-time marketing strategy. One of our favourite topics is customer service, and we’ll take a look at four excellent examples of using Twitter for that purpose. Finally, we’re finishing up today by looking at Gmail’s new Promotions tabs and how that affects e-mail marketing. We grabbed this week’s articles from Bdaily, 1to1Media, SocialMediaExaminer and Time Business.
Is online marketing just a waste of time?
There are many things that a business should consider before jumping into online marketing. Vicki Stone outlines some of the questions that should be asked beforehand. The most sound advice requires a business to look at their customers’ current habits to figure out whether or not online marketing raises the right kind of awareness they are seeking. Though most of the time, when it’s done correctly and there are clear goals for your online marketing efforts, it’s absolutely worth the effort.
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