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Ask HN: How to protect a hardware product for investment?
Dear HN,
I just saw the news that Intel is EOL-ing RealSense. Let's hypothetically say I have custom hardware prototypes, drivers, and some example AIs for a replacement product. So far, it's only been used internally where it enabled new AI research. But how would I go about turning the camera itself into a proper product?
Obviously, there's startup incubators and venture capital firms. For example, I'm aware of Y-Combinator (surprise!) and the Sony Innovation Fund. The latter apparently seeks to invest into AI and Vision technologies. Also, those hardware prototypes just so happen to include Sony sensors.
But if the product already exists and is proven to work and to solve a real and valuable problem, it would be quite risky to just show the solution to angels, investors, incubators, or VCs. On the other hand, nobody's going to "buy" the cat in the bag.
My preliminary research suggests that it'll cost $10k to $20k to submit a patent draft. And one should probably at least cover hardware, software, drivers, and derived AI models, meaning probably around $60 to $80k in legalcosts. So that leads to a chicken and egg problem. You need money to pay for IP protection, but you'll need that IP protection to raise money.
What's the solution?
- PragmaticPulp 5y agoWhat, exactly, are you trying to protect from? The idea to duplicate RealSense cameras isn’t novel. There are already several similar products on the market and several more open source alternatives. > But if the product already exists and is proven to work and to solve a real and valuable problem, it would be quite risky to just show the solution to angels, investors, incubators, or VCs. Common beginner mistake, but it’s not actually true. VCs and investors invest in businesses, not products. Your product may be novel in some ways, but it’s not going to generate any money unless you can build a business around it. If you want to get this somewhere, you need to start building a business around it. Your hardware isn’t really worth much, other than maybe saving someone some NRE if they’re trying to build a similar project. What does your business (not product) offer that they can’t already get from starting with an off the shelf OpenCV product? You need to answer that question and validate it with real customers.
- fxtentacle 5y ago> What, exactly, are you trying to protect from? People taking the trick that makes this product unique / better and applying it themselves. So a mixture of hardware and software design choices which together make this a useful execution of the general idea of building a 3D camera. It should be quite easy for anyone to identify the specific features of this camera prototype that differ from existing 3D cameras. And with a bit of research people can figure out what is improved by that specific way of building it. Yes, one could dismiss this as only saving them a NRE, but what if the amount saved is very high? > What does your business (not product) offer that they can’t already get from starting with an off the shelf OpenCV product? Since there's no business yet, that is difficult to answer. What the product offers is that it works in situations where existing products had problems. For example, IR laser projection like the RealSense won't work well with reflective objects, glass, thin wires, or water. But all of those are common environments for end-user drones.
- PragmaticPulp 5y agoPatent what you can, but that’s about where it ends. Obviously you can’t keep something secret and sell it to the public at the same time. Don’t even think about trying to get investors to sign NDAs because no one is touching that legal minefield.
- fxtentacle 5y agoYes, but how can a newly founded startup afford to pay for those patents without external funding? Or the other way around: Why should any investor pay for patents if they don't know whether they'll turn out to be useful in the end?