Patents

In my first year at Journyx I came up with an innovative new idea that we could use to drive traffic to our site, and perhaps monetize as a secondary business.  The powers that be at Journyx decided that it was worth trying, and eventually decided to patent it.  We never really used it, but they still could.

When we started the process of filing patent paperwork, we decided to go ahead and brainstorm up some more ideas.  Several people participated in many impromptu meetings.  Curt Finch, Bill Leake, John Maddalozzo, Chris Anderson, and myself.  We eventually came up with thirteen ideas that we thought were patent-able.  I was elected the point of contact for the patent attorneys.

I met with the patent attorneys and explained all thirteen ideas.  I drew up the diagrams they needed.  They went away and produced voluminous paperwork and diagrams.  I proofed their paperwork and corrected their diagrams.  Then they filed all of the paperwork.

Seven of those thirteen have now been granted.  I believe a few of the other six were rejected.  But I am not sure how many remain undecided.

(The US Patent Office's servers seem to be flaky.  Sometimes you will just get a 'Too Many Users' error message.)

My original idea, billboards hosted on our "clients" servers:
* 6,282,567 Application software add-on for enhanced internet based marketing
The idea was to monetize the 10-free installations of our software by having them host ads for us in lieu of paying for the software. (I made a custom tinyurl for this: http://tinyurl.com/randys-patent-1 )

The other 6 approved patents.  I participated to varying degrees in the idea formation of these:
* 6,747,679 Time keeping and expense tracking server that interfaces with a user based upon a user's atomic abilities
* 6,750,885 Time keeping and expense tracking server that interfaces with a user based upon a user's atomic abilities
* 6,751,650 Method and apparatus for monitoring contractor performance
* 6,753,884 Method and apparatus for wireless web time and expense entry via time keeping and expense tracking server access
* 6,944,652 Method and apparatus for providing frequent flyer miles and incentives for timely interaction with a time records system
* 7,069,498 Method and apparatus for a web based punch clock/time clock