More Travels and Intellectual Property

I'll be headed to San Jose for a few days this month.  I'll be attending the CleanTech Investor Conference July 14th and the CleanTech Academy July 15th through 18th.  It'll be the first trip I take without any of my teammates.  The main purpose of the trip is to learn and network.  Participation is mandatory to compete in the CleanTech Open.  Silicon Solar participated last year and told us that they found it very beneficial.  One good thing about the CleanTech Open is that you can compete more than once.  So if we don't win this year we could come back next year.

Aside from preparing for the CleanTech Open, we have several other irons in the fire.  We are finalizing our patent license and engaging investors as we move along in the process.  We are also refining our intellectual property strategy.  Fresh from our trip to the LES conference in London, we were eager to put what we learned to good use.  Besides patents, there are several other forms of IP that we can develop and put to good use.  For example, we can develop trade secrets which may be more beneficial than patents.  Trade secrets, unlike patents, are not exposed to the public.  When a patent is filed the technology is open for review by the public.  Other IP that we plan on using our brands and trademarks.  As we learned in marketing, brands add value by forming a bond with consumers.  Consumers trust brands and are willing to pay extra for that sense of security.  These are just a few of the myriad of things that we have been busy working on the last few weeks.  Entrepreneurship is not all fun and games, it can be quite exhausting.