Usually, the best way to get innovative new technology into the hands of beneficiaries quickly is to get a for-profit company to invest with a promise of making money. This can happen via licensing a patent to an existing manufacturer, or creating a whole startup company and raising venture capital, etc.
One of the things such investors want to see is a ‘moat’: something that this company can do that no other company can easily copy. A patent/exclusive license is a good way to create a moat.
There are some domains like software where simply publishing ‘open source’ ideas causes those ideas to get used, but for most domains including manufacturing, my default expectation is that new tech is not used unless someone can make money off it. Pharma is a great example—there are tons of vaccines and niche treatments that we don’t have manufacturing for, even though we know how, because nobody can make enough money doing it.
I’d be really interested to hear whether you are considering seeing this idea through yourself? It sounds like you’re doing a Ph.D; but if you would consider dropping out to work on this as a startup, then I think doing so would be one of the best ways to maximize this idea’s chances for success. (In large part because your brain probably contains tons of highly relevant info for making this product work at scale!)
You wrote: “most scientists do patent and keep everything secret within companies”—but I wonder if this indicates confusion, since usually patents don’t keep things secret, they are published. Patents just allow their owner a legal monopoly on technology for a limited time.
Can you get introduced to any food-manufacturing people (ideally folks at bigger companies, in charge of finding + investing in new food products), who you can talk to about your idea, even just to get advice? Or, founders of similar food tech companies who came up with a good idea and had to decide whether to patent it?
Congrats on having invented something exciting!
Usually, the best way to get innovative new technology into the hands of beneficiaries quickly is to get a for-profit company to invest with a promise of making money. This can happen via licensing a patent to an existing manufacturer, or creating a whole startup company and raising venture capital, etc.
One of the things such investors want to see is a ‘moat’: something that this company can do that no other company can easily copy. A patent/exclusive license is a good way to create a moat.
There are some domains like software where simply publishing ‘open source’ ideas causes those ideas to get used, but for most domains including manufacturing, my default expectation is that new tech is not used unless someone can make money off it. Pharma is a great example—there are tons of vaccines and niche treatments that we don’t have manufacturing for, even though we know how, because nobody can make enough money doing it.
I’d be really interested to hear whether you are considering seeing this idea through yourself? It sounds like you’re doing a Ph.D; but if you would consider dropping out to work on this as a startup, then I think doing so would be one of the best ways to maximize this idea’s chances for success. (In large part because your brain probably contains tons of highly relevant info for making this product work at scale!)
You wrote: “most scientists do patent and keep everything secret within companies”—but I wonder if this indicates confusion, since usually patents don’t keep things secret, they are published. Patents just allow their owner a legal monopoly on technology for a limited time.
Can you get introduced to any food-manufacturing people (ideally folks at bigger companies, in charge of finding + investing in new food products), who you can talk to about your idea, even just to get advice? Or, founders of similar food tech companies who came up with a good idea and had to decide whether to patent it?