Our team ran across an old buddy whose father is a patent attorney. We jumped at the chance to make a connection by inviting our buddy and his father out for lunch to give us a lesson about patent infringement and its penalties.
Our Sqeeqee team was curious because one of our key patent-pending features is our social network search feature, which Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook recently talked about when he was speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, September 11. It was Mr. Zuckerberg's first public presentation since his company's IPO three months prior. He said, "Search is interesting. We do on the order of 1 billion queries a day, and we’re basically not even trying. Today with search the vast majority of it is people trying to find people, but there’s also a meaningful portion of queries where people are trying to find pages, brand pages, other business pages. So there’s a bunch of that actually does link to commercial behavior, and I think there’s a big opportunity there and we just need to go do that."
So here we are holding this pending patent, and it looks like Facebook wants to “go do that.” While we are uncertain of Facebook's plans, we can't help but anticipate how things will evolve for Facebook to “go do that” in the very near future. We do know if Facebook adapts such a plan—be fearful Google because Facebook will K-I-L-L your growth. Google's net worth is currently about $200 billion. If Facebook adapts its search feature, it could easily T-R-I-P-L-E its current net worth, E-A-S-Y!!
Back to our lunch…boy, we would actually be thrilled if our patents were being infringed upon! We've learned that the damages are made up of several ways in which a court can award damages to the patent owner. One of the main ways is by ruling that the infringer will have to compensate the inventor for the wrongful use of the patented invention. The penalty amount would typically be decided on by a jury or the court. We were told that a typical calculation could be figured out based on what is known as the “royalty rate.” The coolest part is, under certain circumstances, the court could award this royalty amount by tripling it, which is known as “treble damages.” (Yes, we took notes—LOL.) This usually happens when the infringer was found to act "willfully,” which is similar to an intentional act (i.e., knowing there was already an existing patent but going ahead and infringing upon it anyway)! Ouch for them! Ka-ching for us!!
In addition to the penalty amount compensated to the patent owner, the infringer would also be required to pay interest on the money owed as well as all court costs. OMG! And it didn't end there—in addition to the financial penalty, the court will often issue an injunction for the infringer to stop infringing on the patent and refrain from EVER doing so again! A second OUCH!!
“Patent Wars” are never pretty, but patents are a regulatory system imposed on technology that is intended to ensure that inventors get paid for their inventions. It is not our intention to ever become involved in a patent war. Still, that is given that our competitors respect the fact that we have patented (or patent-pending) inventions.
As for the lunch? Let's see…for a party of five, the bill was $267.99, and that included a 20% gratuity! We believe it was a S-T-E-A-L for nearly three hours of legal advice. We want to thank our buddy and his father for having lunch with us. We greatly appreciate it, and the honor was truly all ours.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Internet: The “Business Cycle” of the World Wide Web
Do you believe that everything happens in cycles? Or how about the balance between all things? Every time something good happens, does something bad also happen? How about whenever we buy something new? Does something else that we already have break down or get damaged? In Chinese philosophy, there is the concept of yin-yang, which the West refers to as “yin and yang.” It is a form of nature where the universe strives to keep all things in balance.
How about in the world of finance? For every stock that goes up, is there one that goes down? For microeconomics, is there a macroeconomics? Then there are “Business Cycles.” What is a Business Cycle? Simply put, a Business Cycle is a period during which a business, an industry, or the entire economy expands and contracts.
How about the World Wide Web or Internet? If my recollection serves me right, there were a variety of protocols that were developed in the 1960s to 1970s that eventually led to what we now know today as the Internet. For younger generations, we may trace the Internet back to the mid-1990s when Bill Clinton was president. During those years, the Internet grew at a phenomenal and unbelievable rate. Data was transmitted at a much higher speed over fiber optic networks through the usage of emails; instant messaging; VoIP; discussion forums; blogs; online shopping sites; and yes, even social networking. The rise of the dot-com era paved the way to a new generation of billionaires.
Would it be fair to say with the latest rise of Facebook, a $100 billion IPO, that the Internet has been expanding for at least two decades if we were to only mark the start of the boom in the mid-1990s? Within the past 20 years, a company like Google, which was incorporated in 1998 and went public in 2004, has gathered an unbelievable amount of data, which to some may be beneficial, but to others is too saturated to be effective. Take a new business for example. After buying a domain name (if it is still available), paying for a server, creating a website, and performing daily maintenance, it would be extremely difficult for that new business to be “searchable” (or simply put, be found) if advertising dollars are not being spent. Sometimes even if advertising dollars are being spent, effectiveness is still elusive.
Let's take a look at it from a different perspective. How many different profiles do we have today? Facebook? Twitter? Amazon? Ebay? How about Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail? YouTube? Did you know that when registering for a Gmail account you are required to have an email address? Yes, really!! Here you are trying to open an email account through Gmail, but it requires you to have one already. Does that make any sense?? Then there are those domain names. If you have a domain name, then you also have a profile with either GoDaddy or NetworkSolutions. How about downloading apps or music from iTunes? There’s another profile that you would need to have as well. And these are just some of the popular sites that require profiles. If we were to list everything, it would probably take up pages and pages of space. What would you prefer? Shopping in a mall where many different stores are centralized in one location or driving to each of those stores with each one having a different location?
Wal-Mart is a perfect example of this exact philosophy, as it has made it work since 1962. A shopper can literally pick up mouthwash, soap, deodorant, a loaf of bread, milk, a bathing suit, and a jogging outfit all conveniently at the same time—and most importantly, at the same location. What if the World Wide Web Universe was like a Wal-Mart, where all the famous brands came together in one simple site, using one simple profile, and most importantly, you have the ability to build your own community with instant interaction all at the same time? You could buy a book, search for the hottest hangout, download (or upload) an app, microblog, share a photo (or video), compete in virtual games, and have instant interaction all at the same time—and while using just one simple profile! Certainly, popular individual sites like Google, Amazon, Ebay, GoDaddy, Twitter, or even Facebook may not be fond of the idea because they can clearly see that if such an entity was to exist, their sites could literally be crushed!
Let's go back to our initial topic, the “Business Cycle,” with its expansion and contraction stages. We are at the “expansion” stage of the World Wide Web because everything is too saturated. A given user has way too many profiles to even handle. As of the end of 2011, there were 555 million websites, and 220 million registered domain names. How can anyone find anyone on the Internet? Even if mega bucks were to be added into online advertisements, how effective can it be? Yes, the new wave of social media sites has been helpful in “contracting” things down to a smaller, more durable scale of information to handle, but social media sites today from Facebook and Twitter to LinkedIn are still not the ultimate answer when compared to the similar philosophy of Wal-mart being the leader of the retailers.
As the Business Cycle goes in the world of business, the “Internet Cycle” is soon to follow in the World Wide Web universe. Where there are expansions, contractions are inevitable.
With that, we would like to conclude with our humble philosophy: Sqeeqee will become "The Missing Link" of the Internet as to what Wal-mart is to retailers.
How about in the world of finance? For every stock that goes up, is there one that goes down? For microeconomics, is there a macroeconomics? Then there are “Business Cycles.” What is a Business Cycle? Simply put, a Business Cycle is a period during which a business, an industry, or the entire economy expands and contracts.
How about the World Wide Web or Internet? If my recollection serves me right, there were a variety of protocols that were developed in the 1960s to 1970s that eventually led to what we now know today as the Internet. For younger generations, we may trace the Internet back to the mid-1990s when Bill Clinton was president. During those years, the Internet grew at a phenomenal and unbelievable rate. Data was transmitted at a much higher speed over fiber optic networks through the usage of emails; instant messaging; VoIP; discussion forums; blogs; online shopping sites; and yes, even social networking. The rise of the dot-com era paved the way to a new generation of billionaires.
Would it be fair to say with the latest rise of Facebook, a $100 billion IPO, that the Internet has been expanding for at least two decades if we were to only mark the start of the boom in the mid-1990s? Within the past 20 years, a company like Google, which was incorporated in 1998 and went public in 2004, has gathered an unbelievable amount of data, which to some may be beneficial, but to others is too saturated to be effective. Take a new business for example. After buying a domain name (if it is still available), paying for a server, creating a website, and performing daily maintenance, it would be extremely difficult for that new business to be “searchable” (or simply put, be found) if advertising dollars are not being spent. Sometimes even if advertising dollars are being spent, effectiveness is still elusive.
Let's take a look at it from a different perspective. How many different profiles do we have today? Facebook? Twitter? Amazon? Ebay? How about Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail? YouTube? Did you know that when registering for a Gmail account you are required to have an email address? Yes, really!! Here you are trying to open an email account through Gmail, but it requires you to have one already. Does that make any sense?? Then there are those domain names. If you have a domain name, then you also have a profile with either GoDaddy or NetworkSolutions. How about downloading apps or music from iTunes? There’s another profile that you would need to have as well. And these are just some of the popular sites that require profiles. If we were to list everything, it would probably take up pages and pages of space. What would you prefer? Shopping in a mall where many different stores are centralized in one location or driving to each of those stores with each one having a different location?
Wal-Mart is a perfect example of this exact philosophy, as it has made it work since 1962. A shopper can literally pick up mouthwash, soap, deodorant, a loaf of bread, milk, a bathing suit, and a jogging outfit all conveniently at the same time—and most importantly, at the same location. What if the World Wide Web Universe was like a Wal-Mart, where all the famous brands came together in one simple site, using one simple profile, and most importantly, you have the ability to build your own community with instant interaction all at the same time? You could buy a book, search for the hottest hangout, download (or upload) an app, microblog, share a photo (or video), compete in virtual games, and have instant interaction all at the same time—and while using just one simple profile! Certainly, popular individual sites like Google, Amazon, Ebay, GoDaddy, Twitter, or even Facebook may not be fond of the idea because they can clearly see that if such an entity was to exist, their sites could literally be crushed!
Let's go back to our initial topic, the “Business Cycle,” with its expansion and contraction stages. We are at the “expansion” stage of the World Wide Web because everything is too saturated. A given user has way too many profiles to even handle. As of the end of 2011, there were 555 million websites, and 220 million registered domain names. How can anyone find anyone on the Internet? Even if mega bucks were to be added into online advertisements, how effective can it be? Yes, the new wave of social media sites has been helpful in “contracting” things down to a smaller, more durable scale of information to handle, but social media sites today from Facebook and Twitter to LinkedIn are still not the ultimate answer when compared to the similar philosophy of Wal-mart being the leader of the retailers.
As the Business Cycle goes in the world of business, the “Internet Cycle” is soon to follow in the World Wide Web universe. Where there are expansions, contractions are inevitable.
With that, we would like to conclude with our humble philosophy: Sqeeqee will become "The Missing Link" of the Internet as to what Wal-mart is to retailers.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Sqeeqee.com: Killing Two Birds with One Stone
Social media frenzy from Twitter to Facebook, Instagram to Google+—how do we keep up? As tech junkies, we couldn't help but remember our parents' era as they were growing up watching family shows like "Growing Pains" or "The Cosby Show" in the mid-80s. Raising teenage children, both the Seavers and the Cosbys had day-to-day problems of their own, but nothing like today.
Teenagers of today are "digital teenagers." Aside from the iPods, iPads, iPhones, text messaging, and e-mails, they also need to keep up with their friends and followers by updating through Tweeting, posting a photo on Instagram of the choice of drinks at a nearby Starbucks, and don't forget sending those 5,000 friends (or foes) on Facebook a message: Are we meeting at Taco Bell later?
With just these few popular social media sites, not only teenagers but parents, professionals, and businesspeople need to add at least one more to that list—LinkedIn. As we continue to innovate and revolutionize the digital world, there will continue to be many more social media sites with unique, one-of-a-kind features to blend in with the current favorites. So how do we keep up? Being a tech junkie is easy. We can just easily program an application to automate postings for us or tweet something every 30 minutes. That is simple to do. But is it personal? Probably not.
At Sqeeqee.com, we are here to understand your needs. Time is money. Being personal is key. We cater to these issues by giving our users the answer—killing two birds with one stone. A user on Sqeeqee.com can make a comment, send a link, post a photo or video, and all such actions will automatically be posted on either or both of his or her Twitter and Facebook pages. Convenient, simple, and easy.
Try it today. Registration is free. You can even use your current Twitter, Facebook, or e-mail account to enter Sqeeqee.com. With just a few clicks to "connect" your Sqeeqee wall to your Twitter and Facebook walls, you are ready to rock-n-roll! While you're there, check out YOUR OWN E-Commerce Shop (it’s free to add whatever you wish to sell) and type something into our Internal Search tool. You might find something that other social media sites do not have. Just in case you didn't catch it, we are that other social media site with unique, one-of-a-kind features that one just cannot pass up. Thank you for Sqeeqee-ing!
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