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Envision is Patent Pending!

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Patent Image

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been somewhat in awe and fear of the whole idea of creating, submitting and holding a patent.  Until about a year ago, the only interaction I had ever really had with patents is that I probably used a lot of products that were patented or, at least, were “patent pending…”

I most often get two comments when discussing the Envision idea, what we stand for and why we do what we do:

  1. You need to go on Shark Tank
  2. Do you have a patent?

I’m not sure about the first one, though it would certainly be enjoyable, but had given thought to #2 for the three months during which we launched our core functionality in late May, 2014.  Can we patent a swim tattoo, what would it take, has anyone done it before, etc.?  I did some VERY basic research, figured out how simple it was to do a basic patent search and re-learned a very important thing…it’s really really hard to come up with a truly original idea.

I spoke with a patent attorney who, along with his wife, operated the swim system at our summer league meets for about a decade (and, coincidentally had asked me if I had gotten a patent) and decided on a provisional.  It’s important to understand what a patent it, what it protects and what it might mean if you don’t get one.  After a really frank and refreshing discussion, I decided to hold off and, instead, file a provisional patent.  In 2011, which became fully effective in 2013, President Obama signed the America Invents Act (AIA).  Until then, contested patents were primarily awarded to the entity/individual who could ultimately provide the best proof regarding the “first to invent.”  After the AIA, contested patents (and this is a bit of an over-simplification) are awarded to the first inventor to file.  A provisional patent, though not a real patent, gives the submitter (us) one year from the filing of the provisional patent to file a full patent and, most importantly, gives the provisional patent submitter “first to file” status.

First and foremost, we’d never have a provisional or a pending patent if not for extraordinary efforts of our CTO, Corey Reil in turning a bunch of scratched out requirements into a real system AND the execution and diligence of our Legal Counsel and Innovation partner, John Humphrey at Humphrey Law in Washington, DC.  As Corey codes the systems we use to produce our works, John and I spent hours pouring over existing patents, refining language, diagrams and dissecting the patent application process in order to file our first patent.  Will we get it?  We’ll see.  It takes 6-8 months to go through the process, get an examiner, etc.  We’ll keep everyone up to date we find out more.  Until then, cross your fingers for us and, I guess we’ll see about Shark Tank…

Our Story

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I interact with a lot of parents in and around swim meets, soccer games and other sports activities.  My daughter is a competitive swimmer, not a state champ, but committed to excelling in her chosen sport.  As such, I’m at a lot of meets.  You go, you learn, you figure out the process, when to get there, where to sit at each venue, how to position your towel to give yourself any breathing room you can get, how to set up a canopy tent for those outdoor meets, etc.  People help you, the give you their tips and it becomes more and more a habit.  Habit is actually the way that your brain keeps itself from being overworked.  As soon as it figures out that an activity is repetitive, it relegates it to the body’s habit-building mechanism and moves on to other things.

So there I was, in the habit at a meet.  I had gotten there 30 minutes before the door opened, fed my daughter a decent breakfast, found some space on the 5 row aluminum bleacher, spread out my towel for 5 (because I had unconsciously forgotten that there were only 2 of  us at this meet), gotten the heat sheet and marked up my kid.  As I sat patiently awaiting my daughter’s return from warm-ups, in walked a couple of dads with their two swimmers – late.  Always a bad sign.  As they walked toward my end of the pool, I realized for the first time that I had way more room than I needed and the four of them needed it, so I offered them the spots next to me and the fun began.  They had never really looked at a heat sheet before.  Their boys were late for warm-ups, they had a heat sheet, but hadn’t put the grid on.  Next thing I know, the boys are yelling at their dads to “write my events on my arm like mom does so I can go warm up.”  After about 30 seconds, I calmly offered to help…pulled out the heat sheet, drew the blank grid on the cover for them, labelled the oh so familiar “E/H/L” and set about searching for their boys’ events.  They marked up their boys and off they went.

As I sat back and took a deep breath, it hit how idiotic that whole process is.  More over, it occurred to me that it might jut be the dumbest thing I do all the time. Everyone does dumb things “one off,” but this dumb activity I did with alarming and thoughtless regularity.  As an innovation coach, a consumer experience designer and, more importantly, a human, several things occurred to me all at once.

  1. All I really want to do at a meet is spend time with my daughter and those I know around me
  2. I never get that 10 minutes with my daughter right before the meet to get her psyched up to really race
  3. The heat sheet isn’t made for me, it’s just what I have to use.  It’s made for the coaches…the only people who really care about knowing where and when everyone is swimming.
  4. Taking into account the hundreds of people at the meet and thousands of people around swimming who do this every weekend, there’s a lot of stress going around.

At the next meet, I went early, got a heat sheet, designed a grid, typed in the information, printed it on a piece of tattoo paper and slapped it on my daughter’s arm.  Parents at the meet began asking me “what is that and how do I get one?”  The next day I made seven more for other swimmers…and that’s where Envision began.

Since then, hundreds of people have spent more quality time with their children before a meet, engaged and excited, rather than stressed and hurried.  They smile rather than frown and the kids enjoy their “cool” tattoo.  Parents see their kids swim, know more about the events than before and celebrate instantly when achievements happen.  Joy over stress, happiness over contention and excitement instead of worry.  This is why Envision exists and we are thrilled to be able to bring additional joy and focus to those we serve!   Be in the moment…there’s just so few of them, you can’t afford to miss one second.