One of the common concerns among our inventor clients and innovation departments of large companies is the risk that their products may be copied by manufacturers themselves in the future.
Despite patents or other methods for protecting a product’s intellectual property, there’s one truth: if your product is good, someone will try to copy it. That’s why one of your main goals during the creation of an electronic prototype should be to take measures that minimize the risk of your product being copied.
The implementation of OTA, in addition to the advantages mentioned above, can also be considered a method for protecting electronic products—and let me explain how we've done it at Let’s Prototype.
Imagine we develop a wearable device—for example, a smartwatch designed for playing padel. A watch capable of identifying padel strokes, tracking points, and alerting you to potential health risks while you play.
This special smartwatch for padel players will require various electronic components, smart sensors, and of course, a microcontroller and firmware (control software) that manages all the data and synchronizes with your match.
Of course, it will be an electronic device subject to improvements and likely to have multiple issues that we’ll only discover once it’s used by thousands of padel players. Including the ability to update the firmware via OTA will allow players, with just a couple of taps on the smartwatch’s touchscreen, to always have the latest and most corrected version of the firmware.
Let’s now think about the intellectual property protection of this product. The innovation behind smart padel wristbands lies in the mathematical models and artificial intelligence. As you can imagine, these logics are defined within the device’s own control firmware. Therefore, in this case, a patent would have limited usefulness.
To protect the innovation of this electronic product, we could use two strategies—although I’ll tell you in advance that the first one is not highly recommended.
Strategy 1: Build your own factory for smart padel wristbands. I’m sure you’ll agree with me that this is a very slow path and, above all, requires astronomical investments.
Perhaps, over the years and with a lot of money invested, you might eventually manage to manufacture wristbands with the same quality as those already produced in China—but with costs that will hardly be as competitive.
Strategy 2: Establish a strategy for installing and updating firmware via the OTA method.
On one hand, you’ll be able to use existing production lines in China. You’ll reach the industrial production stage more quickly and at a lower cost compared to Strategy No. 1.
Once the units are manufactured, you can provide the Chinese manufacturers with a very basic control software (firmware). This firmware will not include any of the innovative features you want to protect. Therefore, once the wristbands are assembled, the manufacturers will connect a cable and install a limited version of the firmware. This version will be enough to verify that the electronic components are working properly—nothing more.
Once the wristbands reach the end customers, in their packaging and fully sealed, the screen will display the steps for the user to update the firmware via OTA, which is what actually enables the product to be used for playing padel with all its features.
- Manufacturers will never have access to the final firmware, which is what enables the electronic product to deliver its innovative features.
- Customers will never be able to access the software that controls their wristbands.
- Customers will always be able to use their wristband with the latest available firmware.
- The inventor saves costs on after-sales services and can continuously improve the product without generating additional costs for customers.
Many times, inventors—due to limited investment or lack of knowledge—entrust the development of their innovative electronic products to beginners. The lack of experience and strategic vision required to create an electronic product can doom your invention to failure.
