Saturday, June 26, 2010

Clique Space(TM) progress report.

It is Sunday night, 11:30. I am sitting in front of the teev watching some cop drama. I am reasonably happy having had dinner at my mothers and almost ready to go to bed.

About a week ago, I set up SVN on my spare desktop. I'm now using that installation to host my code, and I am preparing to head off in two possible directions. First, I've still to complete the Agent Collaboration, and second, is the concept of constraints which still remain to be implemented.

As has so far been the case, I'm going to address both issues simultaneously until fate determines which one (or particular part of one) my attentions should be concentrated.

I have three patents: AU, NZ, and US, and although I believe three patents is not be enough to set up a marketplace that is free from competition while this concept is establishing itself, I felt all along that I was up against stupid people who didn't have a clue. I would have completely lost my claim to ownership of this concept unless I saved enough money to make these three registrations myself. I wish I could have made more, but I have no more money.

Kill the fox to feed the pig. I need help with this for I prognosticate the necessity to defend the claims I have been able to afford...

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Consideration for my IP

Almost a year has past since I registered a PCT about my concept. The outcome looks like becoming as real as my cynical deliberations a year ago had predicted.

The thing about using the patent system to protect IP is that it does involve risk. The length of time within which one has to prove whether the risk will pay off is in many cases insufficient for that risk to be assessed. Additionally, a risk also involves a probability of failure, and those who may choose to back a risk take on the consequences of the failure as well as any consequences of success. Unfortunately, it appears, the investment necessary to register national phase patents in some jurisdictions (viz Europe - $20 thousand AU) is too costly for any potential investor to to carry - even if the risk an investor may carry is only the money they would lose if the concept failed.

So, although I have three national phase applications in progress (Australia, New Zealand and the United States), I have no European registration, and this considerably compromises my market position, and saps my motivation. I have told the university as much, and although I intend to commence my study in July, think I might see things go on in the marketplace that will help me neither complete the programme nor apply myself fully to it. This may be all for the fact that I couldn't get a European registration because I couldn't afford the cost and couldn't find anyone to back me who could.

Although my concept becomes prior art, software leviathans may muscle in to the innovative territory staked out by my concept, and provide a solution that uses my concept in their product without paying consideration to me, the person who came up with the concept. I might observe this and conclude that this must be competition. This must justify the malaise that results in the cynicism that pervades an inventor's intentions. This must be the type of social justice in the society all of us want, because the evidence suggests that this is the type of social justice we all have.

Those who have the money to pay for expensive national phase patents stand a better chance of claiming ownership of their ideas than those that cannot. I can stand as testament to the way current secular philosophy can crush the individual as innovator; very possibly to promote the individual as consumer. Its better to kill the fox in us so to feed the pig in us. We've made this route so much less expensive and safer for everyone.

I have a disability support pension, so on disability support I will stay to do my consumer duty until my life is complete. Lay your hands on me oh life. Tuck me in.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A Clique Space(TM) generates a social homunculus.

In a very general way, a homunculus is often used to describe the way a nervous system maps the organism it represents. In much the same way, a Clique Space provides an environment that maps the goings on of a social network. I believe it is fair to say that Clique Space is a social nervous system, and like any nervous system, needs a way to map the body of the organism that the nervous system has control over - the social network over which the Clique Space has administrative dominion.

I think that's a fair conclusion to draw.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Clique Space(TM) and my opportunity.

When the world starts to think that modelling real-time ad-hoc collaborative activity by individuals is valuable, I'm hoping that it might pay me some respect for having adopted the "clique" as the basic the idea of tracking the ways collaborations over distinct media form, grow, contract and disband.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Clique Space(TM) progress report.

Indeed, I feel vindicated. My confidence in the strength of this concept has been steadily growing since I decided to give it a go back in January 2008 - three and a half years after it was conceived by me while jogging.

It appears as though the administrator Client Device and the Agent Device are working well together. Because of this, I am now thinking about moving my code base to an SVN installation on my IBM desktop running Ubuntu that I bought from my "work for the dole" employer last year, and running instances of the Agent and Client Devices on separate hardware after I replace the hard-coded reference to localhost from both to a true IP address.

Utterly wonderful.

I'm still using a console interface for the display of both Agent and Client Devices, and I imagine I will be for some time yet. Still, I imagine that the console interface will prove a valuable permanent component at least for the administrator Client Device. Any GUI will assist operators checking out the activity of the devices they control, and the devices others control as long as those others have given them permission to do this, but the console feed may be seen as being too convenient to let go of.

Anyway, I think I'm soon to have an environment that I will be able to present to others which will make some sense. I'm going to see if I can schedule a presentation of Clique Space at Wollongong uni after I get the Agent and Client Devices to work on separate hardware. In my presentation, I'll use my laptop at the podium to run one of two Client Devices. I'll start the other Client Device on one of two PC's inside the presentation room. On the other PC I'll start an Agent Device. My podium laptop and the two PC's will be networked together, and both Client Devices will be connected to the Agent Device. My laptop will be displaying the output of the Client Device through the projector that I will have run my presentation on, and the two presentation room PC's will be displaying their output on their own display.

I have been considering what other devices I might start developing Media Profile customisations for. Skype and an IRC client are good candidates. I'll do some more investigation on this. I also have my upcoming M.InfoSys research degree to consider this and other Clique Space related questions in. I have to contemplate some design theory related research directions for my degree, and indeed, I will get round to doing this before the degree starts in July.

While, from the above diatribe, it can be seen that I'm upbeat about the implementation, I'm perhaps a little philosophical about patent licensing.

I am in the process of finalising national phases for Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, but I do not have any more money to pay for registration in other jurisdictions. This is unfortunate, because I feel that a wider scope protection (Europe if possible, India if possible, China, Russia, Canada, Africa, and South America as some of the major ones) may only increase the attractiveness for business investment. But then, the collection of royalties from three jurisdictions would see me living in relative comfort; hence the philosophical disposition. I wonder if I'd still be recognised as the concept's inventor for the jurisdictions in which I didn't secure licensing...

Still, the PCT expires 15 July. That still gives me a bit of time to find finance, and I've still got a few lines of enquiry to follow...

Time will tell on Clique Space's future...