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CHAMP
What is the "statute of limitations" on a similar idea? There was a lot of discussion about this months ago, originally in a tread started by Conroy here:
http://www.quirky.com/forums/topic/78...
The summary thread from Matt (and poll) is here:
http://www.quirky.com/forums/topic/82...
Nothing has ever been decided or "stated" about this, as far as I know. Please correct me if I am wrong. If this is not decided and made transparent, no one will come here and submit new ideas, because they cannot currently search every idea that has ever been submitted. Why would anyone pay $10, go to the work and trouble of creating a drawing and a plan, maybe a prototype and then wait 28 days and get a nasty surprise right when they make it to UC and get picked , that they are not the first person to ever think of a way of finding lost keys? How can we prevent this? How far back do they need to search? Do they only need to go back 30 days? 3 months? A year?. How can people do this? IIs it obvious to submitters, or mandatory that they search? Is it made easy or automatic? Please clarify the similar ideas searching for all the future and past submitters. What is the "official Q protocol" on the amount of time an "idea" is protected? Please help us to understand this.
I see summer interns in your future that spend 3 months "tagging" past submissions into a searchable database.
Thanks,
EW
I’m
waiting for the ferris wheel to stop.
Quirky Protocol: How Long is a "Submitted Ideation" protected for "Similar" claims, and how is "Similar" decided?
Promoted
Response
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4Don't miss what Nathaniel said:
"...if we determine that someone submitted the exact same idea two years ago as someone today, the first person to have submitted the idea will receive the influence."
I agree with that.
I say, reward inventors for their innovative, useful, non-obvious insights.
Nothing for simply being similar to another inventor's innovative, useful, and non-obvious insight.
For example, the first person to submit an umbrella idea should not get some or all influence for most other umbrella submissions - because most of them will have insights that are different.
If Q rewards people for having similar, but different insights, Q risks turning us into "submission trolls" -
submitting generic ideas in order to squat on a concept, ready to jump up and claim "first!" when an inventor brings their real, but similar, invention to Q.
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EMPLOYEE
1Hi Elizabeth. Anything on the site is fair game; if we determine that someone submitted the exact same idea two years ago as someone today, the first person to have submitted the idea will receive the influence. So official protocol is that any idea submitted between the day we started and today is covered by the rules regarding similar submissions.
I suggest a would be ideator search the site for any and all possible variations of their idea, just in case something like it had been previously submitted. This is essentially what is encouraged with a patent search, but within our site. The search function at the top of the page is actually quite good for searching our database of ideas (searching baby bottle holder turned up 5 pages of ideas dating back to early 2010).Comment -
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1Hi Nathaniel - unfortunately the only idea pages that are returned when you click on the search results are the current ones. Apart from a handful of live ideas, the ideation hits actually took me to the front participation page. The rest of the hits were either project or forum pages.
So unless your idea has been chosen in eval, or you can make your decision based on the shortened title and one or two cropped sentences, you have no way of knowing whether you are infringing someone else's earlier submission-
This is my problem too. Don't waste peoples' time and get their hopes up when there's no way of knowing what has been submitted.
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So, we should be able to either choose #1 public, and eligible for future influence, or #2 private, and not eligible (though these could still be archived).- view 2 more comments
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Danon, you do, you get 10%
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I'm also curious how this is going to play out since the similar idea for the Bandit/Clip was in a design phase which gives out less than the idea phase. @EW - how do you know it is 10%?
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Nathaniel, can we get the official word from Q on how archived ideas play into this "similar" protocol? My understanding of it from last year was that archived ideas took themselves out of the regular product stream for influence/IP/Similars, but would be actively shopped to retailers (isn't that the same thing as a brief? Or are they just browsing all the past ideas??) There seems to be a ton of confusion on this matter, and it needs to be clarified for the Community, and written down somewhere it can be referenced, and included in the submission process, so people will know what they are stepping into, and submitters and archivers can know what protections they recieve, and what they can expect. I see a lot of territorial resubmitting already starting to happen.
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It is impossible to do a search of Q's data base. The search doesn't turn up archived ideas nor is it simple to use. Search brings back scattered ideas, names, taglines, etc. I tried searching for someone else's idea today that I know was submitted awhile ago and could not find it. It's too crazy. 2 years and 100,000 submissions later....
I also feel the people that voted for an idea that was picked should get influence even if it was similar to an idea submitted awhile ago. My point being the Bandit / Clip idea. The search doesn't work and people are getting penalized. Similar needs to be defined.
The system needs to be looked at. The majority of ideas have been submitted before on Q in one form or another. If the search worked properly, you'd see it. Hide-a-keys, umbrellas, etc. It's really not fair to the 2nd ideator or the people who liked the idea to find out later that they get zip. It's a huge turn off.
Put in a search thing like you have for naming and taglines for ideas. Have a database just for ideas and make people check mark that they searched it. -
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Stazy, to answer your question, Q said in the case that they find for the previous submitter in the case of the similar items, the new guy gets a 10% consolation prize for bringing it to attention, original guy gets the win.
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Thanks EW.
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New guy gets face on the box, also.
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4Don't miss what Nathaniel said:
"...if we determine that someone submitted the exact same idea two years ago as someone today, the first person to have submitted the idea will receive the influence."
I agree with that.
I say, reward inventors for their innovative, useful, non-obvious insights.
Nothing for simply being similar to another inventor's innovative, useful, and non-obvious insight.
For example, the first person to submit an umbrella idea should not get some or all influence for most other umbrella submissions - because most of them will have insights that are different.
If Q rewards people for having similar, but different insights, Q risks turning us into "submission trolls" -
submitting generic ideas in order to squat on a concept, ready to jump up and claim "first!" when an inventor brings their real, but similar, invention to Q. -
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What can be done about the fact that archived ideas cannot be seen, but do count as similar to potential new products? Can a search be done that says "x number of archived ideas match your search" without revealing the idea? Or should archives be excluded from influence claims? This is not fair to new submitters, or people who are researching ideas before they submit ( behavior we are trying to ENCOURAGE). Do you think this is fair? You tell people to do their due diligence, and search Q and Google, knowing there are items hidden from view that threaten the validity of the submission. Do you honestly think this is fair? You can't even search many of the old submissions very well. How can this be improved?
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I’m
just saying
EW, it's actually 7-10% -
