Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

As managing the patent process for clients was my business for more than 15 years I have a few observations on patents and patenting:

1. This is an expensive strategy. Obtaining the patent is just the ti[ of the iceberg. There are maintenance fees payable to the Patent Offices where you want your patent to be enforceable. So you can obtain a US patent but that does not stop someone from using your invention in say Australia. You also have to apply for a patent in Australia - and have it granted.
2. Enforcing your patent is expensive. Few alleged infringers will simply roll over making enforcement a matter of you paying a lawyer to take them to court. It takes a good stack of money to see a case to court (more than $500k US, and actually on average more like $1.5 million). Enforcement takes many years to get a final verdict. And, you will be limited in your recovery to how much provable damages that were done to you. That takes expert opinions and much more money for you to spend.
3. A comprehensive patent search is not a simple task, and it's also not inexpensive. The patent prior art is fairly easy to find but commercial products that used your invention BEFORE your invention date are difficult to find. But if found they are a slam dunk defense for someone accused of infringement.

For smaller inventors the real value of a patent is in the marketing value - and if you can scare potential infringers away you have a win. My opinion is that if you have to enforce a patent, you've lost. Of course, if your plan is to sell your business to big business there is economic value in the sale for granted patents.

Henry

Well, it's been a long time since I've last posted. . .sorry about that. making the transition to small scale commercial using the towers and my latest invention. I'll get details up within the next couple weeks. Should be pretty sweet. I'm going to 40 towers next week (it's all plumbed), and depending on the response with our retailer, might bump up to 60 within a month or so.

In the meantime, I've been weighing and getting a better feel for where my fish populations are at. . . probably start selling those soon too. I've been getting a lot of interest. There are some big boys in there- had one 6.7 lb Nile tilapia. . . he looked delicious, but I decided to eat him at some point in the future. I've got a bit over 500 lbs in System 1, and I've had them on starvation rations the last couple of months so they don't eat me out of house and home. Time to start cranking them up again. My little poo machines need to get cracking.

I'm going to clean all of my carp and goldfish out of System 2 and get that one going with red variant niles. I'll have 20 towers on each system by the end of next week. Crops go in then too.

Hope everyone out there is well. Sorry it's been so long. I'm going to go lurk on you guys' threads now. I've got a lot of catching up to do.

Any updates Nate?

Seriously, its been forever. I know 60ish towers are a handful to handle c'mon give us a look

Hey, Nate;

I'm just about to start up my commercial AP GH. I'm seriously interested in buying some towers. Are they for sale yet?

Have you tried coir mats inside them?

Here is a link to Nates Web site
http://www.brightagrotech.com/
You might want to contact him though that if you really are ready to buy on a commercial scale. Yes he does have them ready to sell.

Thanks, TC!

Turns out The Aquaponics Store is selling them as well:
http://www.theaquaponicstore.com/category-s/77.htm

Alright, so the big project I've been working on is a market trial of live produce sales from one of the market display systems I've been working on. I'm in the middle of my first market trial right now, and things are going great. Here's a picture of the display.

The idea behind it is this: Commercial aquaponics has to fight very hard to compete with traditional hydroponic production for the same market. Hydroponic producers have the benefit of economies of scale efficiencies, a well defined market, lots of money and a proven market model. Because of the high overhead, it's difficult for aquaponic producers to get into this market and then carve out a market share. So. . . why not start making commercial AP more competitive by developing technology that will allow AP producers to get better margins than their hydro competitors. This is what I've come up with. By using towers with the display, I have a shelf life of a week with no refrigeration, zero waste, scalable purchases for consumers, and much higher retail prices. Unpicked produce is brought home for my family's consumption or cycled into other distribution channels- restaraunts, commercial kitchens, etc. All it do is pull down a tower, rinse it off, drive two miles to the store, and exchange the towers. It's very low labor. Because consumers are doing the harvesting and packaging for me, I eliminate my packaging and labor costs which further contributes to my margins. The best part is that consumers are willing to pay more for the experience- which is fundamentally how Whole Foods makes thier money. So that's it. It's running, now I'm in the process of finding out what kinds of greens are in high demand. We have a restraunt trial starting in three weeks looking at selling towers of herbs to restraunts. I'll show you the stand for that once it's been well tested.

Very cool I would definately buy from that display, vegies always taste better the sooner they are eaten after being harvested, can't get much fresher then that well done.

COOL!!!!

So how is the store dealing with the harvest and packaging? Do the customers just pick it and bag it or is there an ice water cooler to dunk and a rack to dry before bagging?

I definitely like seeing the display in action!

Simo-Yeah, it's hard to beat fresh-picked. . .Thanks for the kind words!

TC, right now customers just cut it bag it and take it home. Once the weather gets hot we might have to do an ice water bath to close up the stomates, but we'll see. I have to do some more experimentation. I think that the light in the shop isn't high enough that any of the plants are photosynthesizing, so they should be pretty shut up already. We might end up doing a rinse and then putting the whole tower in the walk-in cooler (we're playing with this now). Then once the plants go into survival mode, move them to market. once at market they're just getting a drip- enough to keep water weight, but not enough to really open up and start transpiring- essentially they stay in shock mode without losing water weight. (by the way, towers stay in perfect shape for a week or more in the walk in cooler without any irrigation! it's awesome.) So we'll see how everything works out. I'll let you know what we figure out. Nothing's exploded yet! I will tell you that our basil sells the fastest, and customers so far buy a lot of stems in addition to leaves. We get a dollar an ounce wholesale on that, so the more stems I sell the better. . . (cue evil laugh).

NICE

I love it Nate! Can you PM me your details....I will be ready to purchase some towers in a few weeks, month at most. The pond is dug and framed out. I will turn my attention to the water fall soon. I'm kind of thinking smaller sections of the towers "snapped" into a water fall going into the pond as well as a few hanging above it. Any thoughts?

I see - best to read the whole thread!