It’s interesting times at Patexia. A lot of contests have wrapped up in the last two weeks (SMS, Flashlight, IC Pads, Quadrature Modulation, …) and we’ve been busy reviewing results, writing reports, and paying winners :)

The company is growing fast and we’re really working on developing these processes so they work smoothly for YOU the awesome researcher (and for our clients, of course).

I’m sure there will be growing pains, but things are going pretty well so far. We’ve put up a few new contests recently too (the suture couple) and hopefully will have more soon.

Our first commercial use search, the antibacterial case, closed recently and was pretty successful. Be ready, you may see a lot more of those soon! You guys did really well, which was impressive because it’s a brand new type of search.

Evidence, perhaps, that you aren’t just good prior art searchers, you are search experts. We’ll be thinking about more ways to help you get benefit from those skills going forward, if you have ideas, let us know.

As a quick note, we promised an updated prize structure that would reward more participants...well, we’re rolling out a first version now. It’s going to be done on a contest by contest basis, but you can see an example in the contest details of the bone suture contest.

Basically, the winner will still receive a large payout, but a portion of the prize will be reserved to award a few runners-up. Let us know if you guys like it and what thoughts you have!

We awarded two winners this week. A Surf won the Integrated Circuit Pads contest ($3000!) and we also awarded a partial prize of $1000 for the flashlight contest.

As you know, we’ve also started a web series tentatively named "IP Matters" (the first webinar will be March 14th). This is part of a broader initiative to help educate people about IP. One of our founding beliefs is that we can improve the IP space by getting researchers and technologists more involved in the process, and that starts with education.

And on a fun note, I change my wallpaper almost every week. I’m enjoying my most recent one. Perhaps it will be a recurring theme.