Miss Eve's World

blog： Kitchen table idea

Entrepreneurs Jonathan Craymer and Stephen Howes had their eureka moment sitting at Stephen’s kitchen table. They were puzzling over how to improve the financial security of the chip and PIN system.
Jonathan insisted that a system was needed that did not use a PIN, which someone else could steal. They needed a way for users to enter a different number every time – but without having to remember lots of numbers.
Patents are the backbone of our company
Sir James Dyson
It sounded impossible. But, as Jonathan says, “we came up with an answer in about half an hour.” The system, which they call Gridsure, requires the user to remember a pattern, which they use to read off different numbers each time.
Now they’ve given up their previous careers in IT and journalism, to concentrate on turning their Gridsure idea to profit.
By entering the arena of financial security, Jonathan and Stephen are competing with big players. But they’ve already had a million pounds invested in the company, and are getting positive responses from MasterCard and other multi-million pound businesses.
Not bad for a small company based on a one-off brainwave.

Time to act

Sir James Dyson has revolutionised the vacuum cleaner market, and owns a business valued at around ￡1bn.

For him, inventing is all about using engineering to find better ways of solving problems.

He confirms that the route between idea and business is firmly through the patent system: “We file about a patent a day. It’s accelerating because we’ve got more and more research engineers. It’s the backbone of our business.”

And, rather than resting on his vacuum cleaner laurels, Sir James has launched a new kind of hand drier, which blows water off your hands instead of evaporating it.

On the receiving end of patent applications, the Intellectual Property Office’s Ian Fletcher wants to encourage both the kitchen table inventors and big businesses like Mr Dyson’s: “Anyone who has a bright idea should think of doing something about it. Doing nothing may well mean that an idea which would benefit you, and maybe benefit millions of other people, is lost. So I would just encourage people to act.”

Tags: Kitchen