Protecting patently good ideas

BY RICHARD BENTLEY

Relief milking can be hard yakka – the travel, long hours, dealing with a host of different dairies and herd handling systems, end never knowing quite what problems will face you at the next farm.

But, as John Stothersof Whakatane believes, being a relief milker does have its good points.

It was trying to solve a particularly difficult and potentially expensive problem that got Stothers and friend Grant Law involved in helping develop a good idea that could prove highly successful.

“Grant and I were discussing the problem of identifying cows with special needs as they come into the shed. For example, if one being treated for mastitis or lameness is missed, and its milk containing antibiotics goes into the vat, the farmer or sharemilker ends up paying the cost of a downgrade,”‘ explains Stothers.

According to Grant Law, milkers can miss identification marks on cows for all sorts of reasons – rain or mud obscuring marks or tags, pressure during hectic times like calving, or just plain tiredness.

“John and I came to the conclusion that an alarm system could alert milkers when a treated cow came into the shed – some sort of electronic device.”

After approaching a few people without success, Stothers phoned the managing director of Shoof Interactional, Geoff Laurent. He immediately recognized the potential benefits and agreed that Shoof would carry out development work and look at the possibilities for patenting.

The search of international patents, carried out by a patent attorney, confirmed that the idea was indeed novel, so he went ahead with the provisional patent.

“Provisional patents are a way of protecting a worthwhile new concept or invention so that nobody else can claim it as their own,” he says.

Shoof has now produced an initial run of “Cowélarm” units for the New Zealand market, before it goes interactional with the system.

Developing the alarm system to this stage has taken three years, a lot of money and some anguish. Has it been worth it?

There is no easy answer to that question, according to Colin Woodroffe, of Pipers Patent Attorneys.

“Whether to patent or not is always a judgment call, especially for small developments,” says Woodroffe.

“However, if your idea is something substantial that nobody else has thought of then a search followed by a provisional patent could well be worthwhile.”