I attended a seminar this Tuesday at the University of Toronto Mississauga Campus. It was the 10th session of the “Growing your business” breakfast series presented by OCETA and the R.I.C. Centre. This final session of the season was an “Innovator Idol” session, and the session was sold out!

Four emerging companies needing financing got the opportunity to present their pitch to a panel of industry experts and investors. The four presenters were:

• Thoughtspeed providing a web-based supply chain integration solution for health care,
• idAlerts providing an identity theft protection and credit management tool,
• Realtech having developed a cutting-edge line of water quality test instrumentation, and
• Refined Data providing a software application which provides easy access to environmental and OHS management information.

All four companies made terrific presentations, all having market potential and viability, but only one could win.

The winner was Realtech Inc. with their cutting-edge water quality testing instruments, capable of on-site testing and monitoring, bringing the current lab-test turnaround time of days down to minutes. Realtech has ensured that their product line is protected by patents or patent applications, even though cash was limited at the time of starting up.

And this is crucial for any technology based start-up. You may want to consider using a patent consultant outside of Toronto downtown as these are often less expensive. However, you must file the first patent application(s) before you start talking to investors and partners to protect your intellectual property.

Camilla Nielsen
Intellectual Property Consultant

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