Let's entertain the notion, prevalent here, that this idea itself (like all ideas themselves) is worth absolutely nothing, and that any one of the teams in the world who have access to gyroscopes, servos, and microchips, should have the right to reproduce this hack at unit cost and drive these guys out of business. Its cost is listed at $295.00[1] and this is their only product. It's huge compared to what the best facilities and teams in the world can produce to the same specifications, relatively unaesthetic as a utensil in its present form as compared to what a better-funded team can produce in a matter of weeks, and is clearly first-generation. They have no brand in the medical space. It is an eating utensil, yet it is not waterproof.

It is, however, patented.[2] This single fact allows this company (in its present form) to exist, to have done its research, to have raised its investment, and to bring their prototype in the form we currently see to market, at the price that it is currently listed at.

But patents are "wrong" and "stifle innovation".

Granted it's pretty obvious that this makes a huge difference in people's lives. So perhaps we should leaven our desire that their margin disappear, with hoping that more teams are somehow magically and irrationally in a position to do the world's R&D before losing their shirts as their margins disappear from under them. Having seen the size of this thing, the fact that it's not waterproof, the lack of an existing trusted brand-name behind the product, and a lack of any distribution except their web site (see their FAQ) shows that there is no way that is the best that any team in the world can build now that they've seen how it's done. Therefore, lacking protection, this team would no longer be competitive in a short number of weeks/months.

We can, however, agree that it is good that this has been made. So, how shall we reconcile this? Well, perhaps we should simply hope that funding, such as they have raised, would magically continue to be available even without any any margins that are guaranteed in the results (should they succeed in embodying their claims), which would allow the investors to recoup their investment. In short, we need investors to be crazy enough to keep funding innovations such as this one, while we remove the protections that would justify that craziness. Basically, we would have to hope that investors never catch on.

This is crucial for our purposes, as otherwise ideas such as this would not exist. Someone could have had this idea in 1999 or 1989. But without the investment, it might have stayed at the "worth-nothing" idea stage, rather than what we might call the "worth-nothing-but-has-now-actually-beend-developed-and-actually-been-built-and-proven-and-it's-no-longer-a-pipe-dream" worth-nothing stage. Which the rest of us deserve to access for free without investing anything.

There is an analogy to be made here with Tesla, who died nearly penniless: his meager earnings had come from his patent royalties. Imagine if we had the ability to rewrite history and take even this away from him, along with the food from his stomach and equipment from his labs, so that Edison and the rest of the world's teams would have full access to all of his inventions, working or impractical, without any protection. Imagine what progress that would have led to.

In summary:

1- ideas like this deserve no patent protection

2- teams should prove incredibly speculative techniques such as this for free and with no compensation or protection

3- investors should continue to invest in such ideas forever, even after it becomes abundantly clear that there is no way to recoup the investment in such a fledgling idea.;

</sarcasm>

Just kidding!! Phew. I hope we can all agree how ridiculous the above position would be. It's great that these guys brought their patented, high-margin product to the world. All this could have been done in 1984 - 40 years ago - if someone had had the 'wortheless' idea then -- and we would all have access to it today.

It took a team's phenomenal genius and dedication today to bring this to market, and the whole world will have it soon - unlike any of the Idea Sunday ideas that have no such protection, were never fully developed, and for which the entire program was crapped.

Here's to sane patents and to the progress they bring!

[1] http://store.liftlabsdesign.com/ $ 295.00. Note that my estimated margin at this price: (for copycat) 98.64% margins - ex assumed "worthless" idea - assuming a COGS at scale of $4, which is enough for several batteries, gyroscopes, microchips, cases, what have you. If we assume a $20 cost of goods that margin shrinks to 93.22% gross profit, again excluding the idea (which we assume is "worthless") or its development (which we assume the world should have access to for free, now that they've proven it.)

[2]
http://www.cnet.com/news/smart-spoon-helps-stabilize-parkins...