It has been a while since I was as thoroughly impressed as when I read about Shubham Banerjee's new company founded on his clever Lego Braille printer shown below.

Mr. Banjeree (now 13 years old) invented this clever device when he was 12 to print braille characters using raised ink blobs. According to the Inc. article, he discovered through his Google research that traditional braille printers cost upwards of $2,000. In just over a year, he built his prototype using a $350 Lego Mindstorms kit, won his school science fair, when to the White House Maker's Faire, founded his new company called Braigo (mashup of Braille and Lego) and has recently received an investment from Intel. Intel believes he is the youngest entrepreneur to ever receive venture funding.

Here is a great video of Mr. Banjeree discussing his device with an executive from Intel.

So what Intellectual Property does Mr. Banjeree have?

  1. potential patentability of the Braille printer (and the commercial version in production), its software or its components (except that keep in mind, in the U.S. a patent application must be filed within 12 months of public use/sale)
  2. trademark for BRAIGO for printers
  3. copyright in any works written/printed by him on the printer
  4. trade secret in the code used to control and optimize the printer

Now that his company is picking up speed with its new investment from Intel, he has also released the BRAIGO 2.0, which is a non-Lego version of the printer. Inspiring!

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