"micky" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 30 Aug 2014 07:02:29 -0700, "Pico Rico"
wrote:
"micky" wrote in message
. ..
A friend who has been looking hs been offered a job. His role is to
gve out gift cards, that start at 300l doolars but also go higher if
people have a more expansive hom. For every card he hands out antd
hey sign for , he gets 30 dollars. By signing, the car reciipient has
to agree that if he ever sells his hous someone from the group that
gives out the cards will get the listing, and he commission when the
house is sold The commission is usally 7%, though it may be split
bewtween buyer's and seller's agents, and the seller may have agreed o
pay less comission if he could arrange it.
Buy back to my friend. Have you ever heard of a plan like this before.
Is it a fraud? Legal? Will it be too hard to get people to sign?
The company is out $330 for the average house and won't get it back
until the owner decides to sell and succeeds in selling, which could be
next year or in 30 years. plus I thnk they have to monitor all these
poiple to make sure they don't hire another agen. That shouldn't be
hard, Just google every address once a month to see if it's listed for
sale.
Here is their patent application 20140188660.
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...AND+commission
How did you find this?
By searching the USPTO database. I think I just used "real estate" and
"commission" or something as the search terms, and I knew it would be fairly
recent so near the top of the list of results. I then scanned the results
to find it.
And it sure looks like what I posted about, but you seem sure that it
is. How is that?
by reading it.
Was the name Steven Daum mentioned in the scheme?
no, and I did try an assignment search first, but nothing turned up under
the company name.
If not, I don't understand how you found this.
see above
I really need to know because I've been asking other people about this
and I don't want to add this patent application to the mix unless I can
tell them how it's related. At least in general terms.
see above. Read the patent application - do you think it is NOT what you
posted about?
Also I didn't think "methods of doing business" were patentable.
think again.
Wanamakers of Philadelphia was the first store in the USA to have fixed
prices and no dickering, around 1870 or 80 iirc. If they had patented
fixed prices, would other stores not have been allowed to do that? (He
had other marketing innovations too, all of them appealing to customers)
yes, for a period of 17 years, if indeed he was issued a patent on that.
But I bet there was prior art out there.
How many of you have heard of Wanamakers? It's a big name in the
northeast, but I don't know about Canada or the rest of the US, It's a
department store,
173 of us.
But why would they put anything in print for the public, including
competitors, to read if they didn't expect to actually get a patent.
Don't all those patent applications with sketches and everything
disclose trade secrets, and it's only worth it because they probably
will get the patent and the protection it brings?
yes. Read their website, their contract, their press releases. They have
to disclose most if not all of their invention in order to be in business.
So they really don't have much of a chance in keeping this under wraps as a
trade secret. So, they might as well try for patent protection - they have
nothing to loose. Contrast that with a secret chemical formula that can be
kept under wraps in your factory. In that case, you may not want to
disclose it in exchange for possible patent protection.