Blog Update #1: PCT Patent, Rough Industrial Design

This week, progress has primarily oriented around both the PCT Patent and the rough industrial design. To summarize, I can no longer file the PCT Patent because I do not have foreign priority, and I received the first industrial sketches of my product.

No Longer Proceeding with the PCT Patent

Yesterday, I consulted with a patent attorney on how to proceed with drafting and filing a PCT Request form (primary document to be filed for international patenting). Unfortunately, the foreign priority for my non-provisional patent has expired (occurred on January 28, 2021, 12 months after the initial filing date), so I cannot proceed with patenting my invention internationally. Specifically, since my patent is already in the public domain, this means that if I were to file the PCT anyway (and pay the associated fees), the application would be rejected because the intellectual property already belongs to... myself. With this, I will not be able to oversee/regulate my competition beyond the U.S.

On the bright side, my intellectual property cannot be claimed by anyone else, whether in the U.S. or any other country. Further, the U.S. still makes up ~50% of the global music production market; competitors cannot import their products without obtaining a license. I am saving thousands of dollars by avoiding the international patenting process altogether.

Rough Industrial Design (Sketches)

After conferring with the engineering team at LA NPDT, they have shared the following design:

As displayed, this design for Melodi is better optimized for consumer use, as "buttons-free" zones are allocated to allow for improved comfort (both on a desk and one's lap) and reachability for the QWERTY keyboard and touchpad.

Key features include the 25-key piano keyboard, a horizontally-aligned drum pad module (13 pads), producer-functional buttons (for tweaking frequencies), and 18 channel buttons. Each button on the drum pad module will light up in different colors based on the pressure placed.

Melodi will include an On/Off switch, volume slider, SD Card slot, 4 USB-A 3.1 ports, Ethernet port, at least 1 USB-C port, HDMI port, and AUX port. The laptop is colored graphite, and its lid will be constructed out of anodized aluminum with a glossy coated area, so its appearance would resemble that of a grand piano.

The following tweaks are being considered for further revisions:

- Logo retouch, adding it to the concept (e.g., in the center of the lid).

- Adding LED backlight to the piano keyboard.

- Adding button labels.

- Adding USB-C as a charging port. Please let me know if you have any questions about this blog post! I'm looking forward to sharing more progress soon.