By Mike Drummond

Ahhha.com is a website for inventors to submit ideas so others from the masses or “crowd” can offer input.

The folks at Ahhha, launched last March, say they offer “social ideation” and are “turning ideas into profit.”

Inventors can post or stake a “claim” on an idea online for free. If other users think it’s a great idea, Ahhha says it will automate the “entire lifecycle” of the commercialization process with “little risk” to the inventor.

Yet Justin Leonard, a patent lawyer at Coats and Bennett, a North Carolina based intellectual property law firm, sees significant risk.

Posting an idea on Ahhha can constitute public disclosure. This starts the clock ticking on when an inventor can file for a U.S. patent, and completely closes the door for filing a foreign patent.

Ahhha, with its simple interface and buried fine print that universally assigns rights to Ahhha with no clear wording on how users get paid, is “setting a snare for small inventors,” Leonard says.

He also takes issue with the site’s use of the word “claim,” which in IP parlance has a specific meaning. Claims are what an invention does and how it does it in a utility patent.

And if you post an idea that’s not patented, what’s to prevent someone from stealing it?

“Ahha.com needs to change its wording at least so as not to tell inventors they’re ‘claiming’ an invention,” Leonard adds. “I don’t know if this is a scam site or not, but it’s certainly not well thought out. It appears Ahhha.com was thrown together quickly.”

One observer on Ahhha’s forum posted:

“Personally, I think it’s a compelling idea and with a lot of potential, but one with a lot of question marks. Its success will depend on the company’s ability to convince users to share their ideas, and on its ability to separate the good ideas from the random ones (current ideas in the system include ‘warp drive’ and ‘time machine’).”

Ahhha CEO and founder Matt Crowe says, “We don’t have everything figured out. But we’re working to systemizing a process, from ideation, development to finally fulfillment.”

The No. 1 concern among users is idea theft, Crowe says. However, Ahhha affixes a time stamp to show ownership of an idea. As of this writing, the company also was working on a deal with Creative Barcode, an open-source mechanism to protect marketable ideas.

Regarding IP concerns, users can choose to keep their ideas private where only certain people can view and comment.

Crowe says the company’s proprietary algorithm weighs the popularity and potential marketability of an idea, and selects the best ones for commercialization.

What’s to stop someone from gaming the system by having friends and family inundate the site with favorable feedback on an idea?

Crowe says, “I built in a weighted scoring system.” By way of example, he says the opinion of a professor of wax would be rated higher than others on a wax-related idea.

However, he concedes “power users can push” an idea to an audience. “Our algorithms take in user and market data,” he says. ”It’s never Ahhha making the decision – it’s the crowd.”

”If users vote for an idea, that starts something that I believe to be very powerful,” he says, “knowing what people want rather than what we think people will want.”

The model is not entirely unique. Crowdfunding sites such as RocketHub, Kickstarter and IndieGoGo use votes to determine marketability of ideas.

As of mid-June, Ahhha had not announced any products from inventors. “We’re keeping them confidential for now,” Crowe says, noting the company will focus on three vertical market segments: social goods or nonprofits, consumer products and web applications.

And how will inventors get paid?

“Basically we’ll be rolling out an internal currency or loyalty program,” Crowe says. “The originator makes 10% of the idea, the crowd makes 11-99% depending on how much effort it takes to commercialize, and Ahhha takes whatever remains.”

Ahhha at a Glance

What: www.ahhha.com

When: Founded March 28, 2011

Where: Palo Alto, Calif.

Terms of Use

Ahhha.com has 22 elements in its terms of use. If nothing else, read these before you submit your idea to Ahhha.com:

4. Other than with respect to Confidential Submissions … by posting any Content on, through or in connection with the Services, you hereby grant to Ahhha and its designees an irrevocable, unrestricted, perpetual, non-exclusive, fully-paid up and royalty free worldwide license to make, use, sell, import, modify, reproduce, transmit, display, perform, create derivative works, combine with other works, and distribute such Content for any purpose whatsoever to the extent permitted by law. This license to Ahhha includes the right for Ahhha to sublicense these rights to third parties. … The foregoing license includes the right for Ahhha to make modifications to, derivative works of, or improvements to your Submission. These derivative works and modified or improved versions shall be owned exclusively by Ahhha.

5. You have the choice to restrict other persons’ access to any Submission by assigning it one of several available privacy levels at the time you make the Submission, ranging from completely private (“Confidential Submissions”) to completely public. Privacy levels offered by the Site may change from time to time, but Ahhha will not change the privacy designation of any Confidential Submission without the Originator’s consent. Any Feedback you post on a Submission will be treated at the same privacy level as the Submission itself. Confidential Submissions are not subject to the license set forth in Section 4 above. Subject to limited exceptions set forth in the Privacy Policy, Ahhha will not disclose Confidential Submissions to any third party or use them for any purpose other than to provide Services to the Originator (for example, to assist in the preparation of a provisional patent application).

9. You agree to disclose to Ahhha if your Submission is protected by a patent or subject to a pending patent application. If your Submission is not yet patented, but you wish to patent your idea in the future, you also agree to disclose this information to Ahhha. If your Submission is patented, subject to a pending patent application, or you intend to file for patent protection, this Agreement will automatically grant Ahhha a license under the terms of Section 4. … Posting your idea as a Submission may impact your ability to protect your idea under patent laws, and these laws vary between the United States and other countries. If your goal is to patent your idea in any jurisdiction, we suggest you consult with an attorney before posting your idea on the Site. You agree not to hold Ahhha liable for any loss of patent protection.

14. You are solely responsible for your interactions with other Users… In the event two or more Users claim Submissions that are substantially identical, Ahhha reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to determine the Originator(s) of each Submission for all purposes.

Crowded Field

Ahhha.com is not the only crowdsourcing invention game in town. Others include:

Brightidea.com – crowdsourcing platform for corporate R&D

Edisonnation.com (sister company of Inventors Digest)

eYeka

InnoCentive.com

Ponoko.com

Quirky.com

Threadless.com – for t-shirt designers

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