The Role of Patents in Innovation - Shiza Shahid (Our Place)

Are the patents a significant value in your mind or is it more the product process and the brand? I ask because, like Elon Musk has famously said, you know, SpaceX, I think, doesn't have any patents because they just don't believe that patents are a true moat of competitive advantage. Maybe it's at best a speed bump. Do you agree with that or would you disagree that you could, you can create strong competitive advantage through patents?

I think that you. I think it's a speed bump, but I think speed bumps are helpful, right? I don't think like patents in themselves are. I guess it depends on the kind of patent, right. We have, you know, we have a. Our spatula nests onto our always panel with a little node, right? That's patented. Guess what? You know, one of those knockoff companies inverted it, right? They still copied us. They just inverted it, right? So took them a bit longer, you know, they have to like, at least change it a little bit. Gave us some level of protection also, you know, it pushes us to be innovative. It pushes us to say, okay, we want, you know, we want to create things that are different, that are, you know, innovative and it's one measure of it. But is it in itself a business plan? No. That being said, it is valuable. It's a good discipline to have and it does provide those speed bumps that do slow. Our products are hard to make, right. This one always pan has six different supply chains that come together. It just takes a bit longer to knock it off and it's harder to knock it off. It's more expensive to knock it off. So it will provide some deterrent. And we do believe in innovative product design and the importance of that and the importance of fostering that innovation.