Hi all,
It’s already Friday again and time for another weekly update!
First, progress on the patent invalidation with C&C. Apparently the deadline for C&C to file an “owners statement” passed this week with C&C not filing anything (!). This is their one chance to present their side of the case regarding the patent being invalidated.
They also could have apparently extended the window for filing this owners statement by up to six months with some additional legal costs.
We had assumed this was likely.
The short version is that they neither filed to extend the timeline, nor did they even file anything in their own defense, both of which were quite surprising but positive (for us) signs.
C&C did have to file all of the info from the Korean patent invalidation, including prior art that was used there and that resulted in their patent being thrown out in Korea…so the USPTO now has all this info to factor in as well.
The net is that it appears we are on track for a decision at some point in Spring of 2012, and that contrary to C&C’s public claim of vigorously defending their patent, the actuality has been somewhat the opposite. They made these public claims however, *before* they even read the filing…so their opinion on it may have changed a lot after seeing the actual prior art (or evidence if you will) that we submitted.
A positive overall sign and additional progress in the potential outcome of the patent invalidation case.
Of course, the other explanation is that C&C has been too busy managing all their new trinkets they are stocking up on like this new $49 leather bracelet and other costume type jewelry:
http://www.luluavenue.com/bracelets
Lulu Avenue is their new ‘home sales’ program where they apparently plan to offload their included (stones with inclusions or badly cut) moissanite stones that don’t meet their normal “strict” quality standards.
Work continued extensively this week on what we are referring to as ”AMPS”, or the Amora production system. We’re narrowing down the final design and config and should have near final numbers for everything next week. The cost has however gone up now to over 3x what was first envisioned, and so we are going to have to seek external financing to help cover everything. But, that process has already started as well and the initial meeting for the financing went pretty well, but lots and lots of paperwork to fill out next to see if we can get the necessary funding.
On other news related to BTD in general:
1 – Record sales: November sales were up 7% vs a year ago and were record sales overall.
2 – Record traffic: Website traffic in November set new records – daily average of 5,200 unique visitors, and a new all time high of 6,258 unique visitors on Black Friday! We will soon have another message board giveaway to celebrate that!
3 – We are on the cusp of a potentially large supply agreement to supply Asha to a very large company. That may start in 2012 with expansion to all of their locations by the end of the year. We’re working on ensuring we will have enough ability to supply if that does complete.
4 – We have sent in an Amora enhanced round and Amora enhanced Cushion moissanite for video and photos, so we hope we’ll have those out to show as early as next Friday.
5 – Speaking of C&C’s strict quality standards – we’ve continued to process more Amora enhanced moissanite but the reject rate for the Amora enhanced program has become pretty atrocious, with rejects rates hitting as high as 70% in our pre-screening and over 50% for most rounds. This is largely due to cutting issues, but it does mean supply of Amora enhanced Moissanite remains tight simply b/c most Moissanites don’t qualify to enter the enhancement program.
We will work on the latest message board giveaway to celebrate the new website traffic records and try and announce that next week!
Have a great weekend!
