Curious How Keyboard Profiles & Keyboard Layouts Become Standard and Become Business

[Alvin777]

Hello keyboard friends, communication (the 2nd most important tool of mankind after time and prayers which are no. 1) through keyboard is very important.

Just a curiousity, a wishful thinking, how does one create a business (if it's better to turn it into a business) supposing one has a possible world-change new keyboard layout design and a keycap profile/dimensions (supposing they're named 777 layout and 777 keycap profile), does one register the design to a kind of standards organization like one would with USB standards. If it's passed there, is it advisable to show it to all major keyboard manufacturers and go for royalties ala ARM who license their ARM CPU design or is it adviseable to manufacture and do all things like how Logitech started or Razer (I think both founders had nothing to do with tech or manufacturing, they were doctors if I remember) or Linus Sebastian of Linus Tech Tips who manufactures their screwdrivers themselves (after a chinese manufacturer seemed to have given them a run around after receiving the down payment).

Thank you in advance.

God bless, Rev. 21:4

[Muirium]

I’m thinking this topic is in quite the wrong place. (Originally posted in DT Talk.) The Workshop, perhaps?

Are you sure you want to start a production line for something new that nobody has even been asked about? And if you just want someone else to make it, what’s stopping you from reaching out to them?

[Alvin777]

Hi, just a curiosity, curious how companies start, are royalties/licensing to companies better then?

[Muirium]

Well, I think it's fair to say that manufacturers aren't exactly waiting for people to come and pitch them on new layouts / key profiles and the like, in the hope to licence their ideas. Many of them try their own variations and ideas; indeed, there's more of that going on now than there was 10 or 20 years ago. Sometimes it works, like Unicomp's Model M Mini, which seems to be the brainchild of a young insider there who pushed it relentlessly, but more often they soon give them up due to lack of market interest.

Product development is a fickle business.

[Alvin777]

Thanks for the reply, that's interesting on Unicomp.
I wonder what's the best step in today's landscape...

[Muirium]

Plenty of people have drawn up their designs for new layouts, caps, row-profiles, keyboard cases, etc. right here in the DT workshop over the years. Often, they'll try and report back on some experiments of their own, including 3D printing and even small prototyping runs. Some of them subsequently approached manufacturers: Matteo comes to mind for his success with his MT3 profile keycaps among other things. Some others had, well, other outcomes.

If you want something made, you're going to have to push long and hard for it. If you want lasting control and to reap a fortune from it, then you're very likely on a road to nowhere.

[jsheradin]

If your input method is novel, non-obvious, and useful you can seek a patent. Upon being granted the patent, you can attempt to license it to various companies if you're able to demonstrate a business case.

Novel keyboards are generally patent-able so long as they're sufficiently different from any other existing layouts and input methods, patented or otherwise. If all you've done is shuffle some letters around on a QWERTY board (e.g. DVORAK) then it probably won't be granted. With stuff like the Datahand, Kenesis Advantage, Ergodox, and the million customs on kbd.news out in the wild, there's not much left one can patent.

If your design is genuinely world-changing then you might have a case for a patent. You could also just donate it to public domain, up to you. Proverbs 22:1

[Muirium]

I’m more of a Ezekiel 4:15 man, myself. (No, not that Ezekiel.)

[Findecanor]

There have been many innovative keyboard designs over the years that have been touted as more efficient and/or more ergonomic than what has come before. The problem is that people are in general very conservative. Experienced typists often prefer their existing muscle memory over learning something new. Even the ergo-mech crowd that are very excited about these things tend to gravitate towards a small numbers of physical layouts.

I am convinced that trying to convince a major keyboard manufacturer that they will make money off your keyboard layout would be an exercise in futility. You could try, but you could also try creating a business yourself that produces it.
Today though, such a product would need to satisfy several wants. Especially the mech keyboard market is quite saturated by now, and the demands are higher than they used to be.

For the intellectual property, you could perhaps get a Design Patent in addition to, or instead of a patent for an invention. A design patent (not called "patent" in other languages, because it isn't a patent) covers more the aesthetic design of the whole thing than the layout or keycaps specificially.
Kinesis got one for their contoured keyboard. The keycaps on the Kinesis are standard, and they had copied the layout from Maltron.

[Alvin777]

Thanks for the insights, so true it'd be great to manufacture things myself like the Linus Tech Tip guys and create a business similar to Logitech and Razer (and all the companies related to keyboard we know and love, like Keychron, Royal Kludge (best sounding name in the business) but thanks for the insights, the curiosity/wishful thinking on how companies or how Matteo did is at least being explored.