Bharat Bhushan has always been an innovator and problem solver. Fifteen years ago, the environmental scientist left the National Research Council of Canada to start his own company to develop new environmental technologies.
Some years later, he was called back to India to help take care of his aging father. At 80, his father was having trouble with his personal hygiene. And, like many people his age, Bharat’s father wasn’t keen to hire anyone to help.
But with Bharat’s care, his father’s mood soon improved. He was noticeably more energetic and talkative—his relatives said he was a completely different person. To Bharat, the impact of cleanliness and personal hygiene was obvious.
Returning to Canada, Bharat spoke to his friends and found that many had the same issue. A lack of consistent, long-term care providers meant that his friends were acting as primary caregivers for their relatives. It’s a difficult position to be in for anyone, nevermind someone juggling a full-time job, kids, and other responsibilities.
Bharat researched personal hygiene solutions and found that there wasn’t anything on the market that did it all—everything was separated into individual bathing and toileting solutions. An entrepreneur at heart, he decided to create his own solution.
Fast forward to Bharat’s solution today: the AlphaX Hygiene Capsule. It’s an all-in-one bathing and toileting solution for seniors and people living with disabilities.
After years of research and development, protecting IP for the Hygiene Capsule was essential. We met with the Alpha Cleantech Labs founder and CEO to discuss how AccelerateIP’s Stream 3 helped advance his work.
Before you started the program, what stage was your IP work at?
We had already filed a Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) patent that covered 172 countries—that gave us a two-year window of time to file for patents in those countries. A PCT essentially protects your product during those two years so that you have time to file patents in the individual countries.
What made you decide to apply for AccelerateIP?
I heard about the program through New Ventures BC and through our IP lawyer, and it seemed like a perfect fit for what we needed.
We were ready to start filing our PCT patent country by country, and we needed more funding.
What impact has the program had on your company?
It was very important for us to protect our IP through patents in several countries—in particular in parts of the European Union, like Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark, where major medical device companies are based. We also wanted to file the patent in the U.S., Australia, Japan, India, and South Korea.
With the funding from AccelerateIP, we were able to file our PCT patent in 32 countries.
We’re really relieved to be so widely-protected. It means that we can work on this project and bring it to market without concerns about someone stealing our idea.
What would you tell other entrepreneurs about AccelerateIP?
I would give 10/10 to the AccelerateIP program. Protecting your IP is essential for startups, and this program provided us with much needed funding for that.
We had a really smooth experience working with AccelerateIP, and we are now confident that we can talk to investors and others about our work, with our IP well-protected.
If your startup is interested in accessing IP support to grow and protect your ideas and intellectual assets, apply for our AccelerateIP Program.
