So, Redox got a patent…

August 29, 2018
Nick Hatt Staff Software Engineer, Tech Lead

Patents invoke strong opinions from software developers. I want to reflect briefly on why Redox has a patent, what we’re going to do with it, and what we might patent in the future.

Redox is novel. Of course, employee #2 is going to say that, I know. But I do genuinely believe we have a special sauce (a business method in patent-speak) and am proud of the solution we’ve built.

All that said, healthcare has been doing integration for 30 years. Surely someone thought of using network effects to speed up integration times, but building a platform that does it and taking it to market is the real accomplishment. We were able to not only envision a better way to exchange health data but build it and execute. That execution is what is special about working at Redox. We care about removing barriers to interoperability, making cool stuff for our users, and scaling beyond what any kind of integration product has done before.

Execution is still our top priority, and a patent won’t be an excuse to sit on our laurels. Since we started Redox, other companies have entered our space. It’s awesome that our idea is being validated by the market, but we firmly believe that we’re best off out-innovating rather than out-litigating our competition. This patent is an example of how we are solving healthcare’s interoperability problem in a novel way and not just slapping marketing on top of existing tools/ methods. Very likely, it is the first of many as we continue to push the envelope and apply first principle thinking to everything we do.    

So in the great software developer patent debate, where does Redox stand? I think Tesla put it best in “All Our Patent Are Belong To You”.

Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers.

I was personally very excited to tell my mom that my name was on a patent. I want it to be a testament to the awesome things we accomplished as a team, and not a tool to save a business that can’t innovate. In the future developers will have full say over technical innovations at Redox and be empowered to decide how to share their innovations with the world. If this sounds appealing, we’re hiring.

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Want to learn more about Redox’s novel approach to healthcare integration? Download a free copy of Gartner’s 2018 Cool Vendors report (there’s a section on Redox).

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