The work performed over the five months of the project has concerned three main topics.
First, the freedom to operate, both in terms of Intellectual Property and in terms of legal/regulatory/ethics issues. From the IP viewpoint, the existing prototype was meant to be a first design with the sole purpose of testing the functionalities with user and perform broad dissemination activities. Hence, its IP has not been protected so far. Nevertheless, a new design is currently being developed and that will be sufficiently different from the existing one to pass the novelty checks necessary for a patent. The algorithms are covered by a trade secret. The patent will be filed as a Dutch National application in order to gain priority for future PCT and European patent application, so that the new design will be disclosed and disseminated. The consortium has also set in place a technology watch protocol, which includes also the IP of potential competitors, established during the feasibility study has already been implemented: the corresponding reports will be produce at the end of every quarter from Q3 2017 onwards. From the legal/regulatory/ethics viewpoint, there are no major hurdles along this line. Hookie complies by design with the General Data Protection Regulation 679/2016, which is to be the legal framework in the EU at least for the next decade. Our feasibility study also confirmed one of our hypothesis: Hookie should not be directly used as a medical or therapeutic device, since in that case we would be obliged to comply with the medical device regulation reform (5 April 2017), which is very restrictive and extending largely the scope to prima facie non-medical devices. Additionally, our analysis has shown that Hookie will gain the CE marking without much of a trouble.
Second, the commercial and financial viewpoint. Our analysis has made evident barriers and opportunities in the different countries in which Hookie will be commercialized (at first, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK; then, Italy, France, and Germany). Our domestic markets (Spain and the Netherlands) have opposite characteristics, with the former being very fragmented (hence with slow revenues but with low risk of overall failure) and the latter being very centralize (hence potentially fast revenues but with high risk of overall failure). The UK has somehow ideal scenarios that deserve to be pursued and Sweden has turned out to be riskier than expected. France and Germany have exceeded expectation in terms of potential penetration, whereas Italy is extremely fragmented and difficult to achieve.
As a conclusion, we have decided to go ahead with our plans in Spain, the Netherlands, and the UK, while Sweden will be further tested via a pilot (already secured). France and Germany will follow, and Italy will be on hold but we establishing promising leads via informal channels. From the financial viewpoint, we have refined our pricing strategy, which is though depending on the final costs of the prototype. The Bill of Materials has been considerably reduced and there is room for a further reduction in the final version that will be taken to the market.
Third, the pilot trials in the countries of interest. We have secured four: in Spain, Sweden, USA, and Panama. In Italy and UK there are some leads that should eventually end up in pilot trials for 2018. In Q2 2017 we have also carried out an additional pilot in Spain with very positive results.
As for the dissemination actions, we have presented Hookie at two different events, one in Europe and one in the USA, gathering a lot of interests from potential partners and clients.
In conclusion, all the objectives of the project have been achieved: in some cases exceeding the expectations (such as on the IP exploration and on the technical side.
