She wore her rue with a difference.

Many dears have expressed keen interest in the device that created my little $3 million start-up pool and $6 million for a friend. Remember my last letter? That’s the fellow.

It’s a handheld tester, something the size of a cell phone with pop-in module at one end and transmitter to satellite at the other. The gps receiver was at centre. We had it in cool brushed steel (plastic facsimile I’m ashamed to say), but it was slated to appear in cherry red and masculine cool blue. Before the bureaucratic fuss that ended the venture, we transferred rights to another company. The patents exist, fully loaded and ready to rock. Which brings me to – you guessed it – patent raiding.

Our little item is as adaptable as duct tape. Pluck out the module, which isn’t needed except for medical testing. Stretch the rest and narrow it and, hey presto, you own an electronic child finder. It weighs next to nothing. Little Wanda will forget she’s wearing it. It bends like ribbon and becomes a fashionable part of sleeve, sneaker or backpack. Colour it as you like, with glitter and stars if you want. And mom will never fear Wanda walking off. She’ll find her in an instant with her gps locator.

This little saga perfectly illustrates the upside of patent raiding. The plucky venture I’ve invested in has a Mensa team (selected carefully; these aren’t Asperger rejects) leaf through the patent registry. Their instructions are to imagine other uses for processes and products. The results are crazy. But that’s the whole idea, to think outside the box. The company sifts the results. One in a hundred goes to "legal", the fancy name for a couple of investigators who search the patent holder. Almost always the company is defunct. The venture picks up the patent for $100 and spins it off to a glitzy hi-tech for $50,000 plus a percentage of the profit. It’s the percentage that makes you rich. Because the venture, in high gear, turns a patent around twice a month. It hits paydirt once a year, which earns enough in percentage plus the $100,000 monthly, to buy a bottle or two of really nice Champagne. And there’s enough left for an occasional deposit to that sweet off-shore near the beach.

I confess, the whole thing has left me lazy. I drift on a little raft with my hands in the water. The sun isn’t too, too hot. But not cold either. And I think of all those patents the boys and girls are reading back in the smoke and cement. All the pages with all those words and diagrams that I can never understand. Brrrrrrr. It’s enough to drive one to tears and admiration. Still, we all soldier ahead as best we can.

Au revoir for now.

En-ter-tain-ment. Salesmanship. La, la, la. That’s what it’s all about. Shimmer, kling-klang, glitter, sleight of hand that makes the swamp look attractive, the dreadful stock glisten. Yes, I made my first million with a hair oil salesman, if you must know. It was considerably more than a million and entirely an accident. I followed all the rules and everything went wrong, but it turned out right. For little me. Go figure.

You’ve asked what happened. A few of my intimates have. So here’s the story. It could happen to anyone.

It was a beautiful fall day when Peter rolled into town. He’d cast his net in Asian waters. I didn’t know the detail. Start-ups, you know. Horse-racing characters throwing millions his way. The story changed every time I asked. There might have been a wife or two in the smaller cities. I trusted him like a cobra. But he had houses in fashionable spots, which is a good test. I checked the registrations. And yes, the titles were in his name and the mortgages were tiny. A little hacking showed a healthy balance in his accounts and a nice off-shore cash flow I suspected was illegal but interesting. One doesn’t live with boy scouts, dear, after all.

We put our heads together, he and I, and founded a virus testing company. I was alone in those days. No heart was fluttering in the breeze near mine. We surfed and flew, first class of course, and collected patents on a quick detector of the latest cow disease. Very chi-chi and scientific with a capital S. The detail was simple, as it has to be to make large dollars. You prong the cow with a device like a small cell phone. A drop of blood enters the module where a microchip tests conductivity through a special solution affected by the blood. The results together with test ID, date and gps info are automatically uploaded by satellite to Chicago. Data collection is instant and 24/24. Correlation continues around the clock. The module is a plastic affair that cost pennies and pops in and out of the testing device. Failure-proof. Cheap. And the idea floats cheerfully on the world-wide simmering fear of contaminated meat and farmers destroying their herds and national economies going down the toilet. So technological, so basic, so guaranteed.

We lobbied the WHO and every international farmers alliance on the planet, and came away with testimonials up the you-know-what.

When the righteous investors came along, the ones with over $5 million each, they brought their lawyers. But we were ready. We had factories lined up for pre-production. We showed patents and testimonials and reports. We had a dozen accounts with different signing rules for different classes of shares. We had two biologists on the board. And we had gadgets for the lawyers to play with, the devices and modules and plastic cows. Everything was perfectly legitimate, right? Everything was real. The colours changed and bells rang when the plastic cow was infected. Everything worked. The sun was shining. And the money poured in.

How it poured in. We were swimming in the stuff.

Peter and I informally discounted a modest amount of option stock. He took $6 million, I took $3 million and we placed it in a sunny clime. Strictly against a rainy day. And we hired a CEO to carry the ball. Which he did. A German fellow. Lovely man, strong, blond, as I recall. And Peter and I faded from the scene. We spoke less, traveled infrequently. Left it all to Detlev, the CEO.

The stock went public all right and levered itself up to $28 a common share, before the rumours started.

By then, Peter and I were in greener pastures, southern France. We’d moved on. Our telephone numbers had changed. We gave interviews and shrugged our shoulders. We’d relied on the scientists. What else could business do? We appeared in the glossies, the celebrity journals, so we could resurface as stars. People would forget what happened and adore us for our wry smiles and sun glasses and wealth and aw-shucks.

There was an investigation, but we’d documented everything really well. People get rich. People get poor. It’s the luck of the draw. But it didn’t hurt to have a plan. And to get out early. And not to be greedy. $3 million isn’t much, but it’s a start.

So that’s how I began. I won’t tell you how old I was. Let’s say I wasn’t very long in the tooth. It turned out that Peter was the consummate salesman, an artist in his craft. And I lent a certain flair to his performance. We both had smarts. You need it to assemble all the pieces. And it’s important that the technical backdrop exist. This wasn’t a pipedream or swamp in the everglades. A few months earlier or later, and with different luck, our little company might have rivaled the major pharmaceuticals.

A long time passed without seeing Peter. He popped up recently, as handsome as ever and full of ideas. I put a few cents into this and that. I might report on how it turns out, but not till spring. It’s films, this time. A lonely beauty displays her virtue, and handsome hero whiles away his innocent hours. Evil enters. Beauty is endangered. Battle ensues with major hopes and dreams at stake. Right and wrong grow blurred. Fate determines the outcome. Essential cast wax all grim tears. Roll credits. The plot is eternal.

And technology is ripe to revive our little testing company. Imagine the dollars at stake. 

Au revoir, loves.