Bonjour! Itâs Nancy here â from the soon-to-be world famous pop group Nancy and the Meerkats!
After our first record âPut Your Paws Upâ became a massive hit, weâre off on a huge tour of the UK!
We havenât quite made it to stadium status yet â some of the venues are more Weeny than Wembley â but Iâm going to be letting you know whatâs been going on each day in my journal for Fun Kids!
The next stop on our tour is Cambridge!
When we got here we decided the best way to advertise our show was to try out a bit of busking!
Well, the crowd loved it â we even made a few Euros.. I mean, pounds!
And we werenât the only musicians playing, there were loads of people playing lots of different instruments to the passers-by!
Some of them were pretty weird though.There was this one guy that was playing a guitar that looked like it was made of elastic bands!
Big Joeâs a big know-it-all and he said itâs actually an unusual instrument called the logical bassoon!
Itâs a crazy invention that apparently came out of Cambridge fifty years ago and was patented by a musician called Giles Brindley.
The traditional type of bassoon is a long thin wind instrument and Big Joe says itâs pretty hard to play.
Luckily, Giles Brindley came along and invented this electronic version of a bassoon and it helped people to play notes in combinations that hadnât been possible before! Chouette!
Well, Iâd never seen one before because although it was a really great idea, it was never really advertised and so no one knew about it!
Big Joe says it goes to show that if you want your invention to be successful then applying for a patent to protect your idea is only the first step.
You have to show people, tell them why itâs so great and make it easy for them to try and buy for themselves.
What is patenting?
A patent protects inventions.
How they are work, what they do, how they do it, what they are made of and how they are made. It means that no-one can copy, make, sell or import your invention without your permission.
I guess itâs a bit like us busking â if we donât tell people weâre putting on a show and give them a taste of our talents then theyâll never know how amazing we are!
What a tragedy that would be! Quelle Domage!
Listen to this episode of Nancy and the Meerkats belowâŠ
Click here to listen to Series 2, Episode 3!
And if you want to get really creative, make sure you check out how to protect your cracking ideas! Click here to find out more!
Nancy and the Meerkats is supported by the Intellectual Property Office.
Click here to find out more!
