In 2010, I came up with an idea for a visual productivity system.
I believed in it enough to try building a business around it, but I quickly learned a difficult lesson. Without patent protection, I was told that a small company could spend years building a product only to be copied or outspent by larger competitors.
So I filed a patent.
After a long process, the United States Patent Office awarded me U.S. Patent US8548992 in 2013.
See the patent on Google Patents: US8548992
Armed with a patent and a lot of optimism, I founded a company called MultiTask123 and set out to bring the idea to market.
Like many startup stories, things didn’t go according to plan.
Despite years of effort, the company struggled to gain traction. By 2015, MultiTask123 was gone and the product faded away with it.
Then in 2017, I faced a decision.
It was time to pay the maintenance fees required to keep the patent alive.
The more I thought about it, the more I questioned whether software patents were actually helping innovation. Software grows through shared ideas, experimentation, and continuous improvement. Locking up ideas behind legal barriers no longer felt right to me.
So I made a choice.
I let the patent expire.
The invention entered the public domain where anyone could use it, improve it, or build upon it.
I believe good ideas should help everyone.
For years, that seemed like the end of the story.
Then in 2024, I decided to take one more shot at the dream.
I left my day job and committed myself to building the product I always wished had existed.
Two years later, that effort became TaskLoco.
TaskLoco is a visual productivity platform built around the simple idea that organizing your work should feel natural. Tasks appear as digital sticky notes, making it easy to see priorities, manage projects, organize files, and stay focused without unnecessary complexity.
The journey has taken far longer than I ever expected, but I remain grateful for the opportunity to try again.
Most people never get a second chance at a dream.
I got one.
If you’d like to see what came from that second chance, visit
.
— Cary Abramoff
Creator of TaskLoco.com
Brooklyn, NY
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