Posts Tagged: "vc"

For now we can be thankful that the U.S. enjoys dominance in an important and growing field like nanotechnology. Even though China does not receive high marks yet, it seems only a matter of time before the Chinese figure out what we in the United States, most in Western Europe and many in Asia have know for a very long time. Significant investment in technology and the creation of a business friendly climate lead to businesses locating, investors investing and high-paying technology jobs being created. Of course, there is also the national security angle to consider as well. So not only are we allowing other nations to catch up to us from a technology and business standpoint, we are allowing other countries to catch up to us from a military technology standpoint, which is concerning.

Whether the “open source means free” community ever chooses to acknowledge it, the truth is that a patent is a business tool; an asset. If you are serious about being in business in the software space you absolutely must have patents. Yet, there are those in the “open source means free” community, which simply a naive anti-patent sector, would have those throughout the open source community incorrectly think patents are evil. They complain that patents shouldn’t be protected by patents and copyrights are enough. They claim it is too hard to figure out if you are infringing. What they are really saying is that they choose not to operate their business affairs in a business appropriate fashion and in order for them to succeed while ignoring best practices and being responsible like every other business and industry they need patents on software to cease. This chicken little approach proves only that they are not business savvy, and that they aren’t paying attention to developments in the industry.

Who among us likes monopolies? Monopolies charge super competitive prices and consumers have no leverage, which leads frequently to inferior goods or services that consumers are forced to accept. This aversion to monopolies has been ingrained in American culture and heritage since the founding of the Nation, and was taken to new extremes during President Theodore Roosevelt’s Administration. While a patent does not confer a monopoly, patents can result in economic power through exclusion of competitors. It is this fundamental aspect of the patent right granted by the government that attracts investors to companies that have acquired patent rights.

The reality is that unless and until Congress steps up to the plate and does something, which seems extraordinarily unlikely, the Patent Office will be left to attempt to piecemeal together solutions. So while no one solution can or will solve all of the problems plaguing the patent system, if cascading solutions are employed at least some applicants can be helped and at least some applications can be accelerated. Of course, the name of the game today is job creation, so I propose a creative way to accelerate patent applications out of order upon proper showing that jobs will be created, and focus my suggestions on those companies that are most likely to create jobs; namely those 5 years or younger and with 99 or fewer employees.

Earlier today Dale Halling, of Halling IP and State of Innovation Blog, brought to my attention an article on the IAM Magazine Blog from a few weeks ago. Joff Wild of IAM blogged about a study conducted by IPVision, Inc., which focused on analyzing the intellectual property positions of over 9,000 US venture capital backed technology companies. The study was…