A small start-up company fighting one of the great giants of all time: it’s a classic story of David vs. Goliath, or in this case, David vs. Googleliath (a.k.a. VSL vs. Google). Many small companies have claimed that Google misappropriated trade secrets or other IP, but rarely has Google graciously (and accidentally) cooperated in providing …
My latest post here at Innovation Fatigue lamented the actions of the USPTO in their apparent war on patents involving natural products. New information makes the story even more troubling than before, indicating that more than just judicial error and bureaucratic blindness was involved. The steps taken appear much more deliberate and political than that, …
America’s Anti-Patent Revolution: Stoking the Engines of Innovation Fatigue Read More »
Many companies seeking innovation overlook their own internal barriers to innovation success. One of the biggest barriers can be their own attorneys. Lawyers are needed for many aspects of innovation, such as drafting the agreements with partners in open innovation and protecting IP with patents, trademarks, and other intellectual assets. The skill of a good …
Every October, the United States celebrates Columbus Day (well, maybe “celebrate” in the sense of “ignore”). Though now a controversial figure, the journey of Columbus has much in common with the journey of many innovators. It began with a vision, a dream that he could sail west and reach India to change the world of …
The Long Journey of Discovery and Innovation: Lessons from Columbus Read More »
One of the most challenging areas for innovators, entrepreneurs, and businesses of any kind now is field of children’s products. Innovation fatigue has reached new heights in this area due to “external innovation fatigue”–the kind that comes when outside forces from government and others, often with the best of innovations, deliver hard-to-evade punches to the …
Innovators and business leaders doing their best to achieve commercial success need to understand the set of innovation fatigue factors that they face. These include personal factors due to the bad behavior of individuals; corporate or organizational fatigue factors reflecting inadequate systems, culture, or flawed judgment; and external fatigue factors due to the burdens of …
Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly on Twitter) had a recent tweet about the Nobel Laureate Andre Geim who discovered graphene and many potential uses for the super strong two-dimensional material. His tweet was “Puts the lie to the claim that patents help small inventors: Why Geim Never Patented Graphene http://bit.ly/9QrEC3“. The link is to a discussion on …
Today I’m pleased to share a guest column from a friend, Brian Argo of Brian Argo & Associates LLC. Brian specializes in technical scouting, intellectual property searches, and formulation of cleaners and personal care products. He has a wide variety of experience in innovation and offers an interesting perspective that I thought would be useful …
The lifeblood of innovation is capital. Investment of capital is the primary difference between great ideas and great teams that go nowhere and those that change the world. From the airplane to the iPod, from wonder drugs to wonder software, innovation requires invested capital to bring concepts to commercial reality. Angel investors play a crucial …
For connecting one human to another, it’s been said that any two people can be connected by acquaintances in six steps, hence the concept of “six degrees of separation.” The term “seven degrees of separation” occurred to me when reading Malcolm Gladwell’s discussion of airliner accidents in his outstanding book, Outliers: The Story of Success. …