One of the most serious factors contributing to innovation fatigue in the U.S. and many other nations can be the failure of government to protect and enforce property rights, including intellectual property rights. When the fruits of invention can be plucked by anyone without benefit to the inventor, when the risks and costs of innovation …
Now the Fed Joins the Attack on Intellectual Property Rights Read More »
A grand old movie is “The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell” starring Gary Cooper as the aviation innovator Billy Mitchell. Billy Mitchell has a major airport named after him in Milwaukee and there is a small museum honoring him in the airport. Today his name is honored as one of the great champions of innovation …
Punishing Innovation: Lessons from the Court Martial of Billy Mitchell Read More »
“This is something that is dangerous and clearly unsanitary,” warned New York senator Jeffrey Klein in October 2009. “Once we shed light on this dirty little process, more people will avoid it and we can ban it.” The terrifying menace that so worried the good state senator and led him to introduce legislation to ban …
Eaten Alive By Regulation: Innovation Fatigue and Fish Therapy 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 …
One of the hottest areas for innovation globally is in improved foods and beverages that benefit human health. Unfortunately, bureaucrats are among the biggest barriers that innovators face in this field. In the United States, something as uncontroversial as the well-known relationship between citrus fruit and scurvy (that is, citrus fruit can prevent or help …
Dehydrating Innovation in Europe: EFSA and Beverage Innovation Read More »
On Sept. 16, President Obama signed the Leahy-Smith “America Invents Act” which supposedly will strengthen innovation and improve our patent system. It’s a radical change in our patent system–one that seems to have been drafted by people who don’t fully understand patents or innovation. Does this bill promote innovation as advertized? What about that 15% …
One of the biggest problems from economies directed by bureaucrats rather than a free market is that the bureaucrats don’t just spend money on foolish areas that don’t make sense economically, but their diversion of funds causes money to dry up where it is needed. Thus the housing bubble, created by government intervention and waste, …
Malinvestment: Crushing Innovation Where It’s Needed Most Read More »
In the United States and many other nations, a question is being asked by many who struggle with the brutal reality of innovation fatigue. In many sectors, it is taking bigger investments, longer times, and much more pain to deliver innovation, and much of what passes for innovation in some sectors ends up being incremental …
A painful message from the CEO of Nokia, shared below, reminds us that the pain of disruptive innovation often catches major incumbents unaware. As they listen to their existing customers and improve existing products and services, often incrementally, they may not sense the tsunami of change that is coming from afar. The innovations that will …
A Burning Platform: Nokia Faces Its Own Innovation Fatigue Read More »
I am delighted to see Wired Magazine feature a story about the new book on the largely untold story of one of the original inventors of the computer. Nearly everyone has heard the standard story of the invention of the ENIAC computer at Penn State by a team led by John Mauchly and J. Presper …
The Invention of the Computer: Pulitzer-Prize Novelist Will Tell the Untold Story Read More »