Among the many barriers to innovation success, one of the most painful and dangerous is rapidly gaining momentum in the United States due to an almost perfect storm of challenges to patent value. I speak of the blight of “efficient infringers,” the many companies, often large and politically influential, who make the cruel calculation that …
Efficient Infringers: A Vibrant Source of Innovation Fatigue Read More »
For those of us working with innovators seeking to build and grow much-needed businesses and bring new valuable new products to the world, it’s painful to survey the damage that has been done to the patent system in the United States over the past decade and the corresponding damage to innovation. Many factors have come …
America’s Patent Apocalypse and the USPTO’s Patent Death Squad Read More »
Be careful about the vehicle you’ve been driving. As sturdy, tangible, useful, and inventive as it looks to you, it may turn out to be merely an abstraction, perhaps nothing more than the mere idea of “transportation” or “going places,” making it unworthy of the thousands of patents protecting its numerous technologies — if the …
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 …
A culture that can protect trade secrets is vital for innovative companies. Such a culture becomes especially important in collaborative innovation efforts where failure to protect trade secrets can severely damage partners and the offending company’s reputation. Chinese companies are increasingly recognizing the value of what the West calls “open innovation.†In fact, forms of …
I had the privilege of speaking at the Global IP and Innovation Summit, Sept. 4-5, Shanghai, organized by Managing IP, an outstanding IP magazine. This was a terrific conference with about 300 participants, opened with a keynote from the Acting Director of the US Patent and Trademark Office, Teresa Stanek Rea. I got to chat …
In many large corporations, there’s a painful and frequently repeated scenario of invention theft that we treat in several ways in the book, Conquering Innovation Fatigue. The invention theft I’m thinking of today is not from foreign spies or evil competitors. It is internal theft, wherein a powerful employee or team within a corporation takes …
Time Travel Is Easy: How to Send Your Company Back to the Dark Ages Read More »
Maybe China is just too far from the smug innovation circles of the West. Maybe language and cultural barriers make the events unfolding in China too inaccessible to Western media. Maybe decades of concern about IP theft from Chinese companies has closed the eyes of the West to present realities. Whatever the reason, the West …
Invisible Innovation: The Blindness of the West to China’s Innovation Story Read More »
The good folks at the China Law Blog recently discussed a common scam that occurs in China. Actually, this is a scam that is shaking down small and large companies and lone inventors all over the globe. I’ve warned against it in the US for a long time and was intrigued to see it is …
The Bogus IP Registration Scam: Becoming a Global Phenomenon, Beware! Read More »
Many people in the West think of China as a copier exploiting the IP of the West and generally ignoring IP rights. In reality, China, the nation where I now live, has made steady and rapid progress in building an IP system and in enforcing and respecting IP rights. Companies are increasingly able to protect …