Intellectual Ventures has been labelled "Intellectual Vultures" as a consequence of its acquisition of 30,000 patents and collection thus far of more than $1 billion in license fees. That is big business. What goes on?
In Investment Firm Hopes to Turn Patents Into Invention Capital Market, Steve Lohr at the New York Times reports on this "nonpracticing entity" - called a patent troll by its detractors - that makes no products of its own but deals in patents only.
The March 2010 Issue of the Harvard Business Review under the title Funding Eureka! features an article written by Nathan Myhrvold, former chief technology officer at Microsoft and Founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures, in which Myhrvold makes the case that his company is not a patent troll but is trying to "create a capital market for inventions" and "to make applied research a profitable activity that attracts vastly more private investment than it does today".
Is it possible that Myhrvold represents the future of patents?
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Be An Angel; Help an Entrepreneur
Be An Angel; Help an Entrepreneur
by FC Expert Blogger Francine Hardaway
by FC Expert Blogger Francine Hardaway
"So we need the creation of new businesses. Well, why aren’t they forming? After all, 10% of us are out of work. Isn’t that when new businesses form?"
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The Week In Private Equity: All-Conflict Edition - Private Equity Beat - WSJ
The Week In Private Equity: All-Conflict Edition - Private Equity Beat - WSJ
Josh Beckerman writes:
Josh Beckerman writes:
"Big Brother vs. The Banks. President Barack Obama’s administration’s proposed new rules for banks and the potential impact on private equity make the carried interest tax debate seem almost quaint by comparison."
BaltCap inks €30m Latvian VC fund agreement with EIF
BaltCap inks €30m Latvian VC fund agreement with EIF
"Eastern European private equity firm BaltCap has signed an agreement with the European Investment Fund to establish a €30m venture capital fund.
BaltCap Latvia is the first venture capital fund manager to successfully complete private fundraising under EIF managed JEREMIE initiatives in Europe."
Friday, January 22, 2010
Venture Funding Moves from Clean Energy to Efficient Lighting and Energy-Management Software : Biotech Leads the Pack
Venture Funding Stabilizes, Shifts to Biotech, Shuns Energy - BusinessWeek
Biotech is on the rise as drug companies seek to offset expiring patents and as investments are being made in new technologies such as genome and cancer research. Less money is going into clean energy and more into projects for efficient lighting and energy-management software.
Tim Mullaney, January 22, 2010 (Bloomberg) , writes:
Biotech is on the rise as drug companies seek to offset expiring patents and as investments are being made in new technologies such as genome and cancer research. Less money is going into clean energy and more into projects for efficient lighting and energy-management software.
Tim Mullaney, January 22, 2010 (Bloomberg) , writes:
"Venture-capital funding for startup companies stabilized in the fourth quarter, with investor interest shifting toward drug development and away from clean energy....
Biotech was the largest industry for the quarter."
Thursday, January 21, 2010
New & Noteworthy | Page 1 | Robb Report
New & Noteworthy | Page 1 | Robb Report
The RobbReport is a magazine that calls itself "The Global Luxur Source". MANY expensive things to buy at prices that few can afford.
The RobbReport is a magazine that calls itself "The Global Luxur Source". MANY expensive things to buy at prices that few can afford.
Breakthrough in developing super-material graphene
Breakthrough in developing super-material graphene
"ScienceDaily (Jan. 19, 2010) — A collaborative research project has brought the world a step closer to producing a new material on which future nanotechnology could be based. Researchers across Europe, including the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL), have demonstrated how an incredible material, graphene, could hold the key to the future of high-speed electronics, such as micro-chips and touchscreen technology....Read the full article here on this breakthrough development in electronics.
Graphene is a relatively new form of carbon made up of a single layer of atoms arranged in a honeycomb shaped lattice. Despite being one atom thick and chemically simple, graphene's is extremely strong and highly conductive, making it ideal for high-speed electronics, photonics and beyond.
Graphene is a strong candidate to replace semiconductor chips. Moore's Law observes that the density of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles every two years, but silicon and other existing transistor materials are thought to be close to the minimum size where they can remain effective. Graphene transistors can potentially run at faster speeds and cope with higher temperatures. Graphene could be the solution to ensuring computing technology to continue to grow in power whilst shrinking in size, extending the life of Moore's law by many years."
Venture Funding of Nanotechnology Start-Ups in Life Sciences and Healthcare Increased as Overall Funding Declined in 2009 | NDN
Venture Funding of Nanotechnology Start-Ups in Life Sciences and Healthcare Increased as Overall Funding Declined in 2009 | NDN
"A new report from Lux Research shows that while overall nanotechnology venture capital (VC) spending was down in 2009, investment in nano-driven healthcare and life sciences increased by 42 percent last year."
Friday, January 15, 2010
The World's Billionaires - Forbes.com
The World's Billionaires - Forbes.com
"Last year the world had 1,125 billionaires. Today there are 793. How $1.4 trillion vanished."
Thursday, January 14, 2010
America vs. Europe - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com : The Evolution of Capitalism
At the New York Times Opinionator Blog, David Brooks and Gail Collins discuss capitalism from the standpoint of America vs. Europe
One of the great misconceptions about American capitalism vs. capitalism in Europe is the myth that American capitalism takes more risks - and the blog commenters to this dialogue between Brooks and Collins raise the cutting edge question "at whose cost?"
Make sure you read those comments on this topic - some are quite brilliant.
Our take is that if the current financial crisis has taught one lesson that should be understood by all, it is that the risk-taker is often not the capitalist, and that the credit risks that were taken by the financial establishment did their greatest harm not to the wealthy capitalists or the capitalist institutions themselves but rather was a harm inflicted on the non-risking American taxpayer.
There are clear differences between capitalism in America and Europe, but this has more to do with the culture of venture capital rather than with any capitalistic differences in fact. Silicon Valley is the best example of this. Which "capitalist" there truly risked his neck to get a start-up going? As any real capitalist will tell you, the smart entrepreneur works with other people's money - usually OUR money, that of average citizens - through the financing credit institutions. That is the name of the game.
On an ancillary issue of health insurance, being without health insurance has nothing to do with risk-taking but is rather a social evil which every industrial country in the world has solved decently by national health insurance of some kind. Wrongly mixing capitalism and investment up with taking care the health of a nation's citizens is just foolish and antiquated.
Many people in the United States need to be alerted to the fact that we are no longer in the 19th century and that the entire capitalistic ball game has changed dramatically in the last 50 years. Those who doubt that statement might be interested in the following presentation by Nancy Koehn, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and author of The Story of American Business: From the Pages of the New York Times, October, 2009, who discusses "The Evolution of Capitalism" at BigThink:
One of the great misconceptions about American capitalism vs. capitalism in Europe is the myth that American capitalism takes more risks - and the blog commenters to this dialogue between Brooks and Collins raise the cutting edge question "at whose cost?"
Make sure you read those comments on this topic - some are quite brilliant.
Our take is that if the current financial crisis has taught one lesson that should be understood by all, it is that the risk-taker is often not the capitalist, and that the credit risks that were taken by the financial establishment did their greatest harm not to the wealthy capitalists or the capitalist institutions themselves but rather was a harm inflicted on the non-risking American taxpayer.
There are clear differences between capitalism in America and Europe, but this has more to do with the culture of venture capital rather than with any capitalistic differences in fact. Silicon Valley is the best example of this. Which "capitalist" there truly risked his neck to get a start-up going? As any real capitalist will tell you, the smart entrepreneur works with other people's money - usually OUR money, that of average citizens - through the financing credit institutions. That is the name of the game.
On an ancillary issue of health insurance, being without health insurance has nothing to do with risk-taking but is rather a social evil which every industrial country in the world has solved decently by national health insurance of some kind. Wrongly mixing capitalism and investment up with taking care the health of a nation's citizens is just foolish and antiquated.
Many people in the United States need to be alerted to the fact that we are no longer in the 19th century and that the entire capitalistic ball game has changed dramatically in the last 50 years. Those who doubt that statement might be interested in the following presentation by Nancy Koehn, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and author of The Story of American Business: From the Pages of the New York Times, October, 2009, who discusses "The Evolution of Capitalism" at BigThink:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
