Posts from the 'patents' Category

Looking for Disruptive Innovation? Maybe All You Need Is a Clear Vision

Vision and Freedom: Two Essentials For Disruptive Innovation

I worked at Yahoo from 2004 through 2009. During my tenure, we ran three major programs, an enterprise-wide innovation program, which generated near-term products and services, a futurist program which crowdsourced both future strategy and future focused patentable ideas, and a targeted IP development program, which focused on developing targeted, potentially patentable ideas, with an eye to expanding the patent portfolio. We were so successful in these endeavors that those last two above led to substantial contributions to a patent portfolio which was recently valued at over $1B. read more

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Innovation Is Dangerous

Innovation is beyond dangerous, awesome, and wonderful.

Innovation is central to your company, but at the same time, innovation is dangerous.

Innovation can be a threat to a lot of people within your organization. The sole purpose of an innovation group within a larger company should be to disrupt the main business. To replace the main business. Its purpose should be a threat to the main business. read more

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Hillary Vs Trump: On Innovation

How do Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump fare on Innovation?

Let me start out this post by stating unequivocally, I am not voting for either of the above, lest you may feel that I have a leaning one way or another. As I’ve mentioned many times before, I am a libertarian, and unlike Peter Thiel, the billionaire who appeared and spoke for Trump at the RNC, I support neither of the major candidates. I used to very political, but have stepped out of speaking about it, or being very interested in it at all, since oh, around 2012. I stay away from talking about politics for the same reason that I don’t watch hockey any more – trying to keep my blood pressure and heart rate in a normal range. But I digress. read more

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What Kind of Ideas Can I Patent?

Wondering if you should patent your idea?

Note for this post: I’m not an attorney, although I do hang around many of them and they are all very nice people – so if you have more detailed questions regarding an actual patent or patentable idea, please consult an attorney. I just like inventing stuff. read more

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Are Singapore & Sweden More Innovative Than The United States?

Who Is More Innovative? A Tale Of Three Countries

In two different recent articles, both Singapore and Sweden were singled out as leading the way in two completely different, very innovative directions, both of which seem disruptively innovative compared to the United States. Typically, when you see lists of the worlds most innovative countries, something like number of patent filings of new ideas is used to determine that number. Most times, the United States is far ahead in that regard, although China is catching up (it remains to be seen what China is actually patenting and whether or not it really is more innovative than what the United States and the rest of the world is doing). read more

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What Can I Do With This? Usefulness

This is the 4th of 5 posts on patenting your ideas. This episode: Usefulness.

This one is an easy one. Take one look at the invention and ask yourself. “Is this useful?”. There are many, many cool ideas, but if they are not useful, then they probably don’t qualify as a patentable invention. read more

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Hmm, Well That’s Different: Non-Obvious-ness

This is the 3rd of 5 posts on patenting your ideas. This episode: Non-obvious-ness.

This is a fun one. Many times, people come to me with ideas which are slightly better than something out there and ask “Is this patentable”. Of course, after novelty (can you say that what you are doing is totally new), the next gate that you have to get through is non-obviousness. My definition of that is simply “can it be said that your idea is simply an extension of another idea?” Here are some examples of obviousness, maybe you can spot the pattern: read more

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It’s Never Been Done Before: Novelty

Novelty: Is The Idea New & Different?

This is the second in a series of posts on patentability – read the first post – That’s A Great Idea, You Should Patent It (Or Not)

Please note: I’m not a patent attorney, although I do hang around many of them and they are all very nice people – so if you have more detailed questions regarding an actual patent or patentable idea, please consult an attorney. I just like inventing stuff. read more

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That’s A Great Idea! You Should Patent It! (or Not)

This is the first of 5 posts on taking your ideas to patent

Ideas are awesome. Of course, many people have said many things about ideas, like “Ideas are a dime a dozen” or “Execution matters more than the idea itself” but if you ask me, everything starts with an idea. The idea is not good or bad in and of itself, it simply has attributes which can determine where the idea goes in life. An idea can be born anywhere and at any time, and some ideas are great businesses. Other ideas are great enhancements to current existing products, some ideas enhance products so well that they completely transform products into something completely new, or refocus products to open completely new markets. read more

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Does Necessity Really Drive Innovation?

Innovation From Necessity

I’ve heard it said a few times that its necessity that drives innovation – that if you aren’t trying to solve a hairy problem or your back is against the wall – that is the only space that innovation comes from. The companies will only innovate if they are forced to. read more

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