Start-UP Failure and IP

Quick post:

I have been filling my free reading time with stories about how different start-ups fail. My inquiry is not limited to "Tech" or "Software", but to restaurants, shipping companies, mines and other small and medium businesses that found themselves suddenly with more liability than assets.

Obviously, I am not a business manager, so my opinions should be taken with a healthy grain of salt. However, a reoccurring theme appears to be that companies often fail because the business plan that failed to accurately match reality.  It should be noted that reality is a hard thing, it changes and morphs over time. Having a business model that consistently matches it is very difficult.  There are very few conceptual frameworks for making money that have not be changed by the advent of new er better technology and information, (agriculture? Prostitution?), trying to keep pace is difficult.

That being said, what I have also noticed is that very few (say less than 1%) of the companies I read about failed because of IP infringement. Sure, there are some tech start-ups that fail because they step on the toes of a competitors IP (esp in the trademark and copyright space), but it is generally not how start-ups fail.

However, there is a pernicious perception in some quarters of the start-up world is that accusations of infringement are a) rampant and b) driving companies who would otherwise be profitable, off of a cliff.

The reality, much like business plans, must have some facts and analysis to support those conclusions. A significant quantity of IP suits filed in 2014 were directed against large profitable business and instigated on the behalf of non-practicing entities.  It is rare for any company to receive a cease and desist letter from a patent holder. It is rarer still for them for the target of a suit to be a un-profitable start-up.

For the curious, here are some post mortums of various tech start-ups:

http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/startup-failure-post-mortem


http://successfulsoftware.net/2010/05/27/learning-lessons-from-13-failed-software-products/

The point is that businesses have a lot of things to worry about, and a limited amount of time to worry about them. Worry less about IP infringement, and more about your business model and odds are you will have made the right choice in your focus.

A Modest Proposal: Bitcoin + Kickstarter +PMCs = Brave New World

I am looking for my razor....

Unless you have been living in a cave, or actually fighting the Shining Path in the jungles of northern Peru, you are aware that Boko Haram, an Islamic fundamentalist organization, has kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls. Their stated purposes was to sell them into sexual slavery, their unstated purpose was to sow general mayhem.  If you want to read more, then feel free to check out excellent coverage here.

The Nigerian government has offered the equivalent of $300,000 for information leading to the whereabouts of the missing school girls. In an age where random kickstarters for pointless, useless crap raise millions of dollars, the international community (not governments, but actual "global" citizens - i.e. you) can probably do better than a bit over 1000 per kidnapped schoolgirl.

This brings us to the intersection of a number of internet technologies and recent global developments. Currently, there is no technological barrier to use a Bitcoin based crowd funding site to hire a private military contractor (UN speak for "Mercenaries") to locate and rescue the girls. There would be obvious implications for territorial sovereignty for the Nigerian Government, but they appear to already have a problem with territorial sovereignty.

How would this work in practice? Poorly. However, it is the logical outgrowth of technologies currently available.

The way bit coin works is to render anonymous the commercial transactions using a finite (but infinitely divisible) resource stock . Libertarians and others find this particularly beneficial because it removes the threat of "fiat" currency fluctuations (of course it introduces other types of currency fluctuations, but that is not the point here ) and allows for transactions to occur outside government control and inspection. This
combined with a crowd-sourcing model would let denizens of the world contribute to a fund anonymously.  Millions of dollars worth of Bitcoins could be electronically transferred to a holding entity that was the point of contact.  This aggregation of resources could use a crowdfunding model, one well developed over the past few years, to solicit and explain the purpose of the holding entity.

During the United States' decade and a half worth of combat in the Middle East, PMCs have increasingly been used to guard kep individuals, do recon, and even engage in combat. (The nightmare that was Fallujah started because some PMCs went looking to settle a score with insurgents).  Now, they comprise an international shadow military active in almost every conceivable military role. They have their own equipment, weapons, command structures and PR teams.

In our scenario, once the funds were amassed, they would be used to hire a PMC outfit to retrieve the girls.

People might cheer or wring their hands, but no one should assume that this in not possible today. These three technologies combined form a platform.  Lets call it an "Anonymous Crowd-Sourced Conflict Management" or ACSCM platform (and API!).  Once it is successfully deployed, there would be no reason to think that other enterprising individuals wouldn't use the platform for more nefarious ends. One could envision Dark Nets full of Terrorist Groups pleading and copying other groups request for crowd sourcing (which raises a interesting question out IP theft among various terrorist groups) to fund their particular plots.

We are constantly told how new technologies will change the world. The problem is that we always default to that change being only beneficial. All technologies have the capacity to use and misuse in ways their original creators never intended.

IPT Patents is a Patent Scam Company [Scam Alert]

In keeping with a general theme on this blog, we have uncovered another International Patent Scam service.

IPT (www.ipt-patents.com) is sending out letters, a copy if which is reproduced below, that claims that they are a "Registration of International Patents" Office.

My second rule of Scam-club (the first is that you always talk about Scammers) is that you never trust any documents coming from a P.O. Box in  eastern Europe.  For that matter, I wouldn't send money to P.O. Box in Jersey based on an unsolicited letter.

Don't fall for these scams. If you want to file for a patent in a number of countries, you will always save more money by hiring an IP attorney to help walk you the mine-field.  Otherwise, you are easy pickings for the IPT's of the world.

Add them to the list:
IPT
UPTS
IP-Data.biz


http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/pct/en/warning/ipt.pdf