The OT thread V1

[new ion?]

So, I feel pretty dirty doing this...

If you have a spare couple bucks, would you consider donating/contributing to our crowdfunding campaign? Here

Basically, all our funding got cut (as I hinted above) and so we've resorted to this. We basically need to make $17000 total to get the car to competition, which is in New Hampshire.

[cockerpunk]

Possibly. I thought we were just talking about technology companies and IP. I missed the part about big time R&D budgets because of the comments about IP and the little guy.

One thing you are missing though is the rights a patent gives you.

A patent does not give you a right to practice.

This was drummed into me when at one stage in my career I started working on becoming a patent agent. I stopped as I simply was taking on too much at one time, but I got over half way through the course.

A patent gives you one right, and one right only. That is to stop someone else from practicing your innovation. It doesn't even give you the right to practice it.

Usually to stop someone you have to have serious money.

Case in point is how NPS took over Odyssey with my first force feed patent. Odyssey had quite a few patents, but I was first. Just because they had patents didn't give them any rights to practice what was in them because it was based on the major concept covered in mine.

It rendered all of their patents valueless to them and anyone else looking to buy them other than NPS, even though the patents covered what they were making, they couldn't make it because of my patent. The patents only had value after NPS bought out the company, which was a situation they pretty much had no choice about.

The value in their company at the time was not the IP, but the tooling and orders they had. They got a decent chunk for that.

this is why i listed right to practice and patents seperatly.

Also, a company's goal is not to be bought up by some bigger company, it is to grow bigger & better. No one goes in hoping that they will be bought out in the near future. That is a path to failure, IMO.

most technology companies goal is to be bought out, not bring there own technology to market themselves. example: OLED display start up companies no longer exist. they did exist in the 1990s and 2000s. the successful ones were bought by SDC, sony, Mitsubishi, and the like, and there Processes and IP commercialized into the first generation of OLED phones, now moving into TVs.

none of these start ups existed to attempt to bring OLED phones or TVs to market. they existed only to generate processes and IP that were later bought by larger companies with the resources and commercialization pipelines to make products from. the start ups primary goal is to prove the technology out, generate the IP and then sell the whole lot on down the line.

the same ecosystem exists in medical start ups. here in the twin cities, we have st jude, boston, and medtronic. and literally thousands of startups. the startups use IP generated by the universities, and mayo clinic, and such, and take an idea and prove feasibility of that idea. and they might go as far as FDA approval and there own line of first gen devices, but mostly, the goal is to get bought by jude, boston, or medtronic for full commercialization. a medical device start up has neither the time, resources, or capability to commercialize there own products. they arnt really interested in doing it either as the founders are not really interested in that long term of an investment. venture capital isn't interested in 20+ year commercialization and product management timetables.

almost every type of technology commercialized for the last 30 years runs its course like this. if thats failure .... well, then first world living is failure.

[Lurker27]

That's not to say that there aren't other small business models that work, of course. The general rule of thumb is that the larger the potential windfall, the less likely you're going to get there on your own. The one exception is in software (and, maybe very shortly in certain subsets of biotech) because of the costless nature to replicate the technology.

[cockerpunk]

That's not to say that there aren't other small business models that work, of course. The general rule of thumb is that the larger the potential windfall, the less likely you're going to get there on your own. The one exception is in software (and, maybe very shortly in certain subsets of biotech) because of the costless nature to replicate the technology.

sure, but as far as technology development companies ... thats the primary business model.

the interesting thing now about the once garage shop software companies, is they are no longer as nimble as they once were, having sold that out in there bid to go big time. apple and google have gone the way of the hated IBM. they are the machine now. they buy up startups and IP all the time. they do very little fundamental research anymore, they mostly buy it. and they have mostly become a product design and marketing company, no longer a fundamental research and solution provider.

the large companies would rather let a start up and a venture capitalist spend there 5-10 million a year fostering an idea, and buy it when its proven to work, rather than spend there own 5 million a year, per idea, to develop every bit of IP that comes out of academia. its basically a way to externalize R&D costs and not take on the risk of failure associated with birthing new technology into the marketplace.

[PBSteve]

Figured I'd move this convo here

Lately, if I'm going to play walk-on, it's Apocalypse. There's a small field in Wausau that's not bad, too, right in town. They run Nelson as their field paint, FPO at $60/case. I like to play pump there... $10 field/air fee, $15/bag. They don't even upcharge for buying by the bag, which is cool.

Nice. Apoc is where I played my first game, last time I drove by (2-3 years ago?) their sign was looking pretty rough, glad to hear they're still in business.

[Pump Scout]

Dave's too cheap to put up a new sign. Then again, he did spend whatever it cost him to build the LARPing castle. :P

[PBSteve]

Sounds about right. I'm gonna have to get over there to play at some point this summer.

[fullofpaint]

Shameless Plug:

So, not normally one to post this kind of stuff, but a web series I was involved with is trying to win an award to make a second season and we could use all the votes we can get!

Virtual Morality

It's a choose your own adventure horror story. Check out the first season, it's schlocky horror and pretty awesome.

[cockerpunk]

vasectomies .... thoughts?

context: dont want kids now, older i get the more firmly i seem to be deciding that. adoption is always a possibility and i would freeze some semen locally here as a "just in case" but frankly, i think after a year or two, that might go in the trash too.

[ElPanda]

http://codepen.io/jackrugile/full/DGenc