Blog
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Handing the Keys to the Drunken Sailor and Hoping You Get Home
Letting the CTO manage patent policy is bad for business. Some CEOs abdicate their IP policy to the CTO. The CTO spends lots of time with the patent attorney, so it just makes sense to…
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Pitching Investors is Not “One-and-Done”
Spend some time “riding the bus” in the Minors before getting to the Big Leagues. I have the enviable position of seeing lots of inventors who bootstrapped their companies along before they take outside investment…
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Registration Numbers
Due diligence in patents requires looking at the patent attorney. When I review patent applications, I always download the full prosecution history of the patent from the USPTO. The prosecution history is the formal, legal…
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Waiting Room Inventors
“Moonshots” and Abdicating Responsibility as an Angel Investor. A friend who is an angel investor asked my opinion on a company. I did not like it for a number of reasons, not the least of…
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Technology is always about firing someone.
The value proposition of “technology” is usually that an employer can fire someone. It is always about doing more work with fewer people. This typically has a short term advantage for a business owner, but…
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Patents: An Imperfect System
The system is arbitrary, but it works. And it is unlikely to change. Some technologies just are not suitable for patents. The patent system is a clunky, one-size-fits-all system. It does not work for every…
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Printing Money and the Shiny New Toy
What drives the entrepreneur may be more complicated than what it seems… For many entrepreneurs, getting to revenue is not “success”, it can be a let down. I see this pattern over and over: an…
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You are not a tech entrepreneur.
Real entrepreneurs focus on the solutions they deliver, not the mechanism. There are countless industries where technology can improve things. Most of these industries are bland, run-of-the-mill industries that deliver services. It may be plumbing,…
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This product is great…for someone else.
The kiss of death. Entrepreneurs are constantly testing out their messaging. They are constantly pitching to their family and friends, and they are always prepared to pitch to investors. An entrepreneur’s pitch usually starts out…
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Assignment Due Diligence: Unassigned Assets
Spotting bad behavior in startup companies. It is heartbreaking to see bad behavior by ‘inventors’ and their startup companies, but it occurs over and over again. Let this lesson be an example of the things…