The Future of Computing

I’m fascinated by the future of computing – Pranav Mistry has seen the future and demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data — including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper “laptop”.

It’s also the kind of innovation that NPE’s  (patent trolls) acquire patents around…..

PART 2:

yet2.com Presents 4 New Encapsulation Technologies..Webinar 12/11 @ 11am EST

yet2.com sees a lot of market interest in encapsulation technologies.

We are having a webinar on 4 that we think are particularly interesting. This live webinar features four new technologies and an overview of the market by Dr. Eugene Buff, yet2.com’s vice president of consulting. Not just a lecture, the webinar format offers ample opportunity for electronic interaction with the principals.

REGISTER NOW
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/310003931

As of the writing of this blog post 84 companies have singed up to participate on Friday December 11, 11:00–12:30pm US Eastern Standard Time.

Moderator:

• Dr. Eugene Buff, yet2.com vice president, consulting

4 New Technologies:

How much would the King of England have paid for search?

How much wold have King Henry paid for internet search?  How much would he have paid for penicillin or access to GPS?  We largely consider these 3 technologies free today.  But would the King have given half his Kingdom for access to them?

yet2.com Keynotes Filtration 2009 – Nonwovens Industry Conference

Yesterday I had the privilege of being the keynote speaker at the INDA conference in Chicago.  I really enjoyed presenting 3 macro trends on Open Innovation and what those trends might mean. There were lots of great questions and discussion.

INDA is the trade association representing the  nonwovens industry.  I was surprised at the diversity of technology and innovation on display.   The vendor floor was full of activity.  I was told the conference was a little smaller than previous years, but it did not look that way to me.

I met a wide variety of companies.  Filtration impacts almost every aspect of our lives – it’s critical for our water and air, and the car we drive, the food we buy and products we love – even in hospitals and healthcare is filtration critical.  Innovation in filtration can ripple through our economy  providing a great positive impact – and most of us might never know.  I love events like this

I met a few companies that really impressed me:

yet2.com – Which Patents Are Selling?

yet2.com does a lot of patent buying and selling.  We are in the middle of a large volume of transactions, representing either buyers or sellers.  yet2.com is a little unusual for 2 reasons: 1) Because we don’t do infringement  work, we don’t represent NPEs (patent trolls).  For this reason, we are particularly close to the Fortune 500, who largely do defensive buying. 2) Because we have offices in; Tokyo, Liverpool, Boston, and Wilmington, Delaware (where many bankruptcies are filed), we are well-networked into the supply and demand of patent transactions.

We see the most activity in industries where there are high numbers of patents per product. I thought I’d share a list of where there is the most demand from buyers within those industries. The attached list changes frequently, but  if you know of patents in these areas that are available for license or purchase — please let us know.

1) Lighting

Broadly defined

2) Consumer Electronics

Compression / decompression (“codec”), Displays, Battery/portable Power, Sensors, Digital Rights Management, Internet Telephony, Printing, Opto-electronics, Digital imaging, Image Capture/Image Display, Optical storage

718 Blooms – from a single plant – only at Longwood Gardens

http://www.longwoodgardens.org is no ordinary garden.

900,000 people visit every year.  1,000 acres, 20 gardens outdoors, and 20 gardens indoors.   It’s open every day.   They do world class horticulture research, and have developed some extraordinary technology in everything from fragrance to color.  Everyone from the Nikki to the Financial Times says they are the best display garden in the world.  Aside from all of this, it’s really exciting see what a $2B endowment with some great leadership can do.

I’m lucky enough to be a director of Longwood and thought I’d share the results of some great research (and Open Innovation) done there – that is on display now.  The Thousand Bloom Chrysanthemum (known in Japan as Ozukuri) refers to a technique, originating in China and expanding to Japan several hundred years ago, for growing an extremely large Chrysanthem.  Longwood is working hard at setting a world record.  Take a look at this Video:

What’s really impressive?  They have a backup plant, in case there is an issue with this one. Wow.

yet2.com – IP Sales Climbing, Flight to Quality Patents

This is a reprint from an excellent article from the Boston Business Journal.  I’d add one caveat – we are seeing a flight to quality patents.  Last year a patent which sold for $25K, might not have a buyer this year.  But a patent which had a buyer for $500K, might draw $1M today – Ben

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By the time nTag Interactive Corp. filed for bankruptcy it had raised $23 million in venture capital and owed about $2.5 million to creditors.

That’s a bit more than the $25,000 the Boston-based company, which made interactive name tags for events, was offered for use of its technology, according to a recent court filing.

It’s a sobering scenario that could become more common as startups stressed by the recession file for bankruptcy or simply shut down. Local lawyers, investors and intellectual property brokers expect more IP to be put up for sale as funding sources become more scarce.

“We’re seeing a doubling, if not more, of people coming in and saying we have patents we would like to sell,” said Phil Stern, CEO of Yet2.com Inc. The Needham-based company, which has about 20 employees, helps companies find buyers for their IP.