Edison Updated for a New Decade

Book Review – Edison in the Boardroom Revisited: How Leading Companies Realize Value from Their Intellectual Property, by Suzanne S Harrison and Patrick H Sullivan (John Wiley & Sons, 2011)

The original Edison in the Boardroom has become a classic text in the intellectual property field, and introduced many people to the basic concepts of intellectual capital, intellectual assets, and their management.

The cover notes of the first edition – published in 2001 – described it as ‘an in-depth look at the revolutionary concept of intellectual asset management (IAM) [which] is changing the way companies all over the world are doing business.’

It is therefore somewhat surprising that, over a decade later, IAM remains a relatively rarefied discipline, explicitly practised by only a small number of specialist service providers.  Indeed, the only private-practice firm of professional advisors which appears in the first ten Google search results for the exact phrase “intellectual asset management” is Watermark [the author’s employer, in the interests of full disclosure].  This perhaps reflects a fragmentation in terminology, as much as conservatism on the part of many traditional providers of IP legal services.

Yet the management practices of many of the world’s largest and most sophisticated owners, developers, commercialisers and monetisers of intellectual capital have advanced significantly since 2001.  Some of the best (or worst, depending on your point of view) examples of this are patent aggregators, such as Intellectual Ventures, RPX Corporation and Acacia Research, amongst others, which have developed a number of novel business models around the acquisition and monetisation of patents for both defensive and offensive purposes.  At the same time, Microsoft is rapidly gaining on IBM in its ability to generate licensing revenues from partners and competitors alike, while Apple is currently giving a number of its own competitors (most notably Samsung) an object lesson in IP strategy.

We have frequently recommended the original Edison in the Boardroom to clients and colleagues, both as an introduction for those new to IAM, and as a useful insight into the best practices of top companies for those with some IP management experience. However, we were becoming concerned that the examples and practices described in the book were somewhat dated in an increasingly fast-moving field.

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Tags: Book review, Intellectual Asset Management, Strategy

Jobs Biography Reveals Irrational Android ‘Thermonuclear’ Reaction

In the lead-up to today’s accelerated launch of Walter Isaacson’s authorised biography of Steve Jobs, much of the publicity has centred on Jobs’ self-professed animosity towards Google generally, and Android in particular.

Of course, some of the most inflammatory material has been provided to the media to generate publicity for the book.  For example, as reported in the Daily Mail (Steve Jobs vowed to use his ‘last dying breath’ destroying iPhone rival Android in a ‘thermonuclear war’), Jobs swore ‘I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this.’  He also vowed to ‘spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong.’ 

For Jobs, it seems, the battle over smartphone technology was not about money, as he reportedly told former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, ‘I don't want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won't want it. I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want.’

Now that we have been able to obtain a copy of the book (ironically via Amazon for our Kindle, or Kindle reader on Windows or Android), we can confirm that all this is indeed covered in Isaacson’s biography.  Indeed, the book contains a great deal more regarding Jobs’ grievances against Google (‘outside of Search, Google’s products – Android, Google Docs – are shit’), Adobe (‘I put Adobe on the map, and they screwed me’), Microsoft (‘Bill [Gates] is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything….  He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas’) and Dell (email to Michael Dell: ‘CEOs are supposed to have class.  I can see that isn’t an opinion you hold.’)

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Tags: Android, Book review, Smartphone wars

An Inventor’s Lament for the Broken Promises of the Patent System

Book review – Don’t File A Patent by John D Smith (The Smith Press, 2010)

John D Smith is an inventor and a good, old-fashioned, entrepreneur who believes in the power of the individual to take a good idea from conception to market, to the mutual benefit of the consumer – who gets a new or better product – and the inventor – who gets the personal satisfaction and financial rewards of running a successful business.

In other words, all Smith is really asking for is his share of the American Dream.  It is, perhaps, easier for those of us living outside the United States to perceive the potential damage wrought by this national ethos of freedom, prosperity and success.  From a distance, we can see that the promise is just too great to deliver on the expectations it creates, and so some degree of disappointment, disillusionment and bitterness is an almost inevitable consequence when the dream meets reality.

The US patent system has its own place within the national psyche.  It is timely to examine this now, as the US Congress considers legislation to reform the system in a number of respects, but most controversially to replace the ‘first-to-invent’ principle with a ‘first-inventor-to-file’ approach more closely aligned with the rest of the world.  It is said by some that this unique feature of the US patent law finds its origins in the articles of the Constitution upon which the Nation was founded, and that placing the individual at the heart of the system, as the source of all innovation, has contributed to America’s great economic and cultural success.

This may seem somewhat philosophical, but it actually does matter.  If it is true that the current system provides better support for individuals and small enterprises to successfully commercialise their inventions, then the proposed reforms may indeed be harmful.  But if, on the other hand, the notion of a patent system that supports, protects and nurtures the individual inventor is just one more myth waiting to be busted, then the arguments in favour of reform almost certainly outweigh those against.

The story that Smith tells in his book Don’t File A Patent is therefore one that should be read by inventors, patent attorneys, legislators, policy makers, patent examiners, patent office officials, and anybody else with more than a passing interest in how the US patent system really works.  Smith’s disillusionment and bitterness are, at times, palpable as you read this book.  However, his reactions are entirely understandable, and have not prevented him from writing a book that is informative and readable – even, in places, downright entertaining and almost laugh-out-loud funny (such as his ‘Office Action Rejection Wheel’).  Nor have they prevented him from devoting more than half of the book to practical and positive advice on what to do with the time, money and energy you will save by not filing a patent application.

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Tags: Book review, Patent law, US