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Category Archives: Policy
Cities of Innovation
Geoffrey West in Edge 343 (WHY CITIES KEEP GROWING, CORPORATIONS AND PEOPLE ALWAYS DIE, AND LIFE GETS FASTER): “Well, Google is a bit of an exception, because it still tolerates some of that. But most companies start out probably with … Continue reading
Posted in Commons, IP, Policy, Projects, Social Science, Technology Transfer
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Ten reasons universities should use outside IP counsel
I was commenting recently on the problems of bringing patent counsel into a university technology transfer operation. Arguments in favor are cost savings, direct control over patent work, consistency, and convenience. But the reasons for not doing so are stronger. … Continue reading
Posted in IP, Policy, Technology Transfer
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Complex IP Management: Real and Imaginary
I want to look at a transition point in the framing of IP management. This discussion is about how management has structure. I argue that IP management is complex, and just like complex numbers, it has a real component, in … Continue reading
Posted in Metrics, Policy, Social Science, Technology Transfer
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Collectivist and individualist innovation
I have been reading Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. It’s a series of essays critiquing the economics of a planned society, arguing instead in favor of markets and individual choices. Hayek argues that the ideals that give rise to … Continue reading
Posted in Bozonet, Policy, Social Science, Technology Transfer
Tagged compulsory, Hayek, individualism, public
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A Linear Model in the Wild
I came across a well developed instance of the Linear Model of innovation in a new RFP from USAID. The diagram in the RFP wasn’t the best quality, so it’s not the crispest of images, but have a look anyway: … Continue reading
Posted in IP, Policy, Social Science
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University invention law in Ohio [updated with translations]
Here’s an interesting bit from the Ohio Revised Code (my emphasis in the text): 3345.14 Rights to and interests in discoveries, inventions or patents – establishment of rules. (B) All rights to and interests in discoveries, inventions, or patents which … Continue reading
You can't manage what you are clueless in measuring
From time to time in technology transfer I hear the quip “you can’t manage what you can’t/don’t measure.” The general drift of the quip is that something has to be counted or measured to determine whether a university IP program … Continue reading
Posted in Bozonet, Metrics, Policy, Technology Transfer
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Partial Patterns
We are attracted to patterns. A pattern appeals to our sense of order and gives us the impressing that things are following a law, can be predicted, everything in a system. It’s all nice. Innovation, however, may suggestion a change … Continue reading
Posted in Bozonet, Metrics, Policy, Social Science, Technology Transfer
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The imp of the improbable
I’m working through The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb. The book is about the ways in which we underestimate the improbable. More deeply, it is about how little we know about the world and how much we fool ourselves into … Continue reading
Posted in Bayh-Dole, Policy, Technology Transfer
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High risks
There is talk around about “high risk, high return” investments. Here is a thoroughly typical talk by Epic Ventures (web site since abandoned) to a state “Energy Advisory Board.” This is speculative investment capital talk, for the most part, from folks with … Continue reading
Posted in Policy, Technology Transfer
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