Category Archives: Social Science

Shanzhai Rules

Over at the LinkedIn Post-Industrial Design group, there’s a little discussion started by Matt Sinclair on a report called The Future of Open Fabrication from the Institute For the Future. The report calls out the Shanzhai approach to manufacturing in … Continue reading

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Fixin' for Some Bayh-Dole Fixing

Here’s more in the wild on vesting interpretations of Stanford v. Roche.  Written by a suit of attorneys at the firm of Bracewell & Guiliani, it gets a piece of the Supreme Court decision right, does a decent job summarizing … Continue reading

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Innovation Fiction

“Bewilderment, in its ancient and literal sense of being cast away in a trackless wild, was the lot of the explorer….”  Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver (p. 47 in the paperback edition). If you happen to be looking for a framework in … Continue reading

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Learning to See

While Bayh-Dole and Stanford v. Roche have taken up a lot of space on these pages recently, they are not the only things going around here by any means. One area of our work has been to gain a better … Continue reading

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What should a university focus on?

Benoît Godin on the statistics used to describe science, technology, and innovation (STI): – A focus on (research) activities rather than use and impacts. – An economic-oriented representation rather than social/cultural. – An interest in technology rather than science. – … Continue reading

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The road to serfdom, patent reform version

At IP Watchdog, Eric Guttag is out with a piece on the effect of patent reform legislation on Bayh-Dole compliance. It’s an important topic, and Guttag raises some valuable points. But at the root of it, he is working with … Continue reading

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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

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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

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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

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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

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