Nickname: reality check

Review: The patent system has nothing to do with this and it is not the VC's fault. The hard truth is that software engineers came up with bad businesses during the bubble and took people's money by over promising (lying). Now software enterpreneurs have a bad reputation and investors do not trust them. That is why Vonage is mentioned in this article - an example of the lack of scruples among programmers. The biotech industry lives on patentsand venture capital and they can go public because they did not burn investors like the Internet software guys did.

Date reviewed: Oct 26, 2006 10:37 AM

Nickname: issha1

Review: So happens that I'm reading a book called "Innovation and its Discontents" about a dysfunctional patent system. Due to changes in our patent system over the past 25 years, companies like Texas Instruments, which were earning no patent licensing income in the 80s now earn over 50% of their income from licensing, rather than making and producing their own technology. Much more incentive to sue these days, many more patents (often dubious like dog wrist watch), curiously compliant courts and deep pocket guys like TXN put the fear of the Almighty in someone who wants to bring an innovation to market and actually make mooney.

Date reviewed: Oct 11, 2006 12:20 PM

Nickname: kiwinoel

Review: There is no Innovation Drought as far as great ideas -- it is simply the VC process that is flawed. The people inside the process seem to think pretty much the same (all good aspiring MBAs, I am sure). They collectively churn out boilerplated business plans that are nice and safe and logical if it was 1995. But this is 2006--when a company that has not made a profit and did not exist 2 years ago gets flicked for $1.5b+ in Google stock. It's OK. There are hundreds of great innovations out there but the preppies who run the VC meat market are blinded by their old ideas and their self-belief. Hell, if you have traffic, who needs a VC! So, IMHO, if there is an Innovation Drought it is within the VC arena -- they are rapidly becoming quixotic. Damn shame really - I have just bought a suit, lawyered up, and learned how to use PowerPoint.

Date reviewed: Oct 11, 2006 8:50 AM

Nickname: Firozali A Mulla MBA PhD

Review: What we saw as the rush for the gold has to come at one stage to a standstill. After all you cannot carry on digging gold from the area again and again. This is the typical example of point of saturation. The opportune cost comes in. There is a choice to be made. We cannot carry on planting the potatoes in the same soil for very long time. A time comes when we will have to add more fertilizers as the first the second and the third crop has usurped the soil minerals. The same goes for the Tech. We have reached a point that now we are using this and we have forgotten to move forward. The net has speeded the world so fast that innovators too are reading the mail and suggesting the ways to keep up with the broadband. The cell, PDA, the Bluetooth are creating an amazing work load to the already saturated innovation. We have to find the fork where someone can say, "let us slow down, go back and redo the things again. We may come up with better ideas."

Date reviewed: Oct 10, 2006 10:23 AM

Nickname: jbs

Review: Or maybe the SOX compliance costs are having an impact on IPOs in the USA.

Date reviewed: Oct 10, 2006 6:48 AM

Nickname: pperez

Review: I dont understand, watch this: http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail.jsp?globalObjectId=7241_7182_23

Date reviewed: Oct 9, 2006 9:34 PM

Nickname: Mark Schraad

Review: The reality of innovation is that only the largest of companies can afford to protect innovations and even patents. With patent vultures lurking and waiting to take advantage of antiquated laws, there is little else a medium or small company can do other than to find shelter in a large corporate structure.

Date reviewed: Oct 9, 2006 6:07 PM

Nickname: Anonymous

Review: Or maybe the hypes of IPOs are coming back to haunt us. How many people read a new patent/innovation with skepticism/cynicism these days? Furthermore, how many of these innovations are indistinguishable from a handful of others? In every major city there seems to be at least one company designing arterial stents or Web office 2.0 or a biofuel generator. Face it, innovation is always rare. Imitation, numerous as they come, used to pay off big time in venture capital funding, but these days investors are older and wiser.

Date reviewed: Oct 9, 2006 3:33 PM

Nickname: Dave Taylor

Review: Maybe, just maybe, too many people are focused on branding to truly innovate? Check this out to see what I mean: http://www.intuitive.com/blog/innovation_ord_branding_which_comes_first.html

Date reviewed: Oct 9, 2006 6:58 AM