A colleague of mine, Joel Riff of Riff & Bui, sent me the article Lawyers Collaborate with Wikis from Law.com. Wikis are online collaboration tools that enable multiple users to post articles and to edit one another’s postings. The most famous example is Wikipedia, an online Wiki-based encyclopedia that news reports say is now larger than proprietary… Continue Reading
Monthly Archives: June 2007
Patent Factoids
Some factoids about patents: Typical cost to obtain a U.S. patent: $5,000 to $25,000. Cost to invalidate a patent: Legal fees average $4.5 million in patent disputes where more than $25 million is at risk. Cost of obtaining a patent versus invalidating one: You do the math. Number of inventions under active patent in the… Continue Reading
Size of the Intangible Economy
How large is the intangible economy in the U.S.? U.S. businesses invest about $1 trillion in intellectual property and other intangible assets, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Board. That’s as much as they invest in equipment and other tangible investments. Intangible assets, including intellectual property, constitute nearly 1/3 of the value of… Continue Reading
Tension between Quality Methodologies/Six Sigma and Innovation
Business Week ran an interesting cover story about the tensions between quality methodologies such as Six Sigma, and innovation and creativity. In sum, "while process excellence demands precision, consistency, and repetition, innovation calls for variation, failure and serendipity." According to Management Professor Vijay Govindarajan, "the more you hardwire a company on total quality management, [the… Continue Reading