by Andrew Watson on 1 November 2009
At least one person, ie me, is getting something out of this exercise. It does seem to be adding some traffic to our blog though. I do often wonder who is looking at our stuff on the main site or on the blog. We found out when we registered the ipva domain that the ipva is the Brasilian equivalent of the drivers vehicle licensing authority in the UK…great for traffic, poor for the time they spend on the site though when they’ve worked out that it is not what they were looking for. We seem to get most of our visitors from the UK and USA, Lots of views, not too many comments though. Intriguing—-who are you anonymous lot?
Week 3 has been a lot of fun. Did I mention that I love what we do?
We put Rosie™ out into the field a few times in presentations this week. She just doesn’t let us down and this week she made her way into two proposals and three education sessions. I’ll share how her name came about at some stage.
But most of the week was taken up in closing out the ownership issue we’ve been busy on for the last few weeks. It is a little scary to me that we used to see ownership as an optional diligence area. Post eBay and Skype though, I see it as maybe more critical than reviewing IP assets or risks. Most errors on the assets side can at least often be fixed or aren’t business fatal. Few companies I guess are taken out of the business if they miss a few patent filings, even if they fall foul of a competitor patent. But ownership issues could and should be fatal.
We’re due to close out two projects this week. Both very pleasing results and we have got some warming compliments. I think with Mike and Luc on board we have gone up a notch or two in the quality of what we do.
Three more are due to kick off this week and all three excite me. One in particular gets us to apply pretty much all of knowledge and expertise learned in the past 4 years. What more could a man want than a lifetimes’ purpose.
by JS Hatcher on 30 October 2009
New and noteworthy links from around the web:
by Andrew Watson on 26 October 2009
Let’s try the highlights of week 2.
I realised that week 1 was a little ambitious to repeat week on week. If nothing else it could get a little repetitive. As a variation, I thought I’d pick up on the highlights of week 2:
1. A blog post on the Apple and Nokia spat. We have done a fair amount of work in the Standards area in diligence and gained some super knowledge. Opinionated I know but this area is just so damn frustrating for business leaders and creates competitive disadvantages across markets and suppliers. At least it is yet another good business-based IP story, our role in which is to explain it to the lay reader.
2. A new idea. Not going to say much on this for the obvious reason but on Wednesday Stephen and I put ipVA through the same methodology as we put our clients through. With some startling results. And a new path, or at least a ladder to take us a few steps forward.
3. Rosie is born. We’ve been working on a process and method for IP assessment for around 12 months and it was conceived in around May 2008 and has hardened since. Jordan and I went to see a tax partner from a Big4 firm on Monday who described it as “compelling”. And, again, it did not let us down. Time and time and time again we seem to find a way to explain the unexplainable and to decipher intangibles to the non-IP audience. So, on Tuesday, Rosie was born as our product name for our methodology. She’ll grow up and flower over time but she’s very real.
4. Ownership, ownership, ownership. This drum needs to be banged over and over again. The number of times that people simply do not IP own what they think they IP own is amazing. Our small ownership issue of last week has taken the full week to unpick and at least now we have a plan to resolve it. How many times? I see this as akin to the owner of a home who when asked if he owns his house says “of course I do” but then realises that he doesn’t own his garage and only has a 3 year lease on the fourth bedroom. “Oh”, I just hadn’t realised”.
5. Creative ways of making it easy for clients to use us. I guess this is the benefit of our model, that we can speculate at little. This week has seen this hit a peak.
6. The perfect pitch. You know the day when it simply all comes together? Well for me this week it did. Aided by the lovely Rosie we simply in the words of Simon Cowell “nailed it” on one pitch this week. How pleasing is that.
A long week again and time for some downtime this weekend. Maria trounced me 6-2, 6-1, 6-2 last weekend in tennis so I’ve some recovery work on my pride to work on tomorrow.
by Andrew Watson on 25 October 2009
I noticed that Nokia has lost patience with Apple and decided to bring licensing discussions to a head by issuing proceedings. Poor Apple, like RIM, was late into the 2 and 3G Standards game and the incumbents (Nokia, Ericsson and Qualcomm for 3G) are so embedded in the setting of Standards (and by the way do not intend to let go of that position) that the successful non Nokia handsets find themselves paying a tax to the incumbents on every handset. At least Apple has the competitive advantage of being able to sell a product that has a premium price with its design features and brand premium. RIM and others will find themselves increasingly squeezed by having a tax to pay on each handset where the brand premium is not so obvious.
The way that Nokia and Qualcomm play the Standards game really needs stronger regulation than it gets. I’m not for a second saying it is abusive (I do agree that Nokia deserve, fully deserve, to be compensated for their technology contribution) but they know as does everyone on the inside that Standards are set less by the “essentiality” of the technology, and far more on the influence able to be exerted by them on the Standards bodies.
The double whammy that is often not seen is how they make absolutely sure that others in new and emerging Standards areas are not able to charge a similar tax as they do in 2 and 3G. They know (perfectly) how to play the Standards game, and stop others playing the same way.
FRAND has become a truly meaningless term. The FRAND tax in Europe is way higher than that in Asia for the simple reason that tax is harder to collect in Asia so any tax collected is a bonus. The whole system needs review by a truly objective third party, in my humble humble opinion.
Expect by the way that the two companies have been talking license terms for months if not years.
Apple say “but that’s just a tax, and its twice what you’re charging in Asia, why do we have to accept you giving us a competitive disadvantage (including to you-subplot)”.
Nokia reply “you’re using the standard, and that means the tax, sorry FRAND rate, is payable (and, subplot, “your phones are way cooler than ours and pinching our market share, how do you do that flip thing, wish we’d thought of that”). And, subplot “if you don’t pay up we’ll litigate, and that will hurt your share price, and then you’ll talk to us”.
The whole thing just really lacks imagination doesn’t it. 60% (estimated) of the World is unlicensed under the 2G standard for the simple reason that the tax is too hard to collect. Wouldn’t it be way more efficient for all the big guys to get together with a proper regulator and work out an objective way of rewarding all contributions? Is that really so hard?
If Nokia really wants or needs a motivation to get involved in this initiative it is getting it in the IP-com GmbH (not to be confused with IP.com) litigation in Germany where little troll (backed by big hedge fund Fortress) is suing Nokia for €18bn. And the irony being that the lawsuit is for…..FRAND tax. Step carefully Nokia or watch out for the day, and you know it is coming, when Intellectual Ventures buy some essential patents.
And, ps, take the whole thing out of the hands of lawyers!!!!
by Andrew Watson on 19 October 2009
I thought it would be interesting to start recording a typical week in my life as a lead consultant in ipVA. I’ll try to be true to keeping a weekly record but the ambition may be beyond me. Or if this becomes too mundane or repetitive I’ll stop it. But I do think what we do and how we do it is a little different and therefore worth sharing.
Client confidentiality prevents providing any giving any client details, but I thought it might be a useful exercise to give people a feel for the sort of things we do at ipVA. So here has been the last week in the life of this strategist in the week beginning 13th October. Not all weeks are like this one, this has been a little on the brutal side and has packed a lot in, but it is becoming the norm.
Monday.
A real fun day with a cleantech business we have recently started working for in the run up to a funding round with Chris and Stephen. One of the IP challenges with clean technologies and their IP is that the base technologies that they use are often pretty old. And this company is typical. A lot of work to do to create a solid IP story over the next 6-8 weeks. Assets to build, risks to decipher and explain and a governance and reporting program to implement. But we made a positive start, brought people to a common level of understanding and made a few people smile with “well I’d never thought of IP that way”. I truly love what we do. The day finishes with sending out the outputs from our meetings and a summary report and recommendations. A clear path forward we think.
Tuesday.
At a media client all day working on an open licensing strategy and options to implement it. This is hard stuff and pretty new to me. Jordan has opened my eyes to the whole open content area over the last 12 months and this project demands a shift from a closed and highly proprietary model to an open or partially open model for a new platform technology. Some good comparables to look at though but some serious research and modelling to do before the right option will become clear. Jordan has pulled out some amazing research (lots of privately known data) on the revenue models behind the iPhone as a comparable that have opened the client’s eyes. We have a short number of weeks to get the story straight but this should be enough. I’m confident we will pick up pace on this one in he next few weeks.
Few days end much before 10pm and this one closes with a few catch up items. A VC backed client needs to understand a specific risk and we speak about a program to understand this by a technical assessment. A 9:30pm call with the client we are visiting on Thursday to agree an agenda and discuss one specific area of concern and a call with Stephen to discuss yesterday’s meeting and how we can keep on making our client smile.
Wednesday.
A couple of meetings cancelled so some time to catch up on report writing. A 6am start to write a red flag diligence report (getting better at these… lots of practice) and a feedback session with the client around the end of the morning – all positive. Another diligence project we are running has thrown up a tricky ownership issue that could take a week or two to unpick. I think we can solve it though. We also picked up three new opportunities on Wednesday (the current run rate is around one per day into our funnel) from our network and an opportunity to contribute to the 100 day post investment plan of a VC investment. A really cool technology and one to watch. Even dinner with a mate on Wednesday evening doesn’t escape from some IP evangelism… he’s brought a napkin from a dinner we had 4 months ago when I drew out an IP plan for his company. I hope I’m not becoming boring. 1130 to bed and…
Thursday.
Ouch, a 4am start to fly to Europe on a new project preparing a business for exit with Dave and Rob. After an intensive first day I think we have a solid plan for the next 3 months. Poor Dave was flagging by 6pm as the business CTO looked as though he could go through the night. Rob, as ever, highly creative, drawing away. There are times, many times, when I simply love what we do and how we do it. I laughed with Maria, my wife, a couple of weeks ago, that we’d found the Rosetta Stone to help people with no IP background, understand and get IP. I know, laughable, but we do seem to make it make sense. An 11pm finish and then…
Friday.
Bugger, another early start to fly back to the UK. Writing up our project plan from the day before till lunchtime, budgets to do, priorities to resolve… feels about right. Then it’s into prepping for a fund presentation we are giving 4 weeks from now, signing off the spec on a new product we are shortly to launch and discussing a referral agreement we want to sign for a SW provider. Just time by the end of the day to talk to an excellent possible consultant to add to our team. The last 6 months has been very kind to us with the quality of good candidates out there. We are now up to 16, with 4-5 more people with whom we are in active discussions. We set out to build Europe’s best IP advisory business. Maybe, just maybe, we will get lucky. An 8pm finish and a 75 hour week. Ugly but fun.
Its a little tough to switch off something that is just so damn interesting. Even my Saturday morning tennis with Maria gets interrupted with a thought of “what if we could do that, rather than that…wow!”. I literally do tire myself out at times.
Roll on Monday. This week is quite a big week for us with a few pipeline opportunities to get over the line. We’ve also skipped our regular Monday morning planning session for the last 2 weeks because of client commitments so back to the rigour tomorrow morning. The next month to plan out. More streets to walk, doors to open… it is like a pioneering mission sometimes but so much more fun now than 12 months ago.
by JS Hatcher on 9 October 2009
The Open Rights Group blog brings up an interesting point about the Royal Mail, which is in the middle of a round of job cuts and facing strikes by postal workers. Royal Mail sits on a database of all UK postcodes, matched to geo data on where they are all located. This is hugely useful data for doing search & localisation for companies looking to start up and provide new services. Using this data isn’t free:
[Companies looking to use post code data] would have to pay around £4000 a year to use post code data legally; which raises Royal Mail around £1.3m a year. It is easy to see that large numbers of small business ideas and not for profit services are being blocked by these license fees – it is in effect a tax on innovation.
My question for Tangible IP readers: Is the bigger benefit to UK plc (the entire British economy) the fees that Royal Mail generates on licensing postcodes or all the tax revenue and job creation that could come from freeing the data?
What do you think?
by JS Hatcher on 22 September 2009
by JS Hatcher on 21 September 2009
New and noteworthy links from around the web:
by JS Hatcher on 15 September 2009
So it’s no surprise just by looking at the map of the IAM 250 list of IP strategists that the US leads the list for strategists-by-country. It’s a big place, a leading global economy, and one that has made IP and innovation a priority.
But it’s not clear just how much the US leads the league tables on sheer number of listed IP strategists from the map – so I made a graph:
The US leads with 195 of the listings, or 76%, with a more than comfortable lead over it’s closest competitor – the United Kingdom – at 16 listings and about 6%. With 19 countries represented, there is definitely a long tail of IP strategists, with the short head being the US.
Europe’s role
In terms of Europe, this fits with Benoit and David’s observation in their earlier post about the IP ecosystem in Europe:
IP generation [in Europe] is thus not an issue, whereas utilisation most definitely is. Traditionally, European organisations will utilise the IP they have generated either by making products based on that IP or else by licensing that IP to another party, or a combination of the two. Beyond that, other notions of utilisation are scant,
IP strategists and related IP services are about the utilisation of IP, and thus it makes sense that less utilisation (at least when compared to the level in the US) would produce less listed strategists. Benoit and David’s chart of the IP ecosystem is worth reviewing again in this context.
by JS Hatcher on 8 September 2009
In our last post I developed some word clouds of out of the firms and professional associations out of the data in the IAM 250 listing of the world’s leading IP strategists that Joff and co. kindly set me up with. Next up, I’ve turned all of the world’s leading IP strategists as ranked by IAM into an interactive world map.
The full map has its own page on the blog at:
http://www.tangible-ip.com/iam-250-world-map
(it’s easier to use with a larger space)
You can choose the opacity and map data source (including my friends at Open Street Map) up in the top right corner. Along the side, you can scroll through all the IP strategists in alpha-by-first-name order to find them on the map. Each listing has their name and location and firm name, and for those that went for a full listing in the IAM 250 guide, I also had website URL data that has been added (if anyone feels like handcranking the remaining 170 or so URLs, just let me know and I’ll update the map).
Many of the IAM 250 cluster in certain areas such as the US and Europe, (Africa and South America are a little lonely) but the full extent of the clusters in the cities and regions are only really obvious when you zoom all the way in.
Take California for example:
Northern California is clearly a hotbed of activity with lots of people listed, but of course you’d expect that with Silicon Valley and the start up scene there.
If you zoom in to the Bay Area, you get lots more detail:
IP strategists like the peninsula, which having spent some time in Menlo Park, I can see why.
For those interested, the process involved first cleaning up the address data into a good format to use for geocoding. I then used the great tools at GPS Visualizer to geocode all the addresses, which in turn generates a set of Lat/Longs for each address. About 20% of them geocoded to the wrong address either because of international address formatting errors, differences in English spelling of foreign place names, or just needed tweaks on the data (Talal Abu-Ghazaleh is not in this Cairo for example). Add in some more tools at GPS Visualizer and hand editing the code with TextMate to add in HTML for the URL tags and add it to the map and voila – IAM 250 as an interactive map.
More thoughts and bar charts in a future post.
Thanks again to Joff and Gavin and the rest of the team at IAM for both producing the list and granting me access to their data. The data and IAM 250 listing is the copyright / database rights of IAM, with the geo data and map tools credits on the actual map. Screenshots of Google Maps used with permission. Special thanks to GPS Visualizer for making the tools available to help put this together.
What do you think?
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