I came across a wonderful article through a Linked-In group called OnStartups that illuminates the process of pricing a product. Click here for access to the article.
The article summarizes the key points of a free e-book called “Don’t Just Roll the Dice”.
Michigan Tech joined hundreds of other academic institutions by celebrating entrepreneurship week. This week-long event celebrated the spirit of entrepreneurship on campus by inviting famous and inspiring speakers like Poppy King, author of the entrepreneurship book “Lessons of a Lipstick Queen“.
Too see the video of Poppy’s Library reading and lecture click here:
An on-campus elevator pitch competition drew in 16 entries with thousands of dollars awarded in prize money. The spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and well!
Here’s an interesting blog post a few years ago on the objections voiced by musicians against the alleged use of their songs in suspected torture cases in Guantanamo. The article discusses some of the copyright claims the artists may raise. Most recently, artists including R.E.M. and Pearl Jam have filed a freedom of information act request to determine if the songs were used. See the recent article here.
A federal judge in New York upholds J.D. Salinger’s copyright and issued an injunction to prevent a modified version of “Catcher in the Rye” from being published in the U.S. The New York Times reports the story here.
To learn more about the lawsuit click here.
J.D. Salinger, author of the classic Catcher in the Rye novel filed a lawsuit in Manhattan alleging that the authors of a sequel to his acclaimed novel have committed copyright infringement. In the complaint, Mr. Salinger alleges that the unauthorized sequel involves an elderly Holden Caulfield who leaves a retirement home to spend a few days in New York City.
Salinger asserts that his copyright to the first work grants him the exclusive right to authorize any derivative works of that prior and seminal work of fiction. The complaint alleges that the new sequel is an unauthorized derivative, and Mr. Salinger requests the court to grant an injunction against its publication, sale and distribution.
Given the nature of Mr. Salinger’s copyright, and if the injunction is granted, many of us will probably never know how phony or lousy that sequel may have really been.
To read the full complaint click here.
With the rise of Twitter it was inevitable that intellectual property issues would surface regarding “tweets” (information snippets under 140 characters in length).
Some are concerned that copyright might stifle the ability to reproduce tweets for collaborative projects. Twitter itself states, “We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours.”
So the website tweetCC has decided to take action, and create a list of Tweetsters who have agreed to license their tweets under open terms, using the creative commons license.
Here is the result of my own search:
It would be an understatement to say that Michael Morgan dislikes Goldman Sachs. Mr. Morgan expresses his vitriol against the large investment bank in not-so-subtle terms. Mr. Morgan writes on his blog: “Yes, I am short Goldman Sachs stock. I believe this company is evil and should not exist. We need to begin to break up companies that have as much control over world finances as Goldman Sachs.”
His explicit contempt, however, is not what drew the ire of Goldman Sachs and its attorneys. Instead, it’s the domain name that Mr. Morgan reserved to express his views. The domain name for Mr. Morgan’s blog is goldmansachs666.com. As Mr. Morgan writes, his blog’s purpose is to serve as “an open forum for facts and discussion about what part Goldman Sachs and their executives played in the current Global Economic Crisis.“
On April 8, 2009 Goldman Sachs’ attorneys fired-off a cease and desist letter to Mr. Morgan. The letter states “your use of the mark Goldman Sachs violates several of Goldman Sachs’ intellectual property rights, constitutes an act of trademark infringement, unfair competition and implies a relationship and misrepresents commercial activity and/or an affiliation between you and Goldman Sachs which does not exist and additionally creates confusion in the marketplace.”
Mr. Morgan had several options at that point. He could have ceased using the domain name as requested by the letter. He could have ignored it and risked further legal actions. Or, sue Goldman Sachs and petition a court to uphold his use of the domain name as a legal use, and not a trademark infringement as claimed by Goldman Sachs. Mr. Morgan chose this last option, and has filed a complaint in the United States District Court – South Florida. Click here to read the complaint.
Successful entrepreneurs write good business plans. Good business plans win competitions.
I routinely conduct business plan competitions in my entrepreneurship class. As part of the job, I have to recruit savvy and successful entrepreneurs to serve as judges for each competition. Someone who I have often asked to judge is Dan Brown, President of Loggerhead Tools and inventor of award-winning and blockbuster products like the Bionic Wrench. Dan is a true entrepreneur and master of industrial design, patenting, marketing and merchandising.
This year, I want to give my students a leg-up and show them what expert judges look for in a business plan competition. So, naturally, I asked Dan. Here is what he replied.
Dan’s Top 10 Business Plan Presentation Topics:
1. Is there a market opportunity? Does your product or service address an unmet or underserved need and add value to customers?
2. Identify and claim your white space. Have you identified a market segment best suited to establish a strategic foothold for launch?
3. Claim an opportunity gap. Have you realistically identified your competition, and is there an opportunity for sales based on a value-added strategy?
4. Carefully define the wow-factors. What are the customer-getting differences that add value and compete for the customer’s attention and dollars?
5. Are there opportunities for intellectual property protection? Look at patents, trade names, trade dress and other brand-reinforcing strategies. Do a thorough intellectual property search to be sure there will be no unpleasant surprises after launch.
6. Research several competitive benchmarks and quantify the cost and sales drivers necessary for success in the market.
7. Have a thorough and realistic development, investment and sales budget, with a realistic cost analysis for development, tooling, and commercialization. Know your costs.
8. Develop a roadmap. Develop an actionable plan that identifies the resources, costs and time required to complete product development and commercialization. Failure to plan is planning to fail.
9. Generate a simple pro-forma (forward-looking) 3-year sales forecast of investment, cost, and projected revenue with a cash flow analysis. Do you show a return on investment? Do the numbers support your plan?
10. Assemble a winning management team and advisory board that can succesfully complete the development, commercialization and management of your business.
I just finished leading an intellectual property workshop for entrepreneurs here in Houghton, MI. The event was sponsored by the SmartZone, a local high-tech business incubator.
The FastTrac TechVenture Program is a learning program administered by the Kauffman Foundation. Here are some of the topics covered in this program:
One question was asked, and I think it would be useful to highlight. A participant asked, “If a small technology entrepreneur has a valuable idea, what can they do to save money and protect their idea from a large company that just takes it without permission?”
Here’s a brief checklist:
1. Make sure you are an expert in your technology space. The more you know what the state of the art is, the less time and money you will spend defining your invention during the patenting process.
2. Understand the nature of your intellectual property rights. If you have a broad and solid patent, you can obtain, or threaten to obtain, a speedy injunction to stop competitors from copying your technology.
3. Patent litigation can be very expensive, with a full patent trial costing millions of dollars. A technology entrepreneur can share the expense of a patent trial with a contingency fee patent litigator. Several law firms specialize in taking these cases if: the inventor has a strong patent, there is a clear case of infringement, and the accused infringer has deep pockets. Here is one law firm that specializes in these cases.
Robert Smith, lead singer of The Cure, has recently gained a lot of attention by publicly criticizing the growing “art for free” movement.
Here is what Smith says on his site, speaking about Radiohead’s decision to release their In Rainbows album under a donation pricing model:
“ANY FAMOUS ARTIST WITH A HUGE AND DEVOTED FAN BASE(OFTEN ARRIVED AT WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM A WEALTHY AND POWERFUL ‘PATRON’ ORTWO?) CAN AFFORD TO DO WHAT HE, SHE OR IT WANTS… INCLUDING GIVING THEIR ART AWAY AS SOME KIND OF ‘LOSSLEADER’ TO HELP ‘BUILD THE BRAND”
The follks over at TechDirt, however, argue that Smith misses the point. Smith is criticizing the general rule that all art should be free, claiming such a rule or social norm is not beneficial to artists, and is more damaging to those who are not famous. The folks at TechDirt, on the other hand, claim that the point of the “art for free” movement is about business, and that giving some art for free allows artists to share some of the value of art and charge money for related complimentary products or services.
Which viewpoint do you think is the right one?
professororozco.com 