Now THAT's smart

If I had a hat, I would raise it to the principal of St. Aidan's primary school in Wexford, Ireland.

His contribution to developing young minds is not to just accept the laptop and projector for each class, as offered by the Government. He said he needs to get an iPod into the hands of each pupil. He went about raising the funding and had educational software loaded in each unit.

The verdict of the students is that it is "cooler than laptops and a deadly way to learn." (If you know Irish colloquialisms, you will know that "deadly" is high praise.)

The article in the Irish Independent is here.

No doubt: China is a World Power in Patents

I saw it reported in the Economix blog of the New York Times that China is about to take the global lead in patent application filings.

There is nothing surprising about this.

The case for commercialization

I was asked to write an opinion piece for Ireland's Sunday Business Post with the title "Working smarter, not just harder" making the case for IP commercialization a key element of the Smart Economy strategy.

The edited version is a bit sanitized, but the main message gets through.

As always, I welcome and enjoy your feedback.

IP in Divorce

Of course it stands to reason, but it was interesting to see in a blog from Indiana (USA) that intellectual property can be considered "as marital property for purposes of dividing property" in divorce cases.

Sources of growth - Part 4

(This is part 4 of a 4-part series. If you want to view the series from the start, click here.)

In previous parts, I have described 2 sources of growth from IP commercialisation activity, namely managing and growing existing licensees and recruiting new licensees.

To round out the discussion, there is another source that is often underestimated.

Sources of growth - Part 3

(This is part 3 of a 4-part series. If you want to view the series from the start, click here.)

Part 2 of this series dealt with maintaining and growing business from existing licensees. The next source of growth is the glamour area – recruiting new licensees.

Because of natural attrition of licensees, it will always be necessary to recruit new licensees to replace them. Recruiting new licensees refreshes and extends the scope of the business.

It is also the most visible activity in business development.

However, in contrast to maintaining and growing business from existing licensees, the results often take longer to show and are more difficult to predict.

Packing for Munich

I am getting ready for my trip to Munich, Germany this weekend.

I will be speaking at the 2010 IP Business Congress.

If you are going too, be sure to pop over and say "Hello".