Why Venture Capitalists like Innovation Junctions

Venture Capitalists love the unfair competitive advantage. A great source of unfair advantage is patents. Very different technologies coming together to solve a need can create a very strong patent estate. Novel products, meeting clear needs with strong patents create above average returns and attract VC investment.

So when considering your next VC backed business, consider whether there are other technologies approaches you can bring in to make your product or service faster or cheaper or both which is completely novel.

This approach will pay dividends.

The new world of 3D printers

Tired of going out to the shops or ordering online ? Well how about just printing them out instead !

That is the intriguing scenario being created in a number of firms and labs around the world trying to develop devices that can fabricate objects at home using 3D printers, this is called Fab@home.

There is a lot of innovative activity in the field of 3D printers. Currently available only for industrial users for rapid prototyping, new designs, a number of companies are trying to develop devices for the home.

Successful devices will work at the Innovation Junction, merging chemistry, design methodology and engineering into a single solution. This industry could improve society by reducing transportation costs to increasing the recycling of many products. This industry could like the microchip sector in may ways. There could be companies which design the products for the printer ,firms that make the ink, firms making the printers and people at home making novel products themselves.

Right now I think the items will be small and basic and may require IKEA style bolting together but the idea that you might be able to make products as diverse as a tv remote, a coathanger and a button must be of interest to a wide number of parties.

The Light Emitting Diode Revolution

Since Shuji Nakamura invented the high energy blue LED in the early 90s I have been watching the evolution in the use of white LEDs with interest. LEDs are starting to appear in interesting places like swimming pools, traffic lights and portable devices. I think these LEDs, made possible by Shuji's work have many revolutionary applications in areas yet to be thought of. Applications where they act as more than as a straight replacement for other forms of electric light are at the junction. Maybe walls of LEDs in buildings or materials with LEDs interwoven. Who knows ? But watch this space....

Should universities own intellectual property

Yesterday I went to a talk at the University of Limerick about IP given by Dr John Ryan, Chairman and founder of Macrovision. This fascinating company is why you can't use two DVD players to make perfect copies and why you can't make copies of proprietary videos. They've been in this game since 1983.

He give a talk on the importance of IP to every high technology business. Macrovision's core inventions were not protectable in any way but with patents. They patented the core idea and the get around ideas like black boxes that could be sold to reverse their process that the competition would inevitably produce. They only sold their solution, not the get around. He recommended investing in really good intellectual property lawyers who could literally expand your business by enabling you to do deals with all players in the supply chain. The entertainment industry in Macrovision's case. He did say that be prepared because patent litigation can cost millions of dollars.

Another interesting point that came up was whether universities should own the rights automatically to an academic's IP. As a rule universities do not hold copyright, sighting "ancient tradition" but they do hold other forms of IP. Does this stifle innovation ? Possibly. I like the idea of the academics holding all their inventions and coming to the university if they want to exploit, but having a choice of where they go to exploit their IP. On the other hand a lot of the IP is funded from public grants so shouldn't the public benefit? Tricky. I like the idea right now of different third levels institutions trying different models and academics voting with their feet based on which model works best for them. The less experienced academics might use their home university, more experienced players may strike out on their own. For example Harvard only takes ownership of IP related to medicine and public health, apart from that you're on your own.

IP is a key part of innovation and often the only viable way to protect innovations across disciplines.

The next silicon valley ?

Food for thought over Easter. Where will the next hub of innovation be ?

Here are some historical examples:-

Oil Industry: USA

Pharmaceutical Industry: EU

Internet: USA

P2P Internet technologies: EU, eg Skype.

Mobile Phones: EU/Asia

And what about the future ?

Cleantech: ?

Systems Biology: ?

Can we just assume the major innovations will be lead from the US or that they will be the main market ?