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What is the real value of intellectual property in the U.S.? Let's estimate this using the most inclusive definition of intellectual property: patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, customer lists, business know-how, and other secret sauce. An oft-cited statistic is the relationship of inte...

The current brouhaha over the possible increase of federal student loan rates masks a greater problem: We are graduating a generation of people with college-level skills that our companies don't value. This is the root of the "jobless recovery." Businesses need capabilities that fresh graduates don...

If your friendly sock puppet is made of recyclable materials, use it now to write a check! The Internet boom is back, but in an interesting new-millennium twist, it is followed closely by the clean technology sector. Earlier this year, the National Venture Capital Association reported that Internet...

How do you e-pledge a sorority? We may soon find out. The world of higher education is changing rapidly, with the number of college students taking face-to-face classes expected to fall from more than 14 million in 2010 to only 4 million in 2015, making it level with the number of online students. ...

Turn on an episode of Seinfeld and return with me to the 1990s! This summer the National Venture Capital Association released results for the second quarter of this year, showing that $7.5 billion was invested in 966 deals. This represented an increase of 19 percent in dollars and deals over the...

The final voyage of NASA's space shuttle program represents the biggest collapse of a national exploration program since China turned inward after the remarkable 15th century voyages of Chinese Admiral Zheng He. The space shuttle descended from the original Kennedy-era response to the Soviet investm...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently announced that the list of science, technology, engineering, and math degrees qualifying for extended visas has been expanded to include drug design, mathematics and computer sciences, and other disciplines. This means foreign students can remain in ...

Just as Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses transformed Christianity, Google's simple text box is transforming marketing -- from top to bottom. Since the 1950s, great marketing theorists such as Theodore Levitt and Jerome McCarthy have developed frameworks for companies to create awareness of new nee...

As the U.S. begins to limp through another anemic year economically, we see more government regulation hampering innovation -- this time engineered by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office through its new fast-track process. A fee of $4,000 (increased from the base fee of $1,090) would expedite the ...

When we think about financial bubbles, we typically recall the recent run-up in house prices or the dot-com craze of the late 1990s (and some think of the 17th century tulip bubble). We might define "bubbles" as sharp price increases for an asset without supporting increases in the intrinsic value ...

Previously in this space, I've discussed the collapse of the venture industry since the bloodbath began with the collapse of two Bear Stearns funds. While publicly traded stocks have been hammered, the private market is undergoing its own painful restructuring. As of the first quarter of this year,...

So, you're an entrepreneur with a great idea? Too bad your inspiration arrived in the worst economy since the Great Depression, complete with a meltdown of the venture capital industry. What's left on the charred landscape? The fact is that no one gets boatloads of seed capital anymore -- especially...

On September 9, President Obama named Ron Bloom, a veteran of Wall Street and the labor movement, to be the new special adviser on manufacturing. As manufacturing represents an 11 percent share of the GDP, down from 30 percent in the 1950s, presumably the hope is that a Manufacturing Czar will be ab...

Young folk under 30 may not remember this, but years ago "plug and play" referred to hardware installation for computers. As the information revolution penetrated American households, consumers demanded setup procedures that did not require an advanced degree in computer science. Today, this process...

Two weeks ago, I described how universities are encroaching on the space of traditional venture capitalists, initiating small funds to commercialize their own research. Their deal flow, driven by internal entrepreneurs, should move at a healthy clip, because the lousy returns of the last 10 years wi...

Venture capitalists style themselves as the stewards of entrepreneurship, offering cash to young Edisons seeking both fame and fortune. Stunning returns for early investments in companies like Google kept the dream alive for egocentric investors and entrepreneurs alike. And yet like a Greek tragedy...

Last week, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office proposed a new three-track system to expedite filings rather than maintain the standard first-come, first-served basis. This move comes in response to the average review time soaring to nearly 35 months last year from an average of 27 months as recent...

Modern "American dream" stories often start with a romantic phase: A young couple struggles through graduate school, starving on measly stipends covering ramen noodles and cheap wine. Unfortunately, that story is about to disappear, following American manufacturing jobs. College professors are now ...

Angel investing groups are still going strong despite the economic downturn. Although private equity financing dates back to the Sumerians, the current incarnation really began after World War II. The trend has accelerated since the first whirlwind of dot-com businesses in the 1990s sought private f...

Recently, Amazon announced that it was offering 70 percent royalty rates to authors interested in self-publishing for the Kindle platform. That rate is considerably higher than the 10-ish percent standard in the publishing industry today for print and 25 percent for digital. So where are all the ...