Microsoft Patents RSS. Or Tries To. Maybe.

Interesting post on someone else’s blog about Microsoft apparently trying to patent RSS:

The applications, filed last June but just made public yesterday, cover subscribing and discovering what Microsoft calls “Web feeds.” That comes as a bit of a shock to anyone who’s been working on RSS, which has its origins in a format developed seven years ago at Netscape Communications.

Microsoft executive Don Dodge, while not involved in the patent applications, says he suspects the filings were made to defend the company against “patent trolls”. (The filings were made shortly before Microsoft announced plans to build RSS technology into its upcoming Vista operating system.) Still, if granted, the patents would give Microsoft a legal cudgel to wield against other companies using RSS.

Well. They do have a point. Generally speaking, I don’t think patent trolls (those that basically file overly broad patents and then sit on them in a dark cave until someone who actually does something useful, and therefore has deep pockets, unwittingly infringes, at which point the troll comes out and clubs them over the head with a lawsuit or settlement) are a good thing. That being said, its ironic that Microsoft feels the need to abuse the system in the same way as patent trolls in order to proactively defend itself. It will be interesting to see how things turn out.

Unfortunately, I’m not necesarily sure that prior art would necessarily invalidate these patents – after all, most of NTP’s patents were more or less considered invalid, but that didn’t stop them from collecting several hundred million from RIM. And its not like there haven’t been other, um, rather broad patents asserted in the past. You know, like back in 2002, when British Telecom asserted ownership of hyperlinks (which they lost) though of course BT doesn’t quite fit the description of a patent troll.

Then again, it begs the question as to who or what should or shouldn’t be considered a patent troll – for example, its well known that IBM has a huge, gigantic, enormous arsenal of patents at its disposal. IBM also actively licenses these patents (and of course threatens litigation where it believes its rights are being violated), but it isn’t necessarily the case that IBM would otherwise have exploited these patents in what I’ll call “active” business – i.e. making and selling something based on the patent as opposed to primarily seeking royalties and licenses from those do – even though IBM does do so in some cases. So does that make IBM a patent troll? What about Philo T. Farnsworth who, arguably, never started producing televisions but instead sought legal claims against others?

My perhaps overly simplistic take on this is that patent trolls are not inherently the problem, but rather the ability, primarily in the US, to register patents that should have never issued in the first place. If someone comes up with a smart, cool, inventive, and truly novel way of doing something, then they should certainly be free to either produce something with it, or sue the living daylights out of someone else who comes along and infringes the IP even if they don’t (or can’t) make productive use of it themselves. Not actively exploiting a patent is not necessarily tantamount to being a bad guy, IMHO.

It will be interesting to see what happens on this front, if anything. If nothing does, then I may well turn to drafting patents, the first being “Method of Utilizing a Rhythmic Cadence in the Expansion and Contraction of Multiple Muscular Groupings to Faciliate Indefinite Continuation of Metabolism of Cell Structures.” I like the sound of that. Yes indeed.

Of Search Engines and Competition

Interesting post on the Wellington Financial blog. In short, sounds like they think the success of a new vc financed search engine hakia is unlikely to be around very long. An excerpt.

But it really isn’t clear why the rest of us will rip out the Google toolbars or Yahoo Finance pages and convert to another aggregator. Well, maybe we could stand t dump Yahoo Finance.

Youtube, flickr and the like were serving a need. There’s no obvious need for a better search engine. And if there is, Google has proven that they have a few billion to invest on improvements and the currency to acquire along the way.

imho the better question would be why not? changing a search engine is about as hard as changing your undies – either type it in or change your homepage. why even bother with a toolbar? no idea about hakia but i do remember yahoo, altavista, hotbot and a couple of other engines that were at one time or another at the top of the heap.

relatively speaking, in terms of switching costs from the user perspective a search engine isn’t close to most other things (e.g. operating system, office applications, etc.).

and sure, google has lots of coin. but at one point it didn’t. and there wasn’t exactly an absence of search engines when they popped up…

will it be a success? no idea. could it? why not? I’d certainly use it if it’s better than google.

BTW, in case someone from WF is reading this here, tried leaving a comment, couldn’t as your captcha doesn’t seem to be working and PS you might want to try hashcash instead.

Update: and its not like Google hasn’t had its fair share of troubles lately.

Interested in Pitching to a Bunch of Real VCs?

Are you an entrepreneur? Do you have a really, really neat business? Are you at the stage where you’re close to looking, or actively looking for venture capital financing? Would you like the chance to polish your pitch? Would you like to get the opportunity to get feedback on it from six of the leading venture capital firms in Canada? Would you also like to get help with your pitch and selling your company to VCs from some of the best and brightest MBA students in Canada (and some from the US as well)?

What if I were to tell you that you could get all of this – and more – for free, other than perhaps a full day of your time, and perhaps some time to prepare? And yes, I know I sound like I’m selling diet pills on late night TV. But I’m not.

What I’m describing is a competition called the Venture Capital Investment Competition. It was started in the US a few years ago by a brilliant prof by the name of Patrick Vernon. Designed primarily as an educational activity to help MBA students learn about VCs and what they do, it also has had some great side-effects. Following is an excerpt from the VCIC site:

At the core of the event is a creative turn of the tables. Unlike business plan competitions in which students pitch their own ideas to investors, at VCIC the students are the investors, and real entrepreneurs pitch to them. It is a very powerful learning experience for both parties. Add to the mix a dozen VC judges, and you have what the VCIC website describes as a “win-win-win.” Students learn (and win cash), entrepreneurs connect with investors and VCs get an early peek at some viable deals. How viable? Last year, one-third of the entrepreneurs (11 out of 33) pitching at VCIC went on to raise $30M in venture capital VCIC. Of the 200 entrepreneurs who have pitched at VCIC regional events since 1998, 40 have gone on to raise $300M. That is a hit rate of 20%, remarkable considering that most of these events occurred post-bubble, including a dismal one-out-of-30 in 2002. With an overall rate of 20%, and the recent 33% mark, VCIC is headed back towards its pre-bubble hit rate of 50% in ’98 and ’99.

The organizers of VCIC are quick to point out that the mission of the program is educational, not commercial, and none of the deals are known to have been initiated at a VCIC event. “We’re not in the business of playing dealmaker,” comments VCIC director Patrick Vernon from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. “We are focused on teaching students about financing new ventures, and the most effective way to do that is to expose them to the best deals and investors. Lucky for us, the best entrepreneurs and VCs like to meet each other, too.”

And the students also like meeting the VCs. Many of the competitors aspire to become venture capitalists, a dream that is difficult if not impossible to fulfill. Nonetheless, quite a few have achieved it. Six VCIC alumni have gone on to participate in the prestigious Kauffman Fellows Program, working in VC firms from Silicon Valley to Munich, Germany. A dozen VCIC alumni working in VC, headed by Don Herzog from the 2000 Carnegie Mellon championship team, organized a new alumni prize money fund in 2006, then came to the finals to deliver the 2nd place prize money check. “I have been back to judge the finals every year since I competed as a student,” commented Herzog, who currently works at Bluegrass Growth Fund. VCIC has even had individuals play all three roles in different years: competed one year as a student, got a job at a VC firm and returned as a judge, then went on to start a new company and came back to pitch. (For the record, it is most fun being a judge.)

What began as an experiment in 1998 at UNC in response to the bubble of business plan competitions popping up at most business schools, VCIC has grown into a virtual venture job fair and marketplace. In 2007 the program will include ten regional and 30 single-school events in North America, Europe and Asia. World-wide, 50 top business schools will participate. The program culminates every April in Chapel Hill, NC, with the International Finals, where the winning team takes home $10,000 in prize money. This year’s finals will include a special 10th anniversary celebration that will be attended by many former students, VC judges and entrepreneurs.

I am very proud to say that McCarthy Tétrault, the firm I work at, was one of the primary sponsors of the first VCIC competition in Canada last year. Held in Toronto at the University of Toronto’s Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, it was considered a great success. I was fortunate enough to have stumbled onto an article describing VCIC and got in touch with Pat Vernon to help facilitate the inaugural event in Canada (though it was really one of my partners – Ian Palm – whose support and ties with the VC community were instrumental in making the event a success).

We expect this year to be another rousing success, and have put most of the pieces into place, including the participating schools, lining up VC judges, and organizing the event. However, what remains is finding three real-life entrepreneurs who are willing to participate. The event is scheduled to take place on February 16, 2006. Fit the profile? Interested? If so, feel free to get in touch with me at dma[at]mccarthy.ca. Unfortunately, due to time constraints the event can only accommodate three entrepreneurs so no guarantees that you will be selected to participate, but hey, doesn’t hurt to check…

Technology Breakfasts

The Toronto Board of Trade has been organizing these great events focused primarily on the Information and Communications Technology sector. The next one will be coming up will be an ICT Forum with Accenture on Wednesday, January 31, 2007.

A brief description:

The Toronto Board of Trade is pleased to present Bill Morris, Country Managing Director, Accenture, as our next featured speaker for our Technology Innovators Series, a showcase for Toronto’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) community.

Bill will highlight outstanding Canadian and international ICT performers and will provide his insight on what it takes to succeed in an intensely competitive and consolidated marketplace. He will share his forecast for the next wave of technology and discuss Accenture’s findings from a global study, encompassing over 6,000 companies, focused on high performance business and high performance information technology.

Bill is responsible for driving the growth of Accenture’s business consulting, systems integration and technology as well as outsourcing businesses across all industries and governments. He has more than 24 years of experience working on technology consulting, business transformation and outsourcing initiatives.

Also taking part in the panel discussion will be Phil Sorgen, President of Microsoft Canada. Phil joined Microsoft Canada as President in January 2006 after a 10-year career with Microsoft Corp. in the United States. Phil is responsible for all elements of Microsoft Canada’s business and for deepening the company’s commitment to this country.

Networking will take place from 7:30 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. and there are no ties required!

Register at the Toronto Board of Trade Website. Well worth it.