The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Opportunities In The Patent-Free Zone
- The Coupon Network: Everything You Need To Know About The Web’s Hottest Business Model
- Yelp’s CEO On Google: We Were Suprised…I Don’t Think It’s A Permanent Situation
- Rival Smartphone Attenuation Videos Vanish From Apple’s Website
- Photographic Evidence Of Stealth Startup Tello Raising $100k
- Reports Of The Mouse’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
- Help Key: Watch Netflix From Outside The U.S.
| Opportunities In The Patent-Free Zone Posted: 01 Aug 2010 07:00 AM PDT
Take the iPhone as an example: it has over 1000 patents; yet Apple does not apply for patent protection in countries like Peru, Ghana, or Ecuador, or, for that matter, in most of the developing world. So entrepreneurs could use these patent filings to gain information to make an iPhone-like device that solves the unique problems of these countries. Apple has so far received 3287 U.S.-issued patents and has 1767 applications pending: a total of 5054 (for all of its products). Yet it has filed for only about 300 patents in China and has been issued 19. In India, it has filed only 38 patent applications and has received four patents. In Mexico it has filed for 109 and received 59 patents. So even India, China, and Mexico are wide-open fields. Now consider diabetes technology. At the end of 2009, there were more than 12,070 patents issued or pending in the U.S. In Jordan there were only 36, and none were filed in most of Africa. Big pharma considers these markets either too small or too poor; it also hasn't produced affordable drugs for the millions of desperate people who are increasingly suffering from disease in Africa and the developing world. But there is nothing stopping entrepreneurs from completing these tasks. The blueprints are readily available in the U.S. patent database.
Glasgow also found that most U.S. companies have been ignoring emerging markets and not filing any patents there. When she compared the geography of patent filings with the UN Human Development Index, she noted a strong correlation: the richer the country, the greater the number of patents. This means that the wealth of the developed world's intellectual property is freely available for use in the emerging regions, where patents are not filed. Glasgow called this the Patent-Free Zone—which covers most of the world, except for the U.S. and Western Europe. BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) have only recently seen increases in patent filings—so all the patents filed in the U.S. over the past few decades are still within the free zone. The way the patent system works is that when you have an idea that is new and unique and you want to protect it, you file a patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). If the USPTO determines that you are indeed the original inventor, it grants a patent, a temporary monopoly that stops others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing your invention in the U.S. for 20 years. But this is only in the U.S. To restrict people in other countries, you need to file a patent in that country, and to do so within one year of receiving a U.S. patent. Most U.S. inventors don't care, because they are focused on local markets. But multinationals do usually file patents in every country where they expect to do business. It is legal for anyone in the countries where patents aren't filed to use these ideas. And this opens up big opportunities in those countries. Take desalination, in which GE is one of the largest players. GE has spent more than $4.1 billion to acquire its part of the desalination business. Yet a decade after commencing, they’re still nowhere close to making desalination affordable and sustainable. GE's progress depends on the patents it owns. As of 2009, GE invented 47 of the 832 U.S. patents in this field—just 5.6%, or a little more than one-twentieth. Consider the progress that GE could make if it could also use any of the patents that it doesn't own—of which there are many. How much better would the world be if we didn't have to spend another ten years waiting for innovation in the desalination space? There are many areas of collaboration in the Patent-Free Zone that could produce innovative solutions for our world. Solar power, electric cars, mobile technologies for the poor, disease eradication, medical devices, food processing—to name a few. Wouldn't it be ironic if poor countries ended up solving the problems of the rich? And I'll ask my entrepreneur friends the same question I've asked before: What's Better: Saving the World or Building Another Facebook app? Editor's note: Guest writer Vivek Wadhwa Images: Women Barefoot Solar Engineers of Africa by Barefoot Photographers of Tilonia, Jerry Stifelman, and United Nations Human Development Index      
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| The Coupon Network: Everything You Need To Know About The Web’s Hottest Business Model Posted: 31 Jul 2010 11:58 PM PDT Due to the proliferation of deals sites like Groupon and Livingsocial, couponing is currently the hottest thing on the Internet. At yesterday's Social Currency CrunchUp, TechCrunch CEO and resident coupon expert Heather Harde sat down with News America Marketing VP Ginny Byrnes to dispense couponing advice to startups, which tend to approach the problem from a technical perspective. As we enter the next generation of couponing, this list of tried and true lessons is a must-read for those vying for the top of the heap.
Planners take time, make a list, look at the circulars, check coupon sites and clip coupons at home. The impulse purchaser prefers to make buying decisions on impulse while they're in the store. These two types need a two-prong approach to in order to best be reached when buying decisions are made: Home (planners) vs. Point of purchase (impulse buyers). For example, an impulse buyer needs an advertisement or promotion that calls out and draws attention to the product – i.e. "tell me how this will make my life easier." 9. Brand tactics are different for each consumer: Loyals, Switchers, Non-Category User Loyal: Encourage a loyal customer to continue purchasing in high volume, perhaps offering “buy two get one free” types of offers. Switcher: Switchers are price sensitive, so a discount of a few cents over your leading competitor can hook them and bring them into the category. Non-Category User: Oftentimes offering a trial of your product can give people incentive to continue using it. Because high price points equal higher quality in the minds of consumers, premium brands need to be more delicate with their discounting, using promotions that are more targeted to an elite niche market. Luxury brands succeed by providing a higher quality free sample, as well as cultivating a higher end look and feel. 7. Create promotional patterns to match purchase cycles Each product has its own shelf life so businesses need to take into account when and what is the best way to reach their target consumer. Luckily this is getting easier with technology’s ever expanding capabilities to profile and target consumers. 6. Consumer targeting: Know when to use a hammer and when to use a scalpel Targeting is a double-edged sword — You don’t want to be too targeted because you don't want to miss out on growing your market. Still some products, such as septic tank cleaner, are better served using a direct approach. Don't be too narrow minded with your targeting; If you don’t see toilet paper on a customer's Safeway loyalty card data, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re not buying toilet paper, they might be paper pantry loading at CostCo and not Safeway. 5. Redemption rates, highs lows, & truth While coupon redemption rates are relatively low (.5% to 1% according to CMS) when you launch a coupon campaign you are generating awareness. Customers recall seeing a coupon promotion, so even though they might not be redeeming the offer, they are still purchasing your product. 4. All promotions need a little pain You want to make sure that the customer works a little, giving someone a coupon for a latte while they're in line at Starbucks feels like cheating. "If the consumer gets the discount without any work, then the brand doesn't feel like they got credit for the discount or helped to really change consumer behavior," Heather Harde points out. 3. 360 degree marketing works With currently available technology (like QR or shortcodes) it's now more than ever possible to interact with your customer at multiple touch points. Touching the consumer no matter whether they are outside, at the store, in home or at point of purchase is crucial for brand absorption. 2. Build for your currency: Virtual vs. real money While with virtual currency you can always change your plan, if you're using monetary coupons you first need the correct infrastructure and security to complete what amounts to financial transactions. 1. Don’t slow down the checkout You want to make it as easy as possible for consumers and retailers to buy your product. You don’t want a consumer to give up on a purchase because the process is so slow, or because there are issues or concerns or point of purchase. Frictionless options such as integrating customer coupons into loyalty cards, with all coupons preloaded for redemption at point of purchase, are currently at the bleeding edge of coupon marketing innovation.      
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| Yelp’s CEO On Google: We Were Suprised…I Don’t Think It’s A Permanent Situation Posted: 31 Jul 2010 04:43 PM PDT Yelp’s CEO Jeremy Stoppelman deserves credit for trying to play nice with Google, even appearing onstage at the Social Currency CrunchUp with John Hanke, a Google VP of Product Management. As expected the tension was palpable, as Hanke and Stoppelman discussed Google Places and the goliath’s heavy reliance on Yelp’s content. As an increasingly robust aggregator of local reviews, Google Places is turning into a formidable opponent. Several years ago, Google paid Yelp for access to their huge database of reviews; however, eventually Yelp terminated the deal. All was well until Google started crawling Yelp’s pages for unlicensed content to populate Google Places. Adding insult to injury, Google often pushes Yelp’s data to the bottom of its review areas, favoring instead licensed partners like Zagat. Oh, what a tangled web of reviews we weave. Beyond the professional veneer, there’s no question that Stoppelman feels burned. The recent developments, he says, were unexpected:
Yelp, of course, is not always the victim. The site has been criticized for ripping Foursquare’s techniques, with this year’s introduction of check-ins, leader boards, badges and the not-so-subtle “dukedom” honor. Now, Yelp is tiptoeing near Groupon’s turf, as it tests limited deals in cities like Sacramento. During our post-panel video interview, we got a chance to talk to Stoppelman about Google Places and Yelp’s budding rivalries with Foursquare and Groupon. See full video above— below are a couple key highlights: On Check-Ins On Limited Sales      
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| Rival Smartphone Attenuation Videos Vanish From Apple’s Website Posted: 31 Jul 2010 04:08 PM PDT
Well this is interesting. One of the key points at Apple’s recent press conference to discuss the iPhone 4′s antenna, was that the problem (called “attenuation”) is not unique to the iPhone 4. To highlight this, Apple showed videos of the problem on smartphones by rival companies. Those videos were then posted to a special antenna page on Apple’s website. Those videos are now gone. As you can see on this page, the videos are nowhere to be found. Instead, the page now only shows the overview of the antenna design and test labs. A search of Apple’s website brings up a few of the landing pages where the videos used to be — here’s the Droid X one, for example — but now those just redirect to the antenna design page as well. Odd. Here’s what else is interesting: the original page with these videos still does reside on the Canadian version of Apple’s website. Here’s you’ll find the videos for the BlackBerry Bold 9700, the HTC Droid Eris, the Motorola Droid X, the Nokia N97 Mini, the Samsung Omnia II, the iPhone 3GS, and the iPhone 4. However, the Asian version of Apple’s site has the videos removed as well. The videos are still up on Apple’s official YouTube channel, but they are no longer featured, and are a little bit trickier to find. We’ve reached out to Apple for an official response as to why they removed them from the website. Obviously, they caused quite a bit of controversy – with some rivals, like RIM (makers of the BlackBerry), even responding. Has the threat of lawsuits from rivals forced Apple to take them down? Or did they take them down due to some of the negative backlash they were receiving? Or perhaps Apple is simply trying to move on from the situation — but again, the antenna design and test lab page is still there (though it doesn’t call out rivals specifically). At the top of this post, find what the /antenna site currently looks like in the U.S. Below, find what it used to look like — and still does for the Canadian version of the site.
[thanks Noah]      
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| Photographic Evidence Of Stealth Startup Tello Raising $100k Posted: 31 Jul 2010 03:43 PM PDT
Let’s call this a single source rumor. But the source is Paul Carr’s camera, so we feel pretty good about it. The picture was taken last night at the TechCrunch summer party at August Capital. Tello, says our source (the camera), has raised $100,000 from angel investor Dave McClure, who’s checks appear to have an imprint of the Twitter fail whale in the background. This is one of his first investments from his shiny new 500 Startups fund. What’s Tello? We don’t actually know. Founder and CEO Joe Beninato was previously the CEO of Presto. We had a lot of fun with that one. Cofounder and CTO John Cwikla has experience at GameLayers, Doostang, Xoom and other startups. The total size of this round is around $1 million, we hear. Does a picture say a thousand words? I dunno. Someone please count them. More details as they come in.      
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| Reports Of The Mouse’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated Posted: 31 Jul 2010 11:57 AM PDT
The next generation of input is already here; chances are you have it in your pocket. Yet, advanced as it is, there are fundamental shortcomings that will prevent it from completely supplanting the interfaces we’ve grown up with.      
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| Help Key: Watch Netflix From Outside The U.S. Posted: 31 Jul 2010 09:31 AM PDT
     
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China may 
JiNan Glasgow, a North Carolina–based patent attorney and CEO of 
You Americans have all the good stuff. Stuff like BP pumping oil in the Ocean and guns, lots of guns. And then you have Netflix and we people outside the U.S. are wondering what could it feel like to have a service like that. Now I know.
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