Perpetual Innovation

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  • Unexpected Consequence of US Tax Reform: International Patent Pinball

    IP intensive US corporations have gained a tangible, potentially very profitable benefit from the tax reform signed into law in December 2017.  A new provision reduces taxes on “foreign derived intangible income,” i.e., Intellectual Property (IP) — primarily patents.  However, in yet another “all that glitters…,” this new benefit doesn’t arrive without its requirements for a
    new level of analysis and decision-making.

    In  a comprehensive January 24, 2018 Wall Street Journal article by Sam Scheckner, Tax Change Aims to Lure Intellectual Property Back to the U.S. – WSJ, the tax rates was dropped to 13.125% until 2025 which corporations view as a major improvement over the prior rate of up to 35%. As the author states, this is a serious attempt to bring back assets from countries such as Ireland that had a much lower tax than the US for years.  Corporations, such as Google and Facebook, while not commenting for the article, have in place elaborate asset transfer schemes- see “Double Irish” across multiple countries to gain the optimum tax rate.  

    The US action to reduce the asset rate has not gone unnoticed by these other countries.  Several are revising their tax rate in response to and to outflank the US change.  This has driven US corporations with overseas operations to reengage in asset number crunching — aka patent pinball — to

    land on the country with the optimum package. The patent number crunching could involve licensing versus barrier patent protected product revenues versus sales versus tech transfer partnerships depending on the terms and conditions in a given country.  And as countries change their tax laws in
    what amounts to revenue one-up-manship, patent pinball is certain to become an ongoing game.

    ‘via Blog this’

  • Mind that matters, misleading AARP… take it or leave it list

    The quick lists of 5 things to do and 5 things not to do
    often provide inaccurate or even misleading information. AARP usually provides
    a nice sound bite of information about various things. Mental health comes up
    every year with a interesting brain
    health infographic     in October 2016 (discover, connect, move, nourish, and
    relax). The December 2017 edition of AARP had a big section on brain health and
    avoiding Alzheimer’s disease. (Also see risk
    factors related to Alzheimer’s    .) The Guard
    Your Mental Health section by Marty Munson     offered a “take it” or “leave
    it” for several items. The thumbs up items were exercise, friends+family, manage
    blood pressure, and nutrition (Mediterranean diet as an example). Evidence
    shows that stimulating your brain met with mixed results; the way how you stimulate
    your brain is important so some things – even listening to music – work better
    than others.
    The last three items really were surprising, and
    questionable.  Don’t sweat the aluminum
    in your antiperspirant since there is no evidence to link the trace aluminum from deodorants to mental health issues. (The lack of friends because
    you don’t use deodorants might also be a factor in the use-vs-don’t-use
    antiperspirant decision.) This is interesting, and it appears to be accurate.
    Trace amounts of aluminum should not be a big issue; aluminum is a very common element
    and we are continually exposed to it.
    The idea to leave Ginseng was intriguing. It does not appear
    to help significantly with brain function; and, as with many supplements, there
    could be side-effects, especially for people with other health factors like
    diabetes. This sent me to look at the Shaklee product, MindWorks®, and the
    active ingredients that are rather strongly promoted with positive research. The ingredients in MindWorks all show pretty strong evidence to
    support a healthier body and brain: chardonnay
    grape seed extract    , Guarana extract,
    blueberries,
    and green
    coffee bean extract    . These ingredients have been shown to reduce
    cholesterol, improve blood flow, offer anti-oxidation, and improve cognitive
    function.
    True, Ginseng has very little evidence to contribute to brain
    health (and reduced Alzheimer’s), but many other supplements do. Shaklee
    provides one of the best overviews on the subject of
    Alzheimer’s    . Of course, general health, is critical. Anti-oxidants like B,
    E, and C are critical. There is a lot of support showing benefits from Gingko. So
    “leave it” related to Ginseng, seems accurate, but highly misleading, because
    it implies that there are no natural health remedies.
    The really big erroneous and misleading factor; however, is the
    “leave it” for supplements. Not to fault Munson, specifically, there are
    several studies that show that people who take supplements are no more healthy
    than those who don’t take any supplements. However, the biggest landmark study on the issue compared
    people who took multiple Shaklee supplements (not just a multivitamin) with
    those who did not take any supplements at all. This landmark study (Block, et al., 2007) was
    conducted in 2007, but ongoing research continues to support its accuracy. The
    people who took the multiple vitamins were far healthier, even compared to
    people taking only a single multivitamin. Being general healthier is also
    directly correlated to brain health.
    Shaklee recommends that people have an active and healthy
    lifestyle. If you don’t consistently eat well, then you should take supplements. For people worried about aging well, Shaklee offers a trifecta of
    products: MindWorks® as discussed above; Vivix® which is a patented resveratrol
    blend that is 13x more effective than resveratrol alone (vs gallons of red wine
    daily); and OmegaGuard® which provides a pharmaceutical grade omega-3 that helps
    to improve heart health. 
    You will notice that many of the labels on Shaklee
    supplements are unique. The DTX
    Liver Health    ® does not say “active ingredient” it actually says “medicinal” information!
    They can only say that with actual clinical support. MindWorks™ says “Helps
    improve mental sharpness & focus and protect against age-related mental
    decline.**”.
    Resveratrol (Shaklee’s Vivix®) is the one
    supplement you should take for age-related protection. There are literally
    thousands of studies showing the health and age-protection associated with
    resveratrol. You could drink a dozen or so glasses of Muscatine wine (or juice)
    each day which, arguably, might have its own set of side-effects; or you could
    take Vivix. With Vivix being magnitudes (13x) more effective than the available
    resveratrol alternatives, it seems like the best available alternative, even if
    it is a little pricy.
    While we are on the miracle of Vivix,
    there are two new categories of products from Shaklee: Youth™ for
    rejuvenation of skin care which actually rebuilds the collagen layer of the
    skin (without Botox surgery); and treatment for eye health where age-related macular
    degeneration is actually reversed/improved.
    Of 
    course, changes in unhealthy lifestyle should come first, and foremost.
    Quitting smoking, for example, will start saving money instantly, and extend
    your life dramatically.
    Okay, okay. This looks like it is an
    advert for Shaklee. A place that is usually great for unbiased information is
    Wikipedia. But several entries on the Great Wiki in the sky are not only
    misleading, they are inaccurate. Look at the health benefit for resveratrol. Cancer is one sentence that says that resveratrol won’t cure cancer.
    HUH!?? That may, or may not be true, but what about the hundreds of studies
    that show it will lower the risks of you getting cancer in the first place…
    One sentence that misrepresents a single study in 2011 (Fernandez & Fraga)
    to say there is no evidence in any way related to longevity in humans. There is
    evidence in mammals, according to their review of available research, and further research in humans
    will likely find similar support (which this study didn’t find because they apparently
    weren’t looking very hard).
    [At some point, I expect to come back to
    Wikipedia to fix some of these entries, it is in everyone’s best interest to
    have accurate and factual info there; unfortunately, the resveratrol “article”
    requires a total rewrite.]
    So, yes, I trust the Shaklee information
    as a great place to start, and a trustworthy source of nutritional information.
    They are in the business of selling products too, but a well-educated, health
    and wellness conscious consumer/distributor is critical to Shaklee’s mission
    and ongoing success. Shaklee has been producing vitamins/supplement organically
    for decades, environmentally friendly household products for about a century
    and has operated at a zero carbon footprint since Y2K.
    Shaklee is a nice picture of sustainability.
    Living healthier and longer, sounds good too.
    We at SustainZine would like to
    wish you a healthy, wealthy and happy 2018.
    References
    Agustín F. Fernández & Mario F. Fraga (2011) The effects of the dietary polyphenol
    resveratrol on human healthy aging and lifespan    , Epigenetics, 6:7, 870-874,
    doi: 10.4161/epi.6.7.16499

    Block, G., Jensen, C. D., Norkus, E. P., Dalvi, T. B., Wong,
    L. G., McManus, J. F., & Hudes, M. L. (2007). Usage patterns, health, and nutritional status of long-term multiple
    dietary supplement users: a cross-sectional study    . Nutrition Journal, 6(1).
    doi:10.1186/1475-2891-6-30

  • Triangulation to augment your Qual study

    Triangulation in research is a lot the old technology of geometry and surveying where you take the distance from three known points to compute the exact location on a map… Give or take a few yards. LORAN technology using radio signals and such was used in WWII. With a LORAN in the gulf, I remember being able to find where we were on a sail boat, approximately. The problem was that we were in an area of the Gulf of Mexico with only two LORAN readings. Three, you can triangulate, two you can approximate.

    Triangulation in Academic Research is the kind of stuff you can possibly do to augment your Qual study. As discussed other places, Delphi Studies might need to be recharacterized as Mixed method if some of the research is sufficiently quantitative, i.e., if second round has a lot of respondents and it makes sense to do stats, like correlation on several variables.

    So, in any qual study, you might consider including triangulation. There are a few types of triangulation (depending on your source) but let’s focus on just two: data and lit/theoretical. Data would be if you could find published statistics in the area that would allow for some corroboration of the findings from the study. In terms of data, maybe some stats that give an estimate of the independent and/or dependent variables (predictor and predicted variables in QUAL world). Possibly even the intersection of the two. Does the available data align with the findings of the study?

    Internal data to a study should be kept separate from external data triangulation. In Delphi studies, for example, there might be an alignment of the more general findings from round 1 and rankings of round 2. This offers up internal consistency.

    One of the coolest, and potentially strongest, aspects of triangulation is literature (or theory) triangulation. Does the existing literature align with some of the key themes found in your QUAL study. Think of this as a meta-study lite. For a meta study, there needs to be a lot of research, and a deep dive into the existing research can allow for a table of results that support, don’t support, or disprove various themes.

    Here is a very interesting approach for triangulation within a Delphi study (Hopf, Francis, Helms, Haughney, & Bond, 2016). Find the article here at BMJopen. For past studies that did not address a specific topic, they used a bazaar label of “Silence”, as in not addressed in the specific study. A better label would probably not addressed (n.a.). (The implication of silence is that the authors intentionally avoided that specific issue in their study.)

    So, consider including one of the 4 or 5 types of triangulation in your qual study to strengthen the support for your findings (or to highlight divergent findings). For the regular researcher (say dissertation), consider simply doing meta analysis, and avoid all that messy questionnaire stuff, if the field is full of existing research.

    If you use Delphi, you will be able to project into the future. You can explore how some of the themes identified in the research grow or wane in an uncertain future, and what conditions (triggers) might initiate major future disruption, i.e., scenario analysis.

    References

    Hopf, Y. M., Francis, J., Helms, P. J., Haughney, J., & Bond, C. (2016). Core requirements for successful data linkage: an example of a triangulation method. BMJ Open, 6(10), e011879. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2016-011879 Retrieved from: http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/10/e011879

     

     

  • 12 Patents of Christmas Past

    Entertaining to follow some of the patents of Christmas past. Here’s something for you to be entertained by as you look into the new year of 2018.

    12 Christmas related patents by AboveTheLaw. My favorite is the Santa kit, with big boot pattern and special instructions on how to leave out food and drink, but make sure to sample it well, to show proof positive that there really is a Santa, to those young, skeptical minds.

    The USPTO had the 12 days of Christmas, which was pretty entertaining. I went back to review them, only to find that they were gone. Hmmm… Maybe the USPTO is not supposed to have fun.
    But, look for the tweets #12DaysOfPatents …

  • Dodgy YayYo IPO advertised on TV – Business Insider

    YayYo IPO advertised on TV – Business Insider:

    Dodgy is probably the best term for Yay Yo IPO, for the inner circle, and for the product-less crowdfunding approach using the JOBS act.

    In the true spirit of a pyramid scheme, Yah Yo has the promise of a product, but there is little or no “there” there.

    They are selling the business model that they will tie in all the ride-share companies like Uber and Lyft into an integrated interface that gives you the best pricing. They generally imply that the BIG 2 unicorns will happily interface with Yay Yo. However, the two world-wide rideshares have insisted that Yay Yo cease and desist from any implicates of partnership.

    So, they say, they will work with the largest 3 to 100 ride share companies. In the US, Uber is down to about 74% with Lyft at about 24%… leaving about 2% for the other players. (See here how Uber’s fortunes have fallen from 91%, including a #deleteUber campaign based on a Trump backlash.)

    The talking head spokesperson/expert in the video is J Peterson from Sienfeld fame, a show about nothing, seems appropriate… An IPO about nothing.

    Comparing to Uber or Lyft that actually produce something and have lots of intellectual property (like patents and such) at their disposal, seems a bit like a reach. People from near and far, think that the advertising of the investment, not the product, is mostly misleading and far from the truth. Taking excess advantage of the Wild-Wild west for small investors made available for low regulation (near no regulation) IPO thanks to the 2012 Jumpstart our Business Startups, or JOBS Act.

    Want to hear an overview of the investor requirements for this “Regulation A+” investment, straight from Elaine’s dodgy boss from Seinfeld look at the bottom right of this page: https://yayyoipo.com/form/ 
    Consider carefully signing up though.

    There should be no comfort in investing in a guy who was banned from public IPO for 5 years because of wildly risky and/or criminal acts in a publicly traded company in the past.

    You read through the SEC filings to see if this is a IPO scam, a dodgy crowdfund, or simply an uber-risky pink-unicorn investment.

    On the plus side, the Business Insider article that started this blog post, YayYo IPO advertised on TV – Business Insider:, is a wonderful overview of the whole JOBS act and really good uses of it to fund smaller businesses and give smaller investors an opportunity to play. Companies that seem to have real products and interesting market niches are Elio and Knightscope. “Regulation A+ IPOs include Elio Motors, which is working on an inexpensive three-wheeled car, and Knightscope, which designs robotic security systems.”

    Ironically, Uber (global) and Lyft (US only) are both private companies, not public, valued at approximately $68B  and $7.5B, respectively. Real revenues in 2016 of about $6.5B and $700m.

    Uber has 298 US patents in force with 117 applications pending (via PatentBuddy), amassing a serious war chest organically and through acquisition. Not just anybody is gonna go jump into this market.

    Lyft got their first patent issued in Sept 31 of 2016 for music preferences (“jukebox”) and its second patent for “ride chaining” almost exactly a year later. The ride chaining patent is about a pickup and drop-off sequence, weaving through a rough terrain of of (Uber) patents.

    I vote for dodge the dodgy, IPO or no.

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