fast divider?

Not a particularly plausible claim.

Bright college students don't know all that much. They can learn, but their point of view is shaped by an education system that tells them what to think, and that does tend to concentrate on area that are easy to teach.

It will tell you quite a bit about the kids.

Dream on.

The usual term is market research organisation. Marketing manager look after the people who talk to the customers - Tom Peters thought that that ought to include the engineers but marketing managers don't feel that they can control what the engineers tell the customers.

They can be. But they were invented to let people publish and sell their trade secrets, and it is a system that does make sense if you use it sensibly.

It's the same idea as scientists exploit when they publish their results in peer-reviewed journal. You create a free market for good ideas.

All true. The Lintech patent was taken out by Cambridge Instruments and abandoned when the parent company went bust. The graduate student half of the two named inventors took over the patent by paying the maintenance fees. It was a wise move, and would have paid off even better if he'd paid more attention the people who ended up using the machines rather than to the bosses who bought them.

It's like venture capitalism - 19 out of 20 patents weren't worth taking out, but the twentieth paid for all the rest. EMI, RCA and IBM all patented everything they could. The big drug companies have the same business model.

We have recently got two excellent reports on technology, specs, competitors, pricing. Two more in process look good. I was surprised how well this is working.

Dream? Yes!

Engineers are the best choice to talk to customers.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

Perhaps, but they do need to devote most of their time to engineering.

We filed a provisional for the thermal Faraday shield, but that's our only one in the 17 years we've been in business. We're hoping to interest folk like 3M--they could sell Scotch Isothermal Tape. :)

In periods when there's venture money around (i.e. not the present time), patent protection is important for startups, because it's hard to get money without it.

Plus, of course, we do a lot of patent litigation work.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

The only patent that I'm named on is for a kinda silly delay-line imaging anode, to locate charge hits behind a microchannel plate. It was just a suggestion on my part. But VCs had taken control of the company, as they are wont to do, and they like to have a giant patent portfolio for when they go public and cash out.

This was during the nanotech fad, which peaked and crashed before the thing could go public.

I have one of the anodes around here somewhere. It does look cool.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

Well, in your average startup you have two basic assets: your people and your IP. The IP is easier to control.

Post a picture!

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Oh, all right.

This was for the ill-fated tomographic atom probe project in Madison.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

Gnarly!

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Why was it ill-fated?

Mainly because I put in a huge amount of work, with some folks in Madison and in Oxford, and didn't get rich.

There was a nanotech boom/bust, sort of like the first internet bump and AI now.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics