The Trump administration is reportedly exploring a new framework for patent fees and valuation.
Born to immigrant parents, Aidan Chau grew up around restaurants and saw firsthand the operational challenges they face. He built Maple, an Al phone answering service that handles orders and reservations so restaurant teams can stop missing phone calls and operate with greater efficiency. We sat down with Aidan to discuss building Maple, the potential implications of the New York RAISE Act, and how the right Al tools create jobs rather than replace them.
While Congress weighs proposals to reform federal broadband programs aimed at closing the digital divide, policymakers must carefully evaluate how imposing new fees on startups could impact the innovation ecosystem.
Deliveri is a logistics platform that helps customers lower costs and manage their shipping needs. Founded by Jason Brown and based in Cary, North Carolina, the company offers a multi-carrier shipping solution for e-commerce businesses in the U.S., with plans to expand this service into Latin America. We sat down with Jason to discuss his business, how recent changes to trade policies are impacting small businesses, the importance of the Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) exemption, and his future goals for Deliveri.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, Jonathan Gonzalez saw firsthand the failures of both disaster response systems and the traditional insurance industry. After spending over a year and a half navigating an ultimately unsuccessful insurance claim for his mother, he decided to take action. That experience led him to found Raincoat, a company building the technology to power faster, smarter, and better insurance for disaster recovery. We sat down with Jonathan to talk about his journey, the role of AI in transforming disaster insurance, and the unique challenges of building a startup from Puerto Rico.
On Friday afternoon, the Federal Trade Commission announced its intention to launch a study of Patent Assertion Entities, commonly referred to as “patent trolls.” While a host of interesting research on the patent system has surfaced over the summer, the FTC’s involvement could lead to the evaluation of brand new information that will aid legislative efforts.
A new study from the Progressive Policy Institute puts the economic cost of patent trolls at $83 billion. Patent trolls are capitalizing on a system which, as currently constituted, does not adequately service our growing economy. It is a system within our power to reconstruct, and while that work is underway, we need this community to continue to support those efforts to bring them to fruition.
This week, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill that aims to protect the online privacy of minors in California by fashioning a right to erase content posted on the internet. The new law is specifically designed to protect "the teenager who says something on the Internet that they regret five minutes later," but it also leads to questions about broader online privacy issues.
The lofty aim of the Common Core is to raise achievement levels in public schools across the country. As a nation, we must ensure minimum attainment in preparation for college, a new economy, and for life. We must build this solid base before we can hope to sustainably foster spectacular achievement.
Effective solutions to low educational attainment, specifically in STEM subjects, remain hard to find. Since the United States education system has so far failed to produce enough high-tech talent -- in the right places -- many U.S. firms are sourcing STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) talent from around the globe. But immigration reform is only a short-term solution to the talent shortage. To truly solve the problem, we must consider large-scale education reform. Holistic reform of education is a sustainable mechanism for economic growth, and the most direct solution for building a society of skilled individuals prepared to participate in the economy -- and specifically to replenish the high-tech labor market.
In banning software patents, New Zealand has done the equivalent of amending section 101 of the Patent Act that helps define what is, and is not, patentable. As a refresher, this oft-cited section is intended to preclude patent protection for laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas. Can the U.S. do the same?
All over the country, new and young businesses—as opposed to small businesses generally—play an outsized role in net job creation in the United States. But not all new businesses are the same—the majority of entrepreneurs to-be don't intend to grow their businesses or innovate. Differentiating growth-oriented “startups” from the rest of young businesses is an important distinction that we make in this latest paper.
Today, we’re excited to partner with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a coalition of organizations and law schools to launch Trolling Effects, a resource to empower entrepreneurs targeted by patent trolls. Patent troll lawsuits represented 62 percent of all patent litigation in 2012, and the costs associated with these suits amount to billion of dollars, stalling business growth, delaying products, and robbing startups of precious resources.
Is entrepreneurship everywhere, or is economic dynamism dead? With competing information afloat, that’s the question we sought to answer with newly-released Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS) data from the Census Bureau. We found a couple of things. First, as the U.S. economy belatedly recovered in 2011, so did business creation--the first time in five years. Second, this growth in new business formation was geographically dispersed throughout the United States.
Pedro Sorrentino hails from Sao Paolo, Brazil, and is currently living in San Francisco working for SendGrid. While attending graduate school in Boulder, Colorado, Pedro started and sold his first business. Once he graduated, however, Pedro had a hard decision to make. Based on his visa class, and the fact that he came from Brazil, the rules stated that it was mandatory for him to return home upon graduation. Would he go back to Brazil to work for his company? Or could he find an employer who would sponsor his H-1B application to stay in the United States?
The best trade agreements strengthen relationships with nations and regions vital to United States foreign and economic policy. When it comes to the secretive discussions around the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), however, any benefits might also come with now-unseen costs to startups and the tech industry as a whole if negotiators do not consider unintended consequences.
Debate around the patent system, and how we can fix it, is beginning to take shape in Washington, after many years of discussion in entrepreneurial communities around the country. Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn recently joined the debate with well received draft legislation that would help on a number of fronts; Senator Cornyn released his plan after actively seeking the input of the entrepreneurial community in Texas.
By a vote of 68-32, the United States Senate completed a landmark bipartisan effort by passing S. 744 on comprehensive immigration reform. We applaud the efforts of the Senators who voted in favor of the bill, and all their staff, as well as recognising the historic impact of the technology community. Today we stand closer to the promise of an immigration system that works for all Americans than we have for decades. Now we must ensure this promise is realized.
This week, we signed and sent a letter to the U.S. Senate alongside other leading tech groups. The movement led by TechNet gathered over 100 signatories, including the Consumer Electronics Association, Cisco Systems, Facebook, and Partnership for a New American Economy. The technology community understands the importance of the high-tech industry to the American economy, and agrees unanimously that comprehensive immigration reform is the solution we need.
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