Cornell Chronicle: Entrepreneurial engineers.

In my corporate life I had the opportunity to interact with a large number of Universities and experience their efforts to create an “entrepreneurial environment” on campus. Rather than focus on the negatives, and there are many, I thought I’d share my experience with a program that in my opinion really works well. In the interest of full disclosure, I had a role in 2008 in helping to set up the Kessler Fellows program in the Engineering College at Cornell. Many of the details of this program can be found at the link in this article. The program focus is well-placed; select students experience the “entrepreneurial environment” by working in the startup environment. This is critical, as little else in the typical undergraduate engineering education prepares a student for this type of work. The program has a semester long series of introductory presentations and discussion. These are designed to prepare the students to be full contributors in the summer startup internship wherever they are placed and whatever they are asked to do.

New Patent Law Means Trouble For Tech Entrepreneurs – Forbes.

I came across this article and decided to throw out a few comments of my own. The recent change in the US Patent law will have a number of consequences, but the impacts are a mixed bag in my opinion. One issue with this article is that it overstates the degree of “openness” of the current US innovation ecosystem. We may be “open” when compared to other countries, but my experience is that inventors, particularly in small companies, are quite careful in their discussions with potential investors, partners, etc. often requiring that a Non-disclosure statement be signed.

I do believe that patents are a critical piece of the innovation process, but they are not the only part and many would debate the relative importance of the components. The reality is that a  large number of patents are invalidated post issuance. I think attention on the innovation system needs to be placed upon the funding model, as this appears to be broken.

I’ve been working for the last 18 months or so in support of a medical device company and experiencing first hand the difficulties that startups, and in particular, medical device startups, face.  It is a difficult time for these companies given the current economic climate. In addition, these companies now face additional regulatory hurdles, of at least three distinct types.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed by the president on March 23, 2010 provides for a medical device tax. This is an innovation killer; there is no other way to say this, in my opinion. You can read more about this and attempts to repeal .

The FDA approval process injects major risk (uncertainty) into the process of product commercialization. A large portion of a typical device  commercialization program cost is associated with preparing for and  executing clinical trials. The process takes significant time and there is significant schedule and cost uncertainty. Investors are reluctant to support startups because of this barrier. Things are getting worse- not better…..

Finally, investment banks and brokerages are feeling the watchful eyes of government much more strongly since 2008.  One outcome of the scrutiny is that raising money to fund startups has slowed significantly.

Look here for content and discussion on the many aspects of managing open innovation!