Week in Review: Patent Lawsuits Impact Start-ups, Dreamforce Shows Off Social and Mobile
Posted by | September 21, 2012
The patent fights that have erupted this year—Apple versus Samsung, Yahoo versus Facebook—aren’t limited to big, established companies. A recent Reuters report draws attention to the start-ups that suffer as a result of patent lawsuits, some of which are filed by “patent trolls”—entities that don’t make a product, but nevertheless guard a portfolio of patents. For many startups, fighting such cases against a patent troll is a financial burden they can’t afford, leaving the option of licensing fees that typically run from $100,000 to $750,000, but can sometimes be in the millions of dollars.
Despite any constraints that IP might impose on innovation, plenty of new technologies were front and center this week at Dreamforce 2012, which drew 90,000 participants to San Francisco for 750 sessions on social and mobile cloud technologies. Several of our partner companies were in attendance, including Hoopla.net, which maintained a strong social media presence at the conference. ThingWorx and NovaSom also attended, and NovaSom CIO Carl Hoburg presented a session titled “Empowering Patients: The Most Vital Step in Transforming Healthcare.” He spoke about mobile health applications, collaborative care communities, social media apps, and sites that keep patients engaged in improving their health.
Beyond Dreamforce, here’s what our partner companies have been up to recently:
- The BD Veritor System for Rapid Detection of Flu A+B, powered by Alverix technology, received 510(k) clearance from the FDA to test liquid specimens obtained via nasopharyngeal wash, aspirate, or swab in transport media.
- DriveFactor introduced Platform 2.0, which enables wider access to driving data and allows customization of data collection.
- DIVER by Lumesis is a sponsor for the Bloomberg State & Municipal Finance Conference, to take place Oct. 3 in New York.
- MediaMath clients are seeing higher clickthroughs, conversions, and brand metrics using MediaMath’s TerminalOne buying platform to access Facebook Exchange. MediaMath’s partnership with Facebook Exchange was recently featured in Marketing Land
- AIM Specialty Health selected NovaSom as a strategic partner for its health plans to provide its network with an in-home sleep testing provider. In addition, NovaSom partnered with the SSM Center for Sleep Disorders in St. Louis, Mo. to jump-start its AccuSom Deliver program, and Sleep Review covered the news.
- Putney CEO Jean Hoffman spoke about her success as an entrepreneur at her alma mater’s Bowdoin Breakfast lecture.
To read more of our Week in Review series, please use the following feed: safeguardscientifics.com/WeekInReview. Have a good weekend!
