Skiing - A continuing Quest

My passion for skiing has been documented in prior posts. It is stoked by the fact that after 60 years, I am still learning in the quest of better technique.
Over the years PSIA has helped me improve with its requirements for Instructor Certification (now Level 2), and the theory it publishes in its Technical Manuals . The Canyons Ski School (Park City UT), where I teach, provided me great training opportunities. So, to share the gifts I received, here is my Summary of Technical Skiing and the graphic below that shows what happens when the activities in the Summary are performed correctly.
Do you have questions or need to know how to read it? Book a lesson at Canyons (877-472-6306) and let's go play together.

The 2014-15 Ski Season Is Almost Here

News from Park City:

Deer Valley announced purchase of SolitudeThe resorts will operate separately this year, so there is no shared lift ticket or integration of lift systems or terrain.  Deer Vally reports no current plans for integration even next year.

Vail bought Park City Mountain Resort (PCMR)
Vail already operates The Canyons resort (since last winter season), so by joining the two reorts it is now one of the largest in the US. Tickets are interoperable and a shuttle service will join the resorts making for a great ski vacation. Next year a new lift will integrate the properties making it truly a huge  resort.

Looking for a great vacation? Canyons/PCMR is the place. At an altitude of 7000 feet visitors from sea-level will easily tolerate the environment with no loss of skiing days to acclimatize, At 2000 feet lower altitude than most Colorado resorts, ambient temperatures will be nearly 10 degrees higher and the snow is still Utah's pride: "the greatest snow on earth".  The skiable terrain is huge and with a guide or instructor (moi?) you'll have an epic vacation whether a beginner or an advanced back country skier. Call me to learn more 602-677-1306 or book me at Canyons Ski School - I teach in English, Spanish, Italian, French with over 40 years experience and 60 years of worldwide skiing adventures to tell.

Memories from the 2013-14 Seaon
If you are one of my students last year, look for your photo. I hope to see you again this year.

A new author joined our team

Editor's Note 1 - Anyone can see that I have been remiss posting on this blog. To remedy this matter I decided to hire a freelance writer, my grand daughter Mandy Hansen (age 7) to contribute her stories.

She is also an artist so I bought ($4.50) the worldwide copyright to one of her paintings for publication here.


Fishing with Grandpa

And here is Mandy Hansen's debut as a freelancer. Her newest story was purchased at the rate of cents 1 per word.

A Day with Granpa (7/13/2014)

One morning I siad to my grampa how bout we go plases like Smith's and gite ickereem and walmart so we went smisth and got iscrim and then we wentto walmartand on the way bake (back) I fel of my bijicl bot it was only a little scrach so we still went to the pserve (the Swaners' Nature Preserve in Park City UT) and we did not no that we were going on varee long grass so we went home and grama was sleeping so I plaid the peeanow and grapa went on the computer.

The end.

Editor's Note 2: Since the writing quality is definitely college freshman level the original was published as written by the author.

Why I am afraid

From The Atlantic

The Single Best Overview of What the Surveillance State Does With Our Private Data

Oct 9 2013, 6:00 AM ET theatlantic.com

Even though the people being spied on are often totally innocent, the government stores their information for a very long time.

The U.S. surveillance debate is constantly distorted by the fact that national-security officials hide, obscure, and distort so much of what they do. Occasionally a journalist is able to expand the store of publicly available information, most recently thanks to Edward Snowden's indispensable NSA leaks. But even public information about government surveillance and data retention is difficult to convey to a mass audience. It involves multiple federal agencies with overlapping roles. The relevant laws and rules are complicated, jargon is ubiquitous, and surveillance advocates often don't play fair: They use words in ways that bear little relation to their generally accepted meaning, make technically accurate statements that are highly misleading, and even outright lie, as Director of National Intelligence James Clapper did before Congress.

Twitter Facebook and Questions with Unintended Consequences

Last night I worked very late, so late that I fell asleep at my desk. I found myself walking into a huge building by the sea, a convention center.  Admission was free, inside there were many rooms.  On the doors there were what appeared to be subjects of interest: Politics, Business, Poetry, Religion, Internet Services, Sustainability, Global Warming, etc. I entered one that appealed to me.  In it I found thousands of people standing elbow to elbow, people of all sizes and colors, speaking many languages, but English for the most part, many with interestingly English-as-second-language sentence structures and words. Their attires reflected the world, and activities and lifestyles ranging from poets to explorers to programmers to marketing consultants to business managers and entrepreneurs just starting new internet ventures. Those you could single out from the raggedy clothes and visible optimism and excitement in their faces.

When the lights go out

Groklaw announced its own termination as a blog, another light going out following Lavabit and others.  I can't speak for Lavabit, which I never used because I never thought that my banal communications needed hiding.  Only occasionally I read Groklaw, but from my limited use its existence was proof that the web is not just for porno, lightweight thinking and Facebook chatter.  It was insightful and interesting, in its own way as TED conferences are.  It made me think.

In its closing post it made me think, a lot. I could feel the pain of its author Pamela Jones, her bewilderment at what we have become as a nation and where we are going, how we are losing our basic right to be left alone, the psychological independence of solitude.

57 years in the making

We never achieve anything totally on our own.  Somewhere along the way someone planted the seed of whatever accomplishment we may check off our "bucket list".

One item on my list, long in the making was "become a ski instructor".  I am not sure I know why it was important, but it was.  Perhaps I wanted to have at least one thing in my life that could be "certified" top in class.

On Health Care Reform Try KISS

With any luck, ObamaCare will be defeated in the courts.  Ten we'll have to hope for the next attempt to bring the US into the ranks of civilized wealthy countries that have a minimum of moral backbone to provide for humans at minimum of care as PETA advocates for animals.  Perhaps then we could try a simple a solution with little or no opportunity for "pork" deals: here is a proposal that requires no monumental or structural change and tests an alternative with a failsafe provision:

1. Open Medicare basic coverage to anyone above age 50 who wants to participate


2. Charge for that minimal level of coverage the price that would be charged by the California Public Employees medical plan or the Federal Employees plan or any other similarly sized plan. Those plans have no exclusions for pre-existing conditions and by their size should have a customer base similar to the participants to be added to Medicare in 1. above.  Their price would have to be adjusted to reflect the limited coverage  only for Medicare basic services


3. Set a sunset law that forces re-approval of the plan in 5 years.  At that time if the plan is successful it can be reapproved and potentially extended to include participants over 40 years of age or even participants regardless of age.  If the plan is not re-approved, participants  no longer elegible will have to find private insurance as they do now.

What is to be gained?  Lots:

1. Put pressure on private insurers to offer more competitive rates (without exclusions for pre-exsting conditions)


2. Offer what is essentially a national mutual insurance option for basic medical care where proft making is taken out of the equation.


3. Move the country toward a single medical payments processing system that can be gradually improved to weed out processing inefficiencies.  Medicare already has the system in place and it is the only such system that all medical services providers are already set up to be paid by. Enhance the system with centralized medical records as most other developed countries have. We could save clinics and hospitals millions in administrative overhead and patients the pain of dealing with records transfers and billing.


4. The insured that want to never fill out another insurance application wil have that option.


5. The insured that want additional coverage can buy it from private Medicare Supplemental insurance suppliers already in the market


6. The insured that want only private options will be free to shop as they please and change from plan to plan as they do today.


7. The indigent can be covered through a system already equipped for  that purpose.  What they pay or what credit they receive for it can be handled the same way as now is done for indigent Medicare recipients.


8. Employers can be taken completely out of the business of shopping for insurance for third parties (their employees).  They would however cotinue to process payroll deductions just as they do for taxes (the system for all this is already in place).  Citizens should also be able to handle their own payments as they do for other matters in their lives.


9. The level of minimum services would be finally managed not by sticking ERs with unpaying patients, but based on nationally debated and set budgets and voters preferences as voted at the ballot box. If, as a nation, we want to offer little beyond "stopping the bleeding" or "preventing epidemics" we surely can.  If we want to provide more we can, but it would all be determined by an open debate and allocated budgets.

It may be too much to hope for. The wage controls instituted in WWII, as an unintended consequence  gave our nation the only employer managed health care system in the world.  It was an accident, not a reasoned policy.  Quality regardless of cost became part of the system and now we find we cannot afford it indefinitely.  Any variation that is based on the same unreasoned premises will only continue to benefit the vested interests that have perfected milking the current system.

School Bullying - There IS an EASY fix

School bullying has becoming a near obsession to the point of Anderson Cooper making a national campaign against it and CNN reporting endlessly on it along with other media. There is reason for it if children lose their lives to it.

However, to a person raised outside the US it is surprising that for all the research on victims and aggressors, mea culpas by talking heads and school administrators the dynamics and the solution are so difficult to understand.  I can already hear the chorus of dissent and dismissal for lack of complicated paradigms and formal research papers.

Nonetheless there is a simple remedy that could be tested at minimal or no cost with virtually no lead time.  It is probably too simple to be credible to many, but let's look at it just in case.

Premises

Most would agree that bullying, in its many manifestations, reflects a fight for social dominance and status within a group and may be acted out by individuals or groups.  I will leave it to researchers of primates to explain why humans have such a need. I accept that we do to varying degrees and give various displays of it.

The first notable thing to a newcomer to this land (40 years ago) that enters a US middle school or high school is the strong social dynamics of popularity. In American schools popularity is the all absorbing priority of students except for those contrarians that on purpose reject it and create alternative counter cultural groups with varying degrees of alienation.  Popularity can be built by many means from the jersey of an athlete-jock to the pom-poms of a cheerleader to the wallet of a big spender and by the kid that has easy access to the family's medicine  or bar cabinet.  Looks and clothes and the right vehicle (including the one a parent drives them to school in) are key components to the social climb.

So, just as for everything in society, there are the haves and the have-nots.  As in any group from social and sport clubs, to greek houses, to trade unions to military elites, exclusion and limitation of membership is the means to increase the value of the membership and its benefits for those accepted: thus hazing rituals, separate and exclusive gatherings, country club fees, special handshakes, etc.

In schools the same group dynamics evolve and are fed by differences in economic means, athletic skill, gift for jokesterism, access to drugs and transportation.  Group membership is further amplified and managed by social media tools, cell phones, etc.  as tools of inclusion, exclusion and social attack.

The Fix

To that same newcomer that went to school abroad in a country where students attend from 8am to 1pm, then go home, never eat lunch at school, and study on their own in he afternoons, the fix is obvious.  School group dynamics are driven not only, but heavily by the ability of kids to group (read include exclude others) at lunch time.  In the cafeteria and in the school yard the whole population can see who belongs where and with whom building the necessary envy, desire for membership, superiority by exclusion. Just as for primates violence, psychological or physical,  enforce the group membership and relative dominance.

So an easy fix is to test in schools is to break up or weaken the cycle of group creation and control by  inclusion/exclusion: Require students to sit at assigned (randomly drawn and periodically rotated) seats at every opportunity in classes in cafeterias,  auditoriums, etc.

Forced one on one contact is not as desirable as voluntary contact, but it would teach tolerance for societal rules (for sure and also need) and eventually tolerance for people that one would have not chosen to come in contact with.  Initially such school requirement would be most unpopular, but discovering that people outside a chosen group are not dorks or geeks or dumb or poor or useless would eventually prevail.

Similarly, school uniforms have for ages demonstrated their ability to unify a student body by minimizing  aesthetic and economic differences.

This whole idea is probably anathema to a population and culture that for the last 50 to 100 years has been schooled in the American way of school cafeterias and schoolyards.  But there is reason for optimism: school uniforms have started making a come back in many public schools, with great results, for similar reasons a despite the best efforts of vested interests intent in commercializing our children into ever changing fashion objects (sidebar: Anderson Cooper and CNN  might research how many countries that score above the US in middle and high school achievement require uniforms in their schools - care to bet?).

This is only a small step that probably would take some years to have serious impact on the culture, but rivers change course according to one small grain of sand being displaced one way or another. This is one grain that would require very little to test.

Marco Messina

10/11/11

A National Disgrace

I just confronted yet another instance of how the US is losing the war for innovation, green technologies, sustainability and energy independence to countries like India and China despite the fact that the inventions put in play are American Inventions.   See Smart Planet - China to develop a greener nuclear reactor

How can that happen?  The usual suspects could be fingered: disrespect for science and engineering, focus on easy answers, industrial vested interests, etc.  I propose that perhaps the worst is "Failure To Communicate" and this is the most blatant example I ever found.

Background

During the Manhattan Project a process to use nuclear materials (nuclear cycle was identified that could generate nuclear power but was not good enough for the explosive reaction needded for nuclear bombs.  Given the objective of the Manhattan Project, it was naturally sidelined.

During the 1950's and 1960's the "less efficient" process was revived, as an option for peaceful power generation. in what became known as the Thorium Nuclear Reactor. It was demonstrated capable to avoid all the most negative aspects of a high pressure nuclear reactor (e.g. meltdown, explosion, highly 1000-years radioactive waste, etc.), but gained little attention.

From the 1970's until today nuclear power developed evermore the popularity of "the turd in the punchbowl" for a variety of legitimate and other reasons.

Today it appears that the media and the voters would prefer confronting an ice age with candles than considering nuclear power generation in the US.  But what if there were an option that avoids many or all of the risks, costs less, produces more and was already tested sixty years ago?

Well,  for that option to go anywhere we'd have to publicize it so that voters would come to understand it, develop confidence in it, accept it and allow construction of this  "new" variety of nuclear plant.

The national tragedy

As it happens, that option appears to exist in the Thorium Nuclear Reactor (TNR)

• The TNR was designed and tested in the US in the 1960's


• Our TNR technology is now being test deployed by India and China


• In the future, when it becomes fully commercial, we will buy it from India and China just as we buy oil from Canada and OPEC today

How can it happen?

Smart Planet reports these facts (hats off to them for reporting at all)

BUT

at the bottom of their report there is also a video surely intended to help the reader better understand the process and the inherent opportunity.

The combination of the report and that video is the disgrace I am talking about.  It is the clearest example of scientists' and science reporters' inability to effectively communicate and make a good case even when all facts appear to be in their favor:

• The video is 16 minutes long.  Challenge yourself to listen to the end.  It will become a blur, but you'll get key relevant pieces any way.


• Is the audio in the video speeded up to suit the internet attention span?  Hard to tell.  If it is, shame on the editor, if it is the speakers's natural pace, shame on them.


• Did all the presenters speak at the same time?  I doubt it.  Shame on the editor.


• The message is clearly educational about the advantages of the TNR, but you would not know it. The positive technical  details are buried in an alphabet soup and cacophony that hides it all.


• The speakers in the video, one guesses, are knowledgeable presenters at professional conferences, but sound like drug advertisements disclaiming potential side effects.


• Comments such as  "no one knows anything about TNR any more because all the original scientists are dieing" would dissuade any politician from going to bat for this technology.

In 1993 Michael Crichton took the media to task (speech at the National PressClub) warning that superficiality and lack of quality in reporting would eventually have disastrous consequences for the media, which undoubtedly it is having.

I suggest that by framing important issues poorly, sloppy, if well intentioned, reporting can have more disastrous consequences than no reporting at all.  We all depend on the media to make informed decisions, to support or obstruct national policies.  On a subject as urgent as the one above, and not particularly popular with the populace, the damage may well exceed the benefit.

When that happens an opportunity the voters and for the nation to stay in the lead is wasted.  India and China move ahead and we are left to wonder why.  As Crichton said, there are no easy answers, but surely bad information or badly framed information will lead us to lousy outcomes.

And that is a national tragedy.

What a night with Lipbone Redding and the Dogs of Santiago

It happens only once every few years, but when it does, wow! It feels like magic. Tonight (9/17/2010), in Park City, I went to a small party, two dozens people or so. The invitation promised live music by  Lipbone Redding.  Never heard of them before.  Marginal expectations at best. As we helped ourselves around the buffet in a beautiful mountain home set on the side of  a hill turning into the stunning colors of the Fall in PC, a treo, not much of a band if you asked me, was tuning up on the terrace.  One guitar, a bass and a bongo with cymbals.  Minimalist was the motif and so were my expectations.
 First surprise: Lipbone Redding had an extra secret instrument you could not see.  Watch this video and listen to the music: there is NO Brass, no trumpet, no sax, no trombone - what you hear is the "voicestrumentalist" sound of Lipbone Redding - Sachmo would be impressed.  When Lipbone just sang, Fats Waller would have stopped to listen with a big smile.  I was in heaven, could hardly stand still. Second surprise: Lipbone and his friends could have stolen the show at last night's final of 2010 America's Got Talent.  May be not from Jackie Evancho (should have won by a landslide!), a 10 year old girl with a heavenly voice,  but in my book would have buried winner Michael Grimm hands down. Anyway, you be the judge.  The range of styles is broad, all impeccably delivered after being made their own like Sixteen Tons, to all the rest original compositions, all with a crips natural happiness of beat I had not heard since Rafa Mora in Costa Rica (see that post and listen). These guys are in a league of their own with a style, technique, a natural voice-trumpet and a tongue in cheek perspective of life like the Dogs of Santiago.  Remember NO horns only a voice - Wow !

1. Lipbone Redding Live in Park City
2. Dogs of Santiago
3. Travelin' Light
4. Indian Rose
5. Closing Time
6. Picnic Basket
7. Tuscaloosa Suntan
8. Old Flame
9. Hollywood & Vine
10. Love Is the Answer
11. Follow the Money
12. Sixteen Tons

   Do not pass up a chance to see them yourself if you are so lucky they go through your town. The Lipbone Redding Orchestra Lipbone Redding - Voicestrumentsls, Guitar Jeff Eyrich - Upright Bass, Backing Vocals Rich Zukor - Drums/Percussion, Backing Vocals http://lipbone.com  or  http://facebook/citizenonemusic

Columbus all over again

Food for thought

When Columbus landed in North America it took months for his closes back-home associates to learn about it.  Europe's literati took years to hear about it and nearly a century passed before the proof that the earth was not flat sunk into people's consciousness.  Some wits would say that even today some people are only marginally aware of it (Austria and Australia are still indistinguishable to same).

Well we are at that point again. Today's announcement is as momentous if not more so.  The information will travel faster, but, still, real consciousness of its significance will lag, luddites will deny it (e.g. the moon landing was a video scam), some (ostriches) will ignore it, some will be horrified by it (and try to put the gene back in the bottle), all will be directly or indirectly affected.

The impact will be not only in the practical consequences (medicine, industrial, etc.), which have been in the making for years, but mostly, in the psyche of homo sapiens.  I do not know when it happened (lags still exist even in the information age), nor how long it will take to sink in, but today's announcement is "Columbus all over again".  Write down the date; it will matter when you'll say "I remeber when..." to your grandchildren, to whom the whole affair will have become as common place as TV remotes and cell phones.

Today homo sapiens made life, not a human, not without some minor procedural shortcuts, not "new" life only a duplicate, but synthetic self duplicating DNA based life just the same. The world and we as a species will not remain the same.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/science/21cell.html

May 20, 2010

The genome pioneer J. Craig Venter has taken another step in his quest to create synthetic life, by synthesizing an entire bacterial genome and using it to take over a cell.

Dr. Venter calls the result a “synthetic cell” and is presenting the research as a landmark achievement that will open the way to creating useful microbes from scratch to make products like vaccines and biofuels. At a press conference Thursday, Dr. Venter described the converted cell as “the first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer.”

“This is a philosophical advance as much as a technical advance,” he said, suggesting that the “synthetic cell” raised new questions about the nature of life

Other scientists agree that he has achieved a technical feat in synthesizing the largest piece of DNA so far — a million units in length — and in making it accurate enough to substitute for the cell’s own DNA.

But some regard this approach as unpromising because it will take years to design new organisms, and meanwhile progress toward making biofuels is already being achieved with conventional genetic engineering approaches in which existing organisms are modified a few genes at a time.

Dr. Venter’s aim is to achieve total control over a bacterium’s genome, first by synthesizing its DNA in a laboratory and then by designing a new genome stripped of many natural functions and equipped with new genes that govern production of useful chemicals.

“It’s very powerful to be able to reconstruct and own every letter in a genome because that means you can put in different genes,” said Gerald Joyce, a biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif.

In response to the scientific report, President Obama asked the White House bioethics commission on Thursday to complete a study of the issues raised by synthetic biology within six months and report back to him on its findings. He said the new development raised “genuine concerns,” though he did not specify them further.

Dr. Venter took a first step toward this goal three years ago, showing that the natural DNA from one bacterium could be inserted into another and that it would take over the host cell’s operation. Last year, his team synthesized a piece of DNA with 1,080,000 bases, the chemical units of which DNA is composed.

In a final step, a team led by Daniel G. Gibson, Hamilton O. Smith and Dr. Venter report in Thursday’s issue of the journal Science that the synthetic DNA takes over a bacterial cell just as the natural DNA did, making the cell generate the proteins specified by the new DNA’s genetic information in preference to those of its own genome.

The team ordered pieces of DNA 1,000 units in length from Blue Heron, a company that specializes in synthesizing DNA, and developed a technique for assembling the shorter lengths into a complete genome. The cost of the project was $40 million, most of it paid for by Synthetic Genomics, a company Dr. Venter founded.

But the bacterium used by the Venter group is unsuitable for biofuel production, and Dr. Venter said he would move to different organisms. Synthetic Genomics has a contract from Exxon to generate biofuels from algae. Exxon is prepared to spend up to $600 million if all its milestones are met. Dr. Venter said he would try to build “an entire algae genome so we can vary the 50 to 60 different parameters for algae growth to make superproductive organisms.”

On his yacht trips round the world, Dr. Venter has analyzed the DNA of the many microbes in seawater and now has a library of about 40 million genes, mostly from algae. These genes will be a resource to make captive algae produce useful chemicals, he said.

Some other scientists said that aside from assembling a large piece of DNA, Dr. Venter has not broken new ground. “To my mind Craig has somewhat overplayed the importance of this,” said David Baltimore, a geneticist at Caltech. He described the result as “a technical tour de force,” a matter of scale rather than a scientific breakthrough.

“He has not created life, only mimicked it,” Dr. Baltimore said.

Dr. Venter’s approach “is not necessarily on the path” to produce useful microorganisms, said George Church, a genome researcher at Harvard Medical School. Leroy Hood, of the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, described Dr. Venter’s report as “glitzy” but said lower-level genes and networks had to be understood first before it would be worth trying to design whole organisms from scratch.

In 2002 Eckard Wimmer, of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, synthesized the genome of the polio virus. The genome constructed a live polio virus that infected and killed mice. Dr. Venter’s work on the bacterium is similar in principle, except that the polio virus genome is only 7,500 units in length, and the bacteria’s genome is more than 100 times longer.

Friends of the Earth, an environmental group, denounced the synthetic genome as “dangerous new technology,” saying that “Mr. Venter should stop all further research until sufficient regulations are in place.”

The genome Dr. Venter synthesized is copied from a natural bacterium that infects goats. He said that before copying the DNA, he excised 14 genes likely to be pathogenic, so the new bacterium, even if it escaped, would be unlikely to cause goats harm.

Dr. Venter’s assertion that he has created a “synthetic cell” has alarmed people who think that means he has created a new life form or an artificial cell. “Of course that’s not right — its ancestor is a biological life form,” said Dr. Joyce of Scripps.

Dr. Venter copied the DNA from one species of bacteria and inserted it into another. The second bacteria made all the proteins and organelles in the so-called “synthetic cell,” by following the specifications implicit in the structure of the inserted DNA.

“My worry is that some people are going to draw the conclusion that they have created a new life form,” said Jim Collins, a bioengineer atBoston University. “What they have created is an organism with a synthesized natural genome. But it doesn’t represent the creation of life from scratch or the creation of a new life form,” he said.

An Indomitable Spirit

I could only wish that at 85 I will still have the undying curiosity to try something new every turn and even to recycle my own creations to make new ones.  That is the real test of commitment and detachment of the ultimate creative spirit.

My mother is blessed with that spirit and has shared her painting technique with friends and associates over the years.  The most recent time was earlier this year when she was asked to give a demonstration to the Artists Of South Whidbey (AOSW) on Whidbey Island, Washington.

Here you can see her presentation.

Note: The concept behind this presentation was one of the last projects my mother produced in collaboration with my father's multimedia production support in 2008.  It was updated in 2010 for AOSW.

Find more at her gallery  http://piapaintings.com

On Mother's Day

Patents - What do they mean to you?

If you are interested in this subject you probably fit one of the following classes:

1. You are an expert angel investor with IP due diligence experience - your comments would be most welcome.


2. You are a potential or new angel investor (bless you for helping to grow our country).  In this case you might be interested in a practical view of what protection a patent rally gives you.


3. You are an entrepreneur that could use some financial help to get your invention (IP) to market (bless you for helping to grow our country). In this case you should know what questions to expect from your angel investor and have good answers.

This post attempts to share, for the benefit of the last two groups, my experiences over twenty five years as an inventor, patent holder, investor in technology ventures, acquirer of intellectual property (IP), licensor of IP, entrepreneur commercializing my own or someone else's IP. If you want legal opinions or legal advice on this, call your attorneys.  If they are IP specialists they'll have legal details and perspective far more reliable than mine.  However, beware; just because they are so familiar wit he domain, IP attorneys will often presume that you understand the nuances of IP legal protection principles and legal practice, not necessarily the practical aspects of it, which is what I am focusing on here.  Mine is a "business" view of patents, not a "legal" view and therefre focuses on what is practical not only what is legally rightful.

What does a US patent give the inventor?

In simple terms, the RECOGNITION by the US government that he/she is PRESUMABLY the inventor of a certain concept, product or process and therefore has the EXCLUSIVE RIGHT to practice the invention for a certain period of time (e.g. 17 years) without competition.  Note that contrary to public perception it does not give the inventor any real protection (with one exception) unless he take steps to enforce that right.  The exception is that the Customs Office will do their best to stop an infringing product from entering the US if they are provided with a suitable request, documentation and proof of patent infringement.  Otherwise, the inventor is solely responsible to enforce his patent rights, which implies taking legal action against an infringer.

Against the above background then a number of questions arise:

Can one afford to sue the infringer?

Practically speaking, only if the practice of the invention has a cash flow worth protecting in an amount that covers the expenses, distraction, aggravation, etc. associated with a litigation. Winning the case may not produce cash flow or a significant pay off;  it may produce only an injunction against the infringer, which by the way does not preclude another one from coming along.

What if in the course of litigation one discovers that other aspects of the product infringe on patents held by the infringer?

This is very common in the electronics industry where frequently patents have great value to counter-sue and eventually settle by reciprocal licensing.  Much of this jousting is now going on and reported in the press involving Apple and their iPad against various competitors among which only one (the smallest and weakest) was sued for infringement.  In these cases there may only be legal expenses and the benefit of upsetting a competitor's product development roadmap.

If one has a validly issued patent, how much protection does it provide?

Better than none to be sure, but hardly a guarantee.  The case of RIM (Research In Motion), makers of the Blackberry, is very instructive (details): It started in 2000 when RIM was a startup with strong beliefs that their issued patents covered their products well.  After a surprising chain of events, by 2006 they settled for $650 million with NTP (plaintiff) after a court injunction forced the Blackberry network dark for one day (a $2 billion business at that time).  Since 2006 and continuing to this date "patent reexamination" action by RIM has sought to void NTP's prior art claims; NTP is responding in kind.  One can hardly imagine the costs involved (at $500 or more per hour).  Needless to say RIM investors had been confident of their IP position.  Conclusion: even ISSUED patents are no guarantee since prior art can be submitted at any time and reexamination requested.

Is a patent much ado about nothing?

Definitely not. A Provisional Patent filing, if properly written and searched, tells potential investors that there may be more than just an idea.  It says that the company and the inventor understand the IP aspect of their business and have invested time and money to protect their innovation.  If a patent is issued, it tells investors that a stake is in the ground that proves innovation, at least from a theoretical and PTO standpoint.  If potential competitors exist, they are not easy to find and may be behind the current inventor and therefore not innovators in the PTO sense.  Of course they could still come out later with proof of "prior art" and open the RIM type can of worms.

It should be noted that claiming infringement while holding an issued patent has a risk.  The "infringer" may turn up to have prior art and that may invalidate the patent.  To wit, I had occasion of working with a small manufacturer who was an outstanding and recognized innovator but never filed a patent. He explained that, not being interested in having investors or selling the company, patents to him were a cost and of no value.  His strategy was to practice whatever innovative process he devised without fear.  If anyone came to try and stop him he depended on his meticulously documented prior art files to trump the action.   Furthermore he had no interest in licensing his own inventions and felt that since issued patents files are open to the public, they are more risky than helpful unless one deals with fundamental inventions.  By those strategies, his company never grew to dominate his markets, but he as happy with that; my lesson was to beware that prior art occasionally may come out only when one "kicks the beehive".

 Why uncertainty cannot be eliminated?

In the US the PTO operates on the doctrine of "first to invent".  This means that anyone can come and claim to be THE inventor of anything if he can show prior art precedent to that of any patent filed.  If a patent had been issued, reexamination is the cure.  Documentary proof of prior art can be from most kind of documents, preferably lab books (numbered non-removable pages), dated and witnessed affidavits, etc.  Elsewhere in the world the "first to file" rule is followed therefor it is imperative to not delay a viable filing and one can depend on the value of an issued patent to a greater degree.

 Conclusion

From a business viewpoint, the value of a patent is not an absolute one.  It depends on the circumstances of the business, the market, the product, the objectives of the inventor, the objectives of investors and many other factors. Deciding to file a patent (the inventor) or to assign a value to a patent (the investor) is a problem without an optimal solution.  Clear understanding of options, implications and trade offs is the best one can achieve in reaching an entirely subjective decision.  The "Should I get a patent" Roadmap may help with that analysis.  Read more about my Roadmaps