jpark

Just curious. Did the author get the proper permissions to use the MBTA logo in his map? It would be ironic if the map itself violated MBTA IP.

Definitely need a clarification.

By comparison, Supercell which has the #1 top grossing app (Clash of Clans) and #4 top grossing app (Hay Day) was reported to have $15M in gross monthly revenue, which is far less than Vesterbacka's statement about Rovio, but closer in line with Rovio's Finnish filing.

Angry Birds Star Wars is currently #46.

Maybe the merchandise and licensing is where the money is at?

Yes, that is why it is very difficult to get a change of venue out of the Eastern District.

That's just one of the reasons why ED Texas is so deadly.

Others:

In the ED, it is extremely difficult to get a motion to stay pending review of the patent by the USPTO. The court also moves very quickly, which compresses the financial burden of defense into a short time period. The fast moving court also makes it difficult to get a review completed by the USPTO in time before trial.

That said, the AIA compels the USPTO to rule much quicker, increasing the probability that you can get the patent invalidated before it reaches trial. However, the cost of the new review process is incredibly expensive: hundreds of thousands of dollars if you have an average lawyer. Could be a million if you have a top law firm billing you.

It's the result of an incredible bd and ad sales team. If you look at the senior team, esp in sales, it's a lot of very senior CNET veterans who took along most of their experience and contacts from CNET to Meebo.

This is not something duplicated easily.

Shouldn't you narrow down "build a big business charging consumers"?

Even in just digital goods, there are general software companies (Microsoft, Intuit, McAfee), gaming companies (Zynga, EA, Valve), online dating companies (Match, Eharmony), geneology (Ancestry), health (Weight Watchers Online) that make 1+ orders of magnitude more money than Evernote.

Most of them also have freemium models. What's special here?

Actually, at very high volumes (where the non-recurring engineering cost is sufficiently amortized), the larger equivalent component is more expensive, since you are using more material to manufacture the component.

Obviously, other factors, like process yield can be a factor here as well, since a lower process yield for the smaller component would increase its price.

Even with that definition, there was Shozu, which was founded in 2001 and raised over $36M. At least by 2005, they had significant traction with their mobile photo sharing tools.

close. Lucky Goldstar

I would totally disagree that the theory is sound. The fact wrist-based actigraphy correlates at all with REM phases is not scientifically validated in any robust way.

videoegg

mint.com is/was another one

linkedin, hulu, rapleaf, flixster, zillow

I'm not entirely convinced that "society starts conditioning for gender roles very early". You'd have to show me hard data. On the other hand, there is fascinating evidence to prove the reverse:

Case in point is David Reimer, who received the first ever sex re-assignment surgery conducted on a developmentally normal child at age 22 months. David became Brenda.

"At age 2, Brenda angrily tore off her dresses. She refused to play with dolls and would beat up her brother and seize his toy cars and guns."

http://www.slate.com/id/2101678/

Many companies would find similar behavior among their employees to be unethical and cause for termination.

For instance, large retailers have strict gift rules in place so that suppliers cannot "bribe" the retail buyers to get their stuff on shelves.

Here's one tragic result of forced gender assignment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

plus anecdotes from friends and family:

""When I say there was nothing feminine about Brenda," brother Brian Reimer later recalled, "I mean there was nothing feminine:

She walked like a guy. Sat with her legs apart. She talked about guy things, didn't give a crap about cleaning house, getting married, wearing makeup. We both wanted to play with guys, build forts and have snowball fights and play army. She'd get a skipping rope for a gift, and the only thing we'd use that for was to tie people up, whip people with it. She played with my toys: Tinkertoys, dump trucks. This toy sewing machine she got just sat."

http://www.singlesexschools.org/reimer.html

What's sad is that the longest comment thread in that post was about Java vs other languages. Not getting into analysis paralysis about technology is probably another lesson to insert into that post.

posting this as an example of highly misguided thinking. though I am curious about "Three-fourths of executives at venture capital-backed startups say patents are vital to getting financing, according to the 2008 Berkeley Patent Survey". Who are these executives?

"Regardless, in the end a judge is going to be asked if a $1,000 passive investment really should be worth billions of dollars in 6 years. The answer to that question in our country is 'no.'"

I would hope that in this country, if the investment is backed by the proper legal documents, that the answer would be yes. that whole rule of law thing.

Otherwise, are you saying that if one makes an angel investment of $1K for 10% of a company, that a judge should back other larger deeper-pocketed investors against the angel primarily because the judge would ask "if harming the millions of dollars of investment is proper on behalf of the guy who put in $1k."?

If you can make the cut at a top investment bank, hedge fund, PE firm, etc, it's fairly trivial to accumulate $1M in liquid assets after 10 years of work. Much much easier than trying to sell your startup for > $1M.

Since that quote is straight from the 1984 commercial, I guess I am learning from the master of hyperbole and reality distortion himself.

sorry, most of that early work was done by Woz. please demonstrate any significant code written or schematics created by Jobs.

Btw, it's this type of close-mindedness and insularity that leads to tremendous abuses in society. Witness the Catholic abuse scandals. Can one criticize the Church without being a member or part of its leadership structure or even without believing in God? I hope so.

hmm...ok, so a political dissident can't criticize a brutal dicatorship because he's never created a brutal dictatorship before?

We already know how much Steve likes the use of "freedom from"...

"We have created for the first time in all history a garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests of any contradictory true thoughts."

Yes, Steve, save us.

and what has Steve Jobs literally made himself as opposed to telling others what to make? Jobs has made less than probably most people on HN. Let's hear it for the countless thousands of engineers and designers who break their backs for Steve so he can be literally lord it over those who obviously aren't the great "maker" that he is.

I would say any startup CEO worth their salt. and most cases, esp on HN, they're actually involved in building it, not just telling people that it must be built.

If we follow that train of thought further...

Guess which will have the majority of apps and developers?

unless it becomes way too hard to target a sizable chunk of the Android market due to hardware spec fragmentation.

"Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology. Where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!"

How far we've come.

Sorry, but IBM is one of the largest patent trolls in the world. You just don't hear about it because they target corporations who don't have an extensive IP portfolio to fight back with and cross license.

Here's what's happened at the company I used to work at and what happens at many other companies:

1) IBM comes and says hey you're violating these 10 patents. Pay up.

2) Targeted company goes, hey we're not. Company spends X amount of money and tons of time to prove that they're not violating the patents.

3) IBM goes, oh ok, yeah you're right. So you're not violating those 10 patents. Well, here's another 10 we think you're violating. Now...we can do this forever or you can just pay us $1M/year and have us go away.

4) Targeted company does cost-benefit analysis of legal fees to continue to fight IBM indefinitely or they can pay this "license" fee. Company decides pays $1M to "license" IBM patents

oh and postscript, Targeted company wises up and decides to build up its own IP portfolio as a defensive measure and fills the patent system with even more useless patents.

1.Develop an exam that determines a minimum or base ability to take some advantage of the opportunities provided by the scholarship. Randomly select from the pool of students who pass this test.

Or

2. Split the scholarships in half. Half are awarded purely based on ordered rank for scores on an exam. Half are awarded randomly.

I think you need some type of random element to ensure that those who are merely disadvantaged by income or who are later bloomers for their age can be awarded scholarships. The random nature would also eliminate the subjective nature of teacher assessments.

That said, maybe I'm being overly influenced by having just read Outlier by Gladwell. Flawed as I think the book is, it did have some good nuggets.