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How to maximize your Outlets Store outtings?

2011-12-04T23:19:00.000-08:00

Well, Johor Premium Outlets is open and shopaholics are all excited. Needless to say, people who are aware of Premium Outlets Stores know that there are plenty of bargains around. Unfortunately, bargains are not in every store and you really need to do some homework before you start your journey. There are normally more than fifty odd stores around and not all of them have past season’s offerings. And if you really want to get the best bargains, then you will need to comb each store carefully, and certainly you need a whole day’s time to pick at the best. Otherwise, it would not make any difference if you were to just go to your nearest mall to buy your stuffs.

Johor Premium Outlet has about eighty stores and most are not dishing out the cheap stuffs. But if you are a real shopaholics, you will not want to miss the good bargains and strolling all eighty stores can break your back, if not your purse! Still, bargain hunting is an art and you have to be in the know about prices of the same items in the other stores in town. Maybe taking along a notebook or an ipad filled with item prices might be worth a try. Talking about the avid bargain hunters, you really need to do a lot of homework; otherwise, you end up buying the items at a higher price than your friends. Then again, off seasons might not be so because there is really no telling that the price is cheaper.

One more thing that you should prepare for and that is a package of food and drinks to bring along. The main reason is that you might find the choice of food at the Outlets very limited and not to your taste. Like a picnic, you should tuck along foods that are suitable to your taste buds and chewing burgers and fast foods might spoil your trip. Always, treat an Outlet endeavor as a pleasant outing, and food is that important part of it. A nice thing about an Outlet stint is that you can bring along your food and munch it at the many benches that throng the complex. You might want to bring along a friend that shares your taste so that you can get a second opinion when you choose your bargains. Thus, food, drinks and your compilation of good prices from other shops are essential.

As part of your preparation for your Outlets trip, you should do well to take a look at Johor Premium Outlets Online for a tip or two!

China is wondering what to do with her trillion dollar reserves

2011-08-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

It was just a slight downgrade but China is seeking a better solution to where to put her reserve. Well, S & P did the unthinkable by downgrading the confidence in the US long term treasuries by a single notch but that was enough to make China reassessing as to where to park her foreign reserves which had mushroomed to over three trillion dollars worth. As the Us dollar slides, China's reserve also follow suit and there is no telling how much more it would go downhill. When you have trillions of dollars, it really counts. You would have to wonder how a private body downgrade can do so much damage and for China's case, they have never have this thing before. It is a new game and China is desperately trying to buy insurance. But alas, there is just no near term solution because the fact is that the US treasuries is the world's reserve currency and everyone looks on to it as the reserve of last resort. Neither do the Us government knows how to deal with it. Equally frustrated that a private company can do so much damage, and making a miscalculation at that too, US politicians would want to put right what they have failed to control before.

China is caught in a dilemma. On the one hand, she had made her money on US imports. And on the other hand, she would want to wean herself from the western buyers to concentrate on her domestic markets. But how is she going to get the US equation out of her calculation. Certainly, no other country can buy that much goods from China. There is no viable replacements. Making it more difficult is the debt crisis in Europe. Three quarters of Asia's buyers come from the west and the west is frothing at the mouth. Europe is even talking about bailouts and China has distance itself from being the lender of last resort which she had initially indicated that she would do everything to put out the fire in Europe. The fact is that there is a real case of a cascading effect from European countries, each choosing to get bailout rather then the path of drastic austerity drives. But what good is it that China parks her reserve in the US? Would it not be better to to use her reserve to rescue Europe and to stop the rot and in the final analysis help herself? Yes, China is indeed deep in thoughts. She has never felled into such a situation before. To think of it, she is still considered a developing country as far as the books of the World Monetary Fund is concerned and by right should receive help from the developed countries! But anyway, she is finding her stride as she positions herself as the alternative reserve currency. In that respect, she will have much thing to do, many of which is in discord with a Communistic regime.

One of the often stated way for China is to expand her trade with her Asian neighbors. Since she had succeeded in having a free trade agreement with Asean, the right way is for her is to put more money into resource rich Asean and to integrate her manufacturing prowess with Asean countries. Another good sign is that Asean is a stable economic block now and has the capacity to buy more of those goods that were meant for the west. For perhaps a short time, Asean would be the best place to invest and China would do well to keep talking trade and not war with her Asean neighbors. One of the best place to look to invest is without doubt China Asean Permanent Trade Exhibition Center.

Grandpa says marketing is for the birds......

2011-06-25T23:34:00.000-07:00

Yah, how true it is , especially in today's environment. A better advice is that you should ditch any of those marketing campaigns that you might be doing now. The fact is marketing.....or more appropriately conventional marketing looks more like a Doodle bird. It should be done away, this instant. Just think, these old guys tell you to splurge on a one page advertisement that cost you a bomb when nobody except some retired folks read them. Have you seen your teenage son picking up the newspaper to read? That figures because they can get the latest news on their tweets. Maybe they don't bother with the news or what but certainly they are excited about rumors then. If they need to double check, which they seldom do unless it involves their girlfriend's mum, they would have sink into the internet. That would be a better choice, don't you think! And what about the TV? Ah....not much hope either. They don't watch the TV unless there is a reality show going on. So what else can conventional marketing do then? Sad to say, not much. That being the case, why spend money on advertising in the old medium where nobody go. Of course the old medium still has its adherents like the baby boomers or the office manager looking for a new job. But its days are numbered.

Up in the scene then is internet marketing. Well, more words to cope with but something that everybody should learn about. Mind you, it is not just learning, but putting it into practice. If you are doing a business or you are in politics, then you should pick up the finer things about internet marketing. If you have a website, which should be the norm, you should learn about website optimization as well. You better do if you don't want to fall behind. In the internet age, everyone is moving at lightning speed. So are websites. If people cannot find your website, then you are a goner. Everything has gone to the net, or if you can't find your thing on the internet, then it is a surprise. Yes, talking about doing business. You don't do conventional marketing now. It is internet marketing, or web marketing. It is not a new game as it has been around for fifteen years already. But because it moves at lightning speeds, it changes so fast that the older folks can't keep up with the terms. They can't ask their kids too because their kids answers them using sms language, which is nonsense to the older ones. Like the French revolution, internet marketing will change things like never before. Once you are in it, you never turn back because you would have realized that there is a whole bunch of people behind you trying to catch up learning internet techniques. They have websites that don't bring in any visitors and they are furious. All right, you are about to learn about internet marketing right. Might as well. Get into the picture at Website Optimization now.

Ten years from now, Americans will have to depend on foreigners to run their technology

2011-05-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

Americans as a whole have no love for the sciences. Students are more fascinated to take up law and commerce rather than science and engineering subjects. To them, politics and finance is the real beef and science, which at one time was the main interest has dropped in value. In a 2010 test conducted by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) assessed a total of 34 countries and concluded 15-year-old American children performed well below international averages in math.
In the test, Americans ranked in 25 arithmetic, whereas Chinese students of the same age claimed first place.

Appalled by this reality, the US National Academies authored a manifesto known as the "The Gathering Storm," which demands science and mathematics be promoted in schools. This is to avoid a US technology collapse and to also prevent the US from relegated to the has run category. As a comparison, the Chinese government is mostly made up of technocrats whilst the American Congress only have 22 out of 535 legislators with any science background. It becomes apparent why in China there is more action than talk and in America, the reverse.

Although America is where the brightest students seek to study, and boast the best academia, not many Americans can get enrolled. In contrast, there is a huge number of foreign students who made up the total enrollment. Americans are fascinated by law and banking whilst foreign students, many of them Chinese, find themselves in the science and engineering sectors. Of course many Americans would wish to do science but they somehow find themselves unable to meet the high standards, especially in mathematics. On the other hand, Chinese and Indian students excelled in both math and sciences.

Another problem for Americans is that they are more concerned with getting their first degrees which give them entry into the jobs market. Foreign students on the other hand is more interested in getting as much experience they can get before going home. Many do continue getting post degree studies and some have successfully managed to obtain their PhD's and continue to do advance research in prestigious institutions. You could just take a look at some of the newer technologies coming out and find a foreign name as one of the team members.

As if no American would want to believe that they are sliding down on a dangerous curve, out came data to show that indeed America is no more what it was a decade ago. According to Forbes, 70% of PhD engineers in universities are foreign-born. That is as high as you can get to be in the comfort zone, or worse, the illusion that Americans are always a step above others. But in reality, Americans are still trying to wean themselves of spending and are at all times embroiled in battling with their foreign entities about re-evaluating others exchange rate. Getting movie stars for your congressman might need a tough rethinking though!

The cleaning up will probably take forever

2011-04-14T06:26:00.000-07:00

Calling Gulf Coast cleaning up after the BP oil spill a mission done is just touching the tip of the ice berg. There is more to that than the eye can see. Deep beneath the ocean, sea creatures are finding pollution too much to tackle. What amount of oil ingested by these creatures will never be known? You can imagine just how devastating the oil spill brought about if you will see tiny oil blobs floating in the sea. It is everywhere the eye can see, and even on the shores and the sand. The oil, in millions of tons has not disappeared; neither has it evaporated like the way BP officials have assured. It is still there. Someone, somewhere is taking in the oil, and most probably, will not be able to get it out of their systems. The result is slow death. But who is concerned about it?

In a knee jerk reaction, the US government declared a moratorium on deep sea oil drilling after the disaster. But like all things political, it is no use crying after the milk had spilt. Is there really a need to stop oil drilling? What about the thousands of people the oil companies had employed prior to the oil spill? Are they supposed to find new jobs? Maybe they can find jobs elsewhere where there is no stop work but that will mean they have to get out of the country. People living in the Louisiana coast are the worst hit because they have very much depended on the oil industry all along. Now, there is no activity and the big spending has come to a halt. They have to clean up and look for other jobs but there seems to be none available, until this moratorium stops.

Meanwhile, devastated people are supposed to get help from oil giant BP. Or at least that is what BP has promised. Unfortunately, the procedure to dish out compensation is not a straight forward game. There has not been any precedent of this kind before and naturally, there is no urgency on the part of BP to dole out the money because there are no physical manifestations that these people have been struck with disaster. Still, there is plenty of ground work to be done around the area, even as no money has come forward to be dished out. The beaches on the affected coast do very often shows signs of small globulin of washed up oil. Every time when there is a storm, oil globules come crashing into the sand. It gets stuck there. The only way out is to put out excavators fixed with special shovels to dig up the dirt. Maybe someone should invent a special machine to trap out the oil from the sand since the oil globules washing up into the beach will be a permanent feature for a long time to go. You saw the videos of the oil gushing out from under the sea; it had to go somewhere though.

what about the near shore that is under water? Are the oil stuck there as well? Perhaps we should ask the excavator people to design special machines that can do a continuous work on these sand bank under the water! If what we don't see doesn't mean it is not there. It is indeed there and the whole coast is affected. Companies that specialized in amphibious excavators like Ultratrex should be engaged to design these machines. We don't have much time left. If BP were to be left to their devises, nothing will come about. We have to do something and fast!

The land of rock and roll and meltdown

2011-03-14T02:56:00.000-07:00

It is not surprising that Japan is now faced with a nuclear meltdown. As far as we can remember, Japan has always been associated with earthquakes and nuclear issues. It is because of its rocky history that Japan has put into force very stringent building laws that require buildings to be able to withstand earthquakes. And not any ordinary quakes at that! It has to withstand a rocking of eight on the Richter scale. It is also the first country in the world to experience the atomic bomb. Japan is a beautiful country but steeped with natural disasters. Tokyo city, its capital sits on a piece of earth’s crust that is not only unstable, but also moving in various directions underground. There is a probability that it will one day sink in. There is no telling of the kind of disaster that awaits the Japs but if that were to happen, millions of its inhabitants will have to lose their lives. Today, the people of the land of the rising sun have realized that life is so unpredictable but there is nothing they can do. People in Japan know that there are very little resources to be found there. It strangely does not have coal, oil and the essential minerals. Fortunately, it does have a very hard working population. But even that is not enough. Perhaps it is because it knows its limitations; the people look elsewhere to settle down during the Second World War. There was then a need to conquer other countries that has the resources. What happens was history in the making and we all know now, and even the Japanese knows that going invading others' land to make up for the shortfall in their own land is not the answer. Maybe they overdid it and now, there is nothing much to do but to embrace what is to come with dignity and pride. The people who tout the principles of karma would want you to believe that there is indeed a cause and effect thing going on in this world of ours.

Yet, in the after math of the great earthquake at Senda and the ensuing tsunami that follows and the meltdown of a few nuclear reactors, Japan has finally got the sympathy of the rest of the world, even those whom had suffered under the Japanese occupation during the Second World War. There is today a new crisis in nuclear fallout from radiation. This is however self inflicted because they went with a wrong policy of stealing Mother Nature’s energy chest by building multiple nuclear reactors and extracting cheap power. In retrospect, if they had succeeded in colonizing its neighbors during the Second World War, then perhaps we could postulate that many Japanese would be moving out and settling down in these countries and do not have to endure all the rocking and irradiation nonsense that has engulfed Japan today. But as it happened, Japan could still be able to steer herself back to the future by ways that we would consider as unconventional. Whole townships would have to be re-sifted inland, far away from the coast to avoid tsunamis. Buildings would also have to be redesigned to take into consideration of more fuel efficient technologies. Japan has a huge untapped pool of geo-thermal energy in its backyard. They should put their engineers on a fast track basis to help tap this rare resource that other countries don’t have. Yes, there has to be a way to tame all those belching heat under its core to wean Japan from oil. Japan is after all sitting in the rink of fire and they don’t have to look elsewhere to look for energy. Maybe that could be Japan’s contribution to mankind for the next century. Forget about colonization and forget about being an economic giant. Making products for the rest of the poor should be given to other countries who have more human resources!

The intelligence of blood building

2011-02-13T20:02:00.000-08:00

In a recent published report, scientist found that the bone marrow stem cells most responsible for generating new blood molecules follows a flexible behavior. We know that new blood cells are being generated all the time in the blood marrow. These bone marrow cells called hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in a healthy person comes in two varieties. One type remains dormant and does not change into blood cells during its lifetime. It however change into blood cells when the body experiences a trauma like when the body is subjected to irradiation or a chemical attack. Another type changes to blood cells on a continuous basis but does not by itself restores back the blood balance when subjected to irradiation. These differences were detected in experiments using mouse cells. It is unknown whether human cells follow such characteristics.

If human cells also behave as such, then there is a possibility that a way being found to select the type of bone marrow stem cells and to tune them to differentiate into blood cells when required. We could then not have to resort to bone marrow transplants to save life. We certainly hope that the day will come when all we have to do to increase the blood supply for anemic patients is just by tuning into the required blood cells and excite them into changing into normal cells from their dormant stage. Blood cells are after all born with the necessary genes and if a patient does have a defective cell, gene injection could be perform to revitalize back the disease cells.

Want to age gracefully?

2011-01-13T00:29:00.000-08:00

Well, who doesn’t? But how? Good news for those who have been active in exercising. You know what, a team of researchers at Tel Aviv University has evidence that doing a regular exercising workout can stop muscles from degenerating. What it means is that if you do regular exercises, you will look younger and age gracefully. What the team found was that people who does low endurance exercise like jogging unwittingly unlocks the stem cells of their muscles which goes to rejuvenate old muscles. So far, the evidence comes from experiments with rats, but the researchers hope to unlock the secrets and to one day come up with a medicine that will revitalized old muscles. Great hope for the aged, but you will probably have to endure at least ten more years before such a medicine materializes.

Still, it is never too late to exercise. If you have neglected doing exercises during your golden years, then you might be on the better side by just starting off with slow relaxing exercises. But whatever you do, take care not to fall, otherwise you might break a bone which in the older ones will be more brittle. If active sports is not your food, then perhaps getting to learn the time tested Chinese Tai Chi Chuan or the Indian Yoga might put some extra years into your life. One of the more popular western regime is dancing. Get into old folks club and dance your way to good spirited life styles. It is never too old to dance, right?

One other thing that the researchers found on the rats was that when they were put on an exercising regime, the rats become easier to move about. This was evident in old rats which did not go through the workout regime which seldom move about. Now, it is not always possible for the older folks to go out and do exercises. Many are tied up in taking care of their grandchildren and some have diseases that does not encourage them to active. But now we know the importance of exercising, so probably we need to change our life styles, if only by exercising will lead us to go old gracefully. It is definitely pathetic to see old folks bedridden in hospitals when they can have a more meaningful life.

Is that a green car or a halfway house

2011-01-03T04:34:00.000-08:00

They promised you a car that is environmentally friendly but they are short on delivery most of the time. Sure, the brochures say so and the advert guys say so! But they are not environmentally friendly, most of the time. The reason is not difficult to grasp. First of all, these so called green car can’t move an inch without burning fossil fuel. Hybrid cars are halfway measures. They only help a bit on the gas mileage and nothing to shout about. And worse of, because they help to cut down on fuel, it gives the owner the impression that they are actually saving fuel. Not surprisingly, these owners even use more fuel by doing more errands with their so called green cars. Now, that figures. In trying to cut down on fuel burning, we have unwittingly encouraged more fuel burning. Is that what we want?

True green cars must not burn gas, at least not burning gas in the cylinders as we know it. They should be run on electricity. It is OK to source electricity from the electrical grids. Although we are no where near powered by renewable energy resources, at least we are on the way of substituting those energy with solar, wind and bio-fuel. It needs time to completely wean our way away from fossil fuels. So the next time a sales guy were to sell you a green car, just ask them what octane numbers the car run on. If they even mention anything octane, then that must not be a green car and you should just say no to them.

Green cars are of course expensive to buy. It is the numbers thing. Small quantities of output will always not enjoy the economy of scales. In order to bring about a total change over to green cars, governments should put out incentives to both the manufacturers and the buyers. Somebody has to bear the cost of change over and governments, who claimed themselves as fighting for a greener environment, must be pioneer the cause. Not only that, they will also have to put more subsidies in alternative fuel generation so that critical mass is reached fast, before we have to face off critical shortage of affordable fossil fuel. So, green car for you?

Are our GP's working blind?

2010-12-24T22:50:00.000-08:00

One of the main failure of medicine, in reference to the general practitioner is that the doctor normally works in the dark. Just ask yourself, after the doctor has prescribed the medication for you and you go home and followed the instructions, will you go and tell your doctor whether how effective was the medication? Now, unless you go back to your doctor and tell him that the medication was not effective, he won't know at all. Neither will he know if the prescription was effective. It just boggles the mind how the system had evolved, or how the system has failed. It is no small matter either. Everyday, tens of millions of dollars is wasted on medications and yet we do not have a means to gauge how effective those medications were. And it is not a lack of want of communication devices either. It was just a system, or more appropriately a failed system left down by our forefathers. Nobody ever question about how we should should make it better. And no wonder there is such a thing as super bugs that has become immune to antibiotics!

The system has to be revamped, before more people die from wrongful administration of medication. A system has to be devised so that what goes out has to be effectively tracked and analyzed. Of course a patient has the right to not report on the effectiveness of the medication that he received, but there must be some sort of mandatory legislation that either the doctor goes out to his patient or the patient has to make a report of his prior condition before he can get medication when he visits a doctor again. After all, communication system is so advance now, with just a click on the phone buttons can effectively send out the vital message. But you might be asking why do we need to do it now? Seriously, we should have the method enforced long ago. In terms of cost, we have poured too much money in wasted medication and we can't really afford to pay anymore, and also bearing in mind that the cost of development of new medicines has sky rocketed the last few years. Like we have all these greening campaigns, we should change the way how medicines are given out just so that we can bring down the cost of medicines for the citizens. It is about time that we not only have a health insurance scheme, but we must do an audit of the system, just like we do an electrical audit for our homes, office and public buildings!

Taco John’s Claims Rights in Taco Tuesday

2010-12-20T21:24:00.000-08:00

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The “Taco Tuesday” battle exploded on Twitter, blogs, NewsOK, Fox 25 News, and even Facebook. Taco John’s owns U.S. Trademark Registration No. 1,572,589 for the mark TACO TUESDAY (seen below). It appears that Taco John’s attorneys sent the Oklahoma City based Iguana Mexican Grill a letter notifying Iguana of Taco John’s alleged rights and registration. Taco John’s also ordered Iguana to cease and desist usage of the hashtag #tacotuesday.

What started as an attempt by Taco John’s to assert its trademark rights, resulted in some fantastic PR for Iguana Grill. For those of you that are not from Oklahoma, you should know that as Oklahomans, we stick together. Iguana Grill has generously invested time and money into the community through volunteerism and food donations. The Oklahoma City community is extremely loyal to Iguana and when everyone caught wind of Taco John’s requests, a frenzy of tweets ensued. The community rallied around Iguana by voicing their support for the usage of “Taco Tuesday” on Twitter and Facebook. Fans also showed their support by gathering at Iguana. Iguana sold a record number of tacos on Tuesday – approximately 2,000 tacos.

Tuesday’s tweets included things like:

“petition @tacojohns to stop copyright enforcement of #tacotuesday hashtag”“#tacotuesday is used all over CA! But qdoba uses #tacomonday. Who want #tacowednesday…Patent pending”“Potential new @iguanaokc promotion: @TacoJohns Sucks Tuesday #tacotuesday (They don’t have a patent on that one.)”“So does anyone know if ThirstyThursday has a copyright? If so, Who will hold a big party to celebrate the end? #tacotuesday”“Their trademark can’t keep the customers from calling it #TacoTuesday”

@TacoJohns even tweeted:

“Taco John’s holds the copyright to Taco Tuesday giving us the exclusive right to use and protect it.”

(Emphasis Added.)

So which one is it? What exactly is Taco John’s trying to assert? A patent? A copyright? A trademark? It seems that even @TacoJohns needs some guidance as to the differences between copyrights and trademarks. Taco John’s claim is centered around its alleged trademark, not copyright, for the phrase “Taco Tuesday.”

Generally speaking, patents protect inventions, copyrights protect creative works of authorship like music, photos, videos, and literary works, and trademarks protect brands. Taco John’s is alleging that Taco Tuesday is their brand name, that they have trademark rights in it, and that Iguana cannot use it without their permission. Are there legal arguments that could be made in response to Taco John’s? Sure. Does it matter that several other companies use the phrase “Taco Tuesday?” Possibly. But that is another post for another day.

For more information on the difference between patents, trademarks, and copyrights check out this PHOSITA blog post posted earlier last year.

You may be interested in reading the following related posts: IgniteOKC – Leadership Committee MeetingScrabble v. ScrabulousAll Business Have Intellectual Propertyshould you copyright your source code?“i believe in ip” manifesto Posted by Emily E. Campbell, August 4, 2010 at 6:43 am
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Brands that are weird – Avoiding the Waldo Paradox

2010-12-19T23:55:00.000-08:00

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The Ignite phenomenon is bubbling up throughout the world and it is happening within the state of Oklahoma as well (yes, even Oklahoma!)

Last week was the first Ignite Tulsa event and our own Emily Campbell dove into the fray with a talk entitled “How Not to be Waldo: Brands that Stand Out in a Crowd.” I may be a bit biased – but she rocked it!

Emily’s mantra of “Be Weird, Be Different and Think Outside the Box” is a great way of thinking about your branding efforts and the need to stand out in a crowd.

It is a bit unusual for an attorney to be thinking about branding – Emily may have some additional thoughts on that topic – but, when you think about it – it makes perfect sense. Trademark attorneys see the process at all stages – conceptualization (doing the clearance searches), design and development (filing intent to use applications), and product launch (filing statements of use), to name but a few.

As we say around here, the job of a good trademark attorney is to take you all the way from the minefield of cluttered competing corporate interests to the end point of bringing everything to a succesful conclusion – a customer buying the product and associating the product with the reputation and messaging you wish to develop. Dare I say it – taking it from a Mess to Yes™

As you saw on PHOSITA last week, the IgniteOKC folks are working on launching their first event and are looking for volunteers and thought leaders. The first planning meeting was last night – but there is still room for more help. Drop Emily Campbell an email if you are interested.

You may be interested in reading the following related posts: IgniteOKC – Leadership Committee MeetingIgniteOKC Sparks Creativity and Rockin Good TimeOprah Pay-it-forward IP styleNo Texas Holdem in Oklahomahow to review a patent application – google video – treasure trove of information Posted by Douglas Sorocco, September 24, 2009 at 10:27 am
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Confessions of a Trademark Junkie

2010-12-19T02:43:00.000-08:00

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It’s been awhile since I’ve provided commentary on the blog but after attending a local marketing presentation, I just had to share my two cents about the event.

“Hey Emily! What are you up to next Tuesday? Let me tell you – I just signed you up to attend a marketing presentation. It will be a good experience for you and you may pick up a few tips on branding.”

Little did I know but the President of our firm signed me up to attend a marketing presentation conducted by a local news station at a nearby hotel. Sounds interesting. I’m game for learning new things.

I arrived only to be greeted by an account executive, a woman who shall remain nameless, that claimed she “researched” our “company” before the event “but couldn’t seem to remember what our website said.” Since she obviously did not read our website, she will likely not read this article nor be ashamed that I am now revealing this information about her. “What is a codding?” she asked. I just chuckled. Not a great way to start a sales pitch — Ay yay yay.

This account executive was whisked away to attend to another guest. Although everyone else in the room was paired with another account executive, I was now left alone. I was then approached by another account executive – AE #2, but who’s keeping track? He started to lay the sales tactics on thick, explaining the marketing program to me and the wonderful opportunities television advertising could offer to our firm.

Luckily, after a few minutes, we were directed to a second room where a presentation was about to begin. (At this point I had an eerie flashback to sorority rush – is there a skit about to take place?) A third, yes third, account executive introduces himself to me. We sit down to watch a video presentation about television marketing.

After the video presentation, a PowerPoint presentation begins. The speaker talks about how television marketing can raise consumer awareness of your brand. I perked up when he flashed a bunch of trademarks up on the screen. Sadly though, he lost me when he started to explain brands as generic source identifiers.

“What is this?” he said as he pointed to a picture of some cell phones and MP3 players. “iPhones and iPods” someone said. “When your little one gets a ‘boo-boo,’ what do they ask for?” he asked. “A Band-Aid.” “Exactly,” he says, “they don’t ask for a self-adhesive strip, they ask for a Band-Aid.”

I spent the next five minutes explaining to my third account executive that local television advertising is probably not the appropriate avenue to advertise our law firm’s services. Once he got the hint that I was not prepared to sign on the dotted line, we spent the next ten minutes or so discussing the dichotomy between brand awareness and single-source brand awareness.

There is an unfortunate disconnect between marketing and legal (particularly trademark) departments. This was evident in the presentation I had just witnessed. During the presentation, the speaker genericised each trademark he discussed, referring to all MP3 players as “iPods” and all self-adhesive strips as “Band-Aids.”

I think Johnson & Johnson’s trademark attorneys would have groaned when the presenter referred to their products as Band-Aids, rather than Band-Aid® brand adhesive bandages. Has all their hard work been ignored? What about their catchy theme song? “I am stuck on Band-Aid® Brand cause Band-Aid®’s stuck on me.”

I asked the third account executive if he understood that trademark rights could be completely lost if a brand becomes generic. Brands like Aspirin, Escalator, and Trampoline are a few examples of things that were once brands but are now simply generic terms for acetylsalicylic acid, moving staircases, and rebound tumblers.

From a trademark perspective, while we would like for people to be aware of brands, what’s equally as important is that people know that the brand represents a single source and not a generic line of products. We want people to think of only one source or one company when they think of Band-Aid® brand adhesive bandages. We want people to know that the brand of self-adhesive bandages that they can trust is Band-Aid® brand adhesive bandages because the brand stands for quality and consistency. When you buy Band-Aid® brand adhesive bandages, you know that it will protect your little-one’s boo-boos.

“So how can we do this,” the third account executive asked. “How can we raise consumer awareness while at the same time, point to only one source of those products?”

Start with making sure that the company itself is properly using the brand. There are few rules for proper trademark usage that should be shared with the advertising and marketing department so that everyone is on the same page.

Rule number one — never use a trademark as a noun and stay vigilant in keeping others from using your mark as a noun. For example, The Lego Company warns users against using the term LEGO® as a noun – if you enter the term “legos” into a search engine, the following statement would appear:

Using a trademark as a noun is a sure-fire way to transform your brand into a generic term for a particular type of product. Consider the following – “My kids love to play with LEGOS.” In the first example, the speaker could be referring to store bought bricks, The Original Toy CompanyTM bricks, Playskool® bricks, or LEGO® bricks since the speaker is using the term LEGOS to mean bricks. To use the brand properly, the brand should be used as an adjective. For example, the following would be appropriate – “My kids love to play with LEGO bricks.”

Another strategy companies can use to protect their brand names is to monitor and manage external usage of the mark. You should educate the media about proper usage of your company’s brands and also send reminder letters and, in some cases, cease and desist letters to third parties who are incorrectly using your marks.

If you find that someone is potentially infringing upon your company’s brands, you should perform some level of due diligence to protect what is, in many cases, a company’s most valuable asset – it’s reputation.

So, what did a trademark attorney attending a “sales dog and pony show” learn – well, raising awareness of your brand is one thing, but making sure that consumers associate that brand with only one source of products is another. After all, what we don’t want, is for people to see our brand and think of a generic line of products. We want our advertising to encourage people to buy our product, not just any product.

Oh, and if you are still wondering what a Codding is, please check out our firm website at www.dunlapcodding.com.

You may be interested in reading the following related posts: Trademarks and Google* SearchesTest your trademark knowledgeDecline of BrandsLEGO My LEGOS – The Significance of “S”TRADEMARK CLASS 678: MAFIA SERVICES Posted by Emily E. Campbell, September 1, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Permalink: Confessions of a Trademark Junkie
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What Makes a Successful Brand – Pepsi vs Coca-Cola

2010-12-18T04:29:00.001-08:00

« Patent Reform Opponents Send Letter to President Obama | PHOSITA Home | Confessions of a Trademark Junkie »

Consumerist posted this chart and, like them, I find it fascinating regarding the notion of branding and trademarks.

The evolution of the Pepsi logo over time doesn’t strike me as coming from a place of strength – whereas the Coca-Cola logo appears to be timeless.

The red scripted colors cause an obvious problem with the Coca-Cola logo and the bottle cap visual dates the logo to a particular technology that has been long discarded.

Beyond the simple curiosity factor – this is a great example of spending time choosing a name, logo, colors etc. that don’t tie your brand to a particular technology, place in time, etc.

Getting from the “mess to yes” is a complicated task – but when it is executed correctly – the outcome should be timeless.

I must admit that the 1973 Pepsi logo made me recall spending summer evenings at the lake with my family…

So the question is — Does a “good” brand evolve over time or is it something that has “it” at the moment of conception. Just a little something fun for the dog days of summer.

You may be interested in reading the following related posts: Kokie Cola Anyone?hershey’s joins the war on drugs; uses trademarks to fight munchiesashcroft on DOJ IP taskforceTest your trademark knowledgescanning books & plagiarism Posted by Douglas Sorocco, August 3, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Permalink: What Makes a Successful Brand – Pepsi vs Coca-Cola
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The green house of the future

2010-11-08T21:48:00.000-08:00

We all have built green houses for our exotic plants sometime before but the green house of the future is not for our plants. The future green house is a house that uses less energy and is capable of producing clean electricity by itself! How else do we not make our house produce electricity since it is sitting under the sun half a day’s time? Solar panel for the roof! Solar panel for the walls! Yes, and more, even the pavements can be covered by solar panels. But the solar panels are not made of silicon! It is made of polymers and is transparent. It is flexible and does not crack and it can even be printed on. There goes the wonder of the new solar panel. You can throw away those old green panels of yore. The new panels are even cheaper to make, and before long, you will have every thing encapsulated with it and produces its own energy. There might be an over dose of electricity even!

Welcome to advances in polymer sciences. It is now possible to make solar panels transparent and flexible and at an even lower cost than those that makes commercial solar panels using silicon. It might even be possible to make it in your own home! The prediction is that houses will have transparent roofs make of flexible polymers. But how then do you shade yourself from strong sunlight. Well, of course you can put another layer of protective panels to absorb the heat and light. But even radiated heat can be again reuse for energy generation. Thanks to the world being consumed in turning every thing green, polymer solar panels will be with us sooner than you think. The clothes that we wear will be covered with a layer of flexible solar panel so that we become active producer of energy every where we go. If the sun shines brightly, it will even be better. But in case you are complaining of hotness, well, you can always use the electricity generated to run an “air-conditioned” covering.

Excavators with floats

2010-10-17T04:00:00.000-07:00

Often enough, isolated stretches of land that borders waterways are neglected because they are the subject of neglect and a convenient place to dump rubbish. Because of their isolation, there is inadequate monitoring by state authorities and the end result is pollutions or worst, convenient places to dump rubbish. When the land borders a waterway, you will often find silted and in most probability, there is very little life form under the water. As man has become more aware of environmental pollutions, and certainly because of the need to make use of every little bit of land, authorities are forced to focus on revitalizing these regions using both conventional and new methods. In this respect, there are plenty of marshy land around that have been seasonally inundated with water that renders them non-cultivable and the subject of neglect. There are also those land that border water ways that if given a remediation tweak, can become useful again. What lies under the water can be resuscitated so that fish and other aquatic life forms can thrive again.

One of the most useful implements and machines that can help restore these uninhibited marshlands is the amphibious excavator. These wonderful machines can virtually float on shallow waterways and regions that were inaccessible before to man. They are increasingly being used for land remediation work along riverbanks and water soaked swamplands. These amphibious excavators are being used to excavate the sand and mud that clogs the shallow banks. These wonderful excavators are also called floating or pontoon excavators and are increasingly being called into action for remediation works around the world. If we are thinking of a floating city, then these machines will be the essential items that will be called into action.

In recent times, amphibious excavators have been frequently used to help in pollution work. In many cases, the site of pollution becomes soggy, especially As it is dangerous to send in the conventional machine, it becomes necessary to use a machine that can take the rough terrain. Amphibious excavators can work even on shallow water and sending them to unstable grounds is the only way out. Increasingly, it is also being deployed at sea because it is the only machine that can dig or scoop its way at sites of oil leakage from sea vessels or oil drillers. Sometimes, it is used to help lift up sunken vessels or entanglement from ship collisions.

If you were to ever wish to buy these wonderful machines, then hop over to one of the main manufacturer of Amphibious Excavator Manufacturer in the region. They are able to back up with vital spare parts that can make or break in any operations, be they on land or on waterways.

Will the cloud be the game changer for outsourcing

2010-08-18T01:58:00.000-07:00

China is giving its outsourcing companies’ tax breaks until year 2013. The reason being given is that these companies need help for their expansion. It sounds like China is strategizing itself to be the outsourcing capital of the world, a title which is presently being hold by India. Industries that are targeted included business process, knowledge process and information technology outsourcing sectors. If China deemed fit to help these sectors, then India should better watch out or else it could find itself out cornered. And for the others who have been eying to take a piece of the burgeoning outsourcing jobs from the west, they will need a good strategy to outwit both China and India. That is assuming the outsourcing work remains the same nature as it is now. But will it remain the same?

China is the world’s second largest outsourcer bringing in ten billion dollars in revenue for 2009. It was one of the fastest growing sectors in China with a growth rate of 150 percent. Perhaps China sees it as an important sector because it helps in giving employment to the large number of university graduates. It takes a decade to put in place getting jobs for its graduates. Certainly it gets no help from the downturn in the U.S. economy as buying power from the west was drastically cut. Chinese factories bear the brunt of cost cutting and many of them realized that it is no fun depending on the west to buy their products. Graduates also don’t see any future in getting employed to produce cheap commodities. It would be better to sell services instead. That way, China might not have to depend on just cheap manufacturing to stay level.

Still, it is better to read into the future of the outsourcing business. As technology brings about a change in the structure of industries, outsourcing companies will also be affected. In particular, the advent of cloud computing should be closely watched. Big players like Google and Amazon has taken cloud computing to a higher level and has become outsourcing giants themselves. In the not distant future, they will probably be able to handle most of the processes of enterprises in America. Cloud computing is slowly but surely replacing our way of doing business. Services can be bought at a cheap rate compared to what we have now using the conventional ways of buying applications.
Indeed, computing, and in particular outsourcing will face changes that might completely change scenario. Outsourcing jobs might not be for the taking by low cost countries anymore as cloud computing can and will make doing business a more efficient way and not necessary through a third party working in a low cost country! What then?

Is it easier to get a job if I am overseas?

2010-07-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

It is true that outsourcing is a game changer. Take the case of the Japanese graduate. It has been a hassle getting a decent job in Japan these days. Gone were the days when Japanese conglomerates went to university convocation days to recruit their staff. It is the reverse that works now; fresh graduates have to go knocking at their doors. Why is it so? It was reported that Japan looses an average 250,000 jobs a month. The reason was nailed at the long drawn recession and the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008. The unemployment rate in Japan is around 4.5 percent, half of that in the US. With uncertainties hogging around big corporations, there is no need to recruit more workers, even as more have retired.

There is however jobs available for young Japanese graduate though. But it is not found in Japan! It is overseas. Places like Bangkok, Beijing, Jakarta, New Delhi and Hong Kong has become centers for jobs. You can easily get into service center jobs if you speak and write in Japanese fluently. What seems to be the reason? Well, it boils down to cost, George! Like most corporations facing the recessions, Japanese companies are finding new ways to cut cost. And they have found it in service and call centers sited in lower cost countries like India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. It is much cheaper to employ workers at these call centers. Wages are at least four times cheaper than in Japan.

What would be the significance of this scenario? To be sure, cheaper is the way to go for running companies. With no overheads to worry about, and still getting the job done, no wonder every one is looking at the model. But will this only occur during bad times? It is unlikely that the situation will reverse when times of plenty returns. Once you have tasted paying out with less money, you will stick with it no matter what. Why would you want to change things if it is not broken? So the significance of outsourcing jobs is that people are finding all the reasons for doing it, even as governments are putting up barriers to it. It is a new discovery. People have stumbled unto efficiency. After computerization, the next wave is outsourcing. And it has not been only call centers only. There are now business process (BPO) and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) to contend with. It has indeed being a game changer of sorts.

In a fast shrinking world, competition has become the main concern of chief executives all over the world. There is this great problem of having to face ever escalating overheads and the problem brought about by new staffs who can't seem to know how to do a proper job. There was computerization. There is now cloud computing. However, it is going to be outsourcing that is going to bring down cost and ups efficiency. Like it or not, there is no other way. Maybe a day will come when everything can be dished to the outsourcer! If you want to cut cost and bring about efficiency, why not get in touch with Malaysian Outsourcing and remove all those unnecessary shackles that have prevented you from achieving results. Embracing outsourcing will be the paradigm swift for SME's for the next decade and beyond. Don't hold back anymore!

Fifa World Cup: the 1.2 billion dollar question

2010-07-11T22:35:00.000-07:00

Spending 1.2 billion dollars on staging the 2010 World Cup in South Africa is just no small matter. And not to forget the huge amount spent by South Africa and those who are flying into the continent to either take part or just to watch the games! Sports have become mega projects. The trend is the bigger the better! But who are the people paying for the event? Well, certainly not the players. Probably the largest group of people paying for the show is the sport fans followed by loosing gamblers. Staging the show for the first time in Africa does not bring much to the continent. If at all there are benefits, then it would have been Johannesburg’s stadiums. Some of them have been refurbished at great cost whilst new ones were added. And some savvy business people there have benefited as well; think of the few guys who had sold thousands of noisy vuvuzelas there.

Unfortunately for the poor of the world, they just get to watch a world event for four weeks. Of course they feel elated and excited but there is nothing added on the dinner table. For all you know, they might have to cough out a few more dollars for the electricity to run their tellies. But you will not be blamed for not noticing that the whole affair is nothing but a Fifa branding exercise! The exercise is a billion dollar job and there are not many entities in the world now that can afford to bankroll such an event. If you were to give that money to some third world countries, they might be turned into the second tier class. But luckily, the event only come once in four years, otherwise, we, the general non participating people might have to give some of our money to the course, albeit unwillingly.

Besides it being a branding exercise, the World Cup is a haven for punters and gaming syndicates. No body has an estimate of the amount of money going into gambling, but it is definitely huge by all accounts. You can now bet not only on the winning team, but you can also bet if the game were to go into penalty kicks! Even governments were eying to get hold of some of the profits. Some have suddenly tried legalizing sports gaming just so to grab at punter’s money! Still, when we think of all the benefits from the game, we could hardly count half our fingers. And to rub salt unto the wound, there is that cryptic octopus named Paul who predicted correctly the winner of all seven matches of the game including the final when Spain won over the Dutch! If a sea creature can correctly predict the outcome of the game, then why do we need to stage it with such cost? We could have staged it in small villages and ask Paul to predict the outcome. It would be easier for all of us, including the gaming syndicates!

Why are iPhones flying out of the windows again?

2010-06-28T20:32:00.000-07:00

It only took Apple three days to dish out 1.7 million iPhone 4s when it was launched in the US. If the phone was available in other countries, that figure could have easily quadrupled. The question in everybody’s mind and your mind is that why only Apple? Why are the others not selling that well. Nokia’s N900 were reported to have only sold 500,000 around the world. It is considered a flop of sorts for the world’s largest maker of hand phones. In comparison, the N900 has much better specification than the iPhones, anytime. Still, we have this mad rush to get the Apple offering. Perhaps it is suave marketing? Maybe there is a truth in it after all!

Aficionados of Apple’s phones say it just boiled down to good user experience. They used it and they liked it. You can’t say that for the other brands. Some of the other brand just gives you the creeps. That may be true, but there is a reason for it as well. Apple only brings out a single model in twelve months. And they only approved the model after substantive testing. That perhaps is the right recipe. Just like food, if the cook don’t go to the trouble of getting others to taste it, he will never be able to dish out a best recipe. And the cook’s taste might not be the same like the others?

There is another very important reason though. Looking at the many models that the other brands dish out in a single year, you would have thought that they are out to do the killing. The simple truth is that if you have bought an expensive model from the other brand, you would wish it to last for a while. The frustration comes when within a span of only a few months, you will be inundated with a newer model. It would have better features. And that makes your model sorts of obsolete! You would have felt cheated. So the fault lies in those other brands. Their marketing model is flawed. And Apple has opened up those flaws for everyone to see.

What is in a ball?

2010-06-20T02:42:00.000-07:00

There you have two teams of eleven man (women not allowed) chasing after a rather staid leather ball. And over here you have university students clashing with their peers for being not allowed to watch the two teams chasing after the ball via television. That it is real really having people scratching their heads. We are here talking about the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The rioting students are in Dharka, Bangladesh. The reason the riots occurred is because the students were not given time off to watch the soccer match. Take note that it is not their countrymen that is chasing for the cup. Now you go reason how watching football has been high-jacked into venting one’s frustration with the authorities?

It’s funny, and coming from university students at that! It seems that this is not the first time it is happening. The same thing happened in 2006. Perhaps that is what precedence is all about. For short of a good reason to play truant, you just pick the next best thing that came into your mind! And nobody can accuse you of being a cheap copycat! But in reality, World Cup football has been used as an excuse for the mundane. People are reporting to work late. Gamblers are calling their bookies like never before. And the list goes on as if there are no better occasions to practice some skiving. Luckily, the cup fever only comes once in four years; otherwise, world GDP growth would be seriously affected.

There is another humdrum reason to splurge money. It seems that people are taking the opportunity to upgrade their television screen size. And upgrade it is, to the LCD big screen level, at 42 inches and no less at that! Just imagine, football has got more focus than the Olympics, and everyone in the pit gets to know the name of scorers and spoilers. They say it is the world at your feet, but is it? Not really though, football has got no interest in the US even though they are also fighting for honor. It thus looks more like the US against the rest of the world. Economist has made a study of the effects of people going on leave because of the World Cup. They have found that productivity is down by about four percent, on a globalized basis. If Americans (the US kind) also put in their hats, then we would really have a siesta then! Yah, maybe we should, in order that the other university students don’t punch a hole at their dome! Or was it just the Fifa brand?

The great confusion about trademarks

2010-06-07T01:12:00.000-07:00

Ask any business man in the street whether he has already trademarked his brand and you will get a surprise look from him. It is true, people are confused about trademarks and because they are confused, they do not want to go that route. They also can’t get a proper answer if they were to ask around because the other guys don’t know for certain either. They also have never trademarked anything before! So the confusing game goes around, making people avoid the issue of registering trademarks. Then when people are confronted with uncertainties, they will procrastinate. In most cases, people will postpone trade marking their brand until a day when their brands become recognizable. Sometimes, it is already too late as someone else would have registered it!

The main confusing thing is what actually can be trade marked. A name comes first. But not all names can be trademarked. Then there are issues like slogans. What slogans can we trademark and what can’t? It used to be simple before. Then, a name is always unique and always is allowed to be trademarked. Now, in the internet age, we have such descriptive names like ‘super’, ‘best’, and what not, getting it trade marked is no more possible. However, there are three things that we have to remember when we talk about names to be trademarked. They have to be ‘distinctive’, ‘non generic’ and ‘non descriptive’.
When we talk about distinctiveness, it simply means that it is not common. So you can’t trademark a name like ‘john’ or ‘jane’ by themselves. Probably ‘johnokusti’ might be possible. Still, different countries have different laws, but generally they do not allow a trademark when it is so common. If they allowed it, then you might see a lot of court cases because people will be bringing people to courts for impersonating their brand. So when you want to trademark a name, makes sure that it sounds different and unique. If the trademark office finds it difficult to even pronounce it, then you can be sure that it can be trade marked.

Now, to be non generic means you can’t trade mark a common word. For example, Twitter can’t trademark the common generic word ‘tweet’ even though there is an association of sorts. In language parlance, a generic term has no brands. It belongs to the common good. In another twist of language, a ‘brand’ of good can become a generic term when due to common use, people refer to it as an adjective. An example is when you ‘google’ it, we mean you are ‘searching it’. So the term is no more a brand. But before it, when it is taken as a noun, you can trademark it.

The last criterion is ‘descriptive’. Thus, you can’t trademark a term like ‘lovely chair’ as your brand. Brands mean a unique name without any description. It is common to hear from novices that they want to trademark their brand ‘tasty salad’, but unfortunately the trade mark system does not allow a descriptive word to be registered, least people might keep adding more ‘best’, ‘the most’ and ‘what not’ to their slogans and create confusion.

How to embrace ICT and get tax exemption for your company

2010-05-30T01:50:00.000-07:00

Some people are plain lucky. They get to start an ICT company and people throwing in incentives like ten year tax exemptions so that they can better survive during those beginning years. As if that is not enough, they are also given special status for remitting their profits to anywhere else in the world without hindrances. We are of course talking about the MSC Malaysia and those lucky guys who put up shop there. You see, MSC Malaysia is a special development region sited right in the heart of burgeoning Asia among two billion people who are enjoying average annual economic growth of six percent. To be precise, MSC Malaysia is sited in Cyberjaya, a township carved from plantation land for the special purpose of drawing in people with ICT business. In order to do that, the Malaysian government had provided incentives galore for these pioneers. They will live, work and talk ICT here, supported by a world class infrastructure that included state of the art communication backbones, a multi-media university and international sea and airport.

We all know very well that the first four years of an enterprise is the most important. They either make it or they go bust. One of the very important help that entrepreneurs get is market access and sufficient funds. For the intrepid entrepreneur operating in MSC Malaysia, they are advised to obtain the prestigious MSC Status which will grant them a ten year pioneer status with tax exemption. Just imagine if you don’t have to part away your profit for ten years? That will give you reason to work even harder, right? Then there is market access. Whatever you produce will be given market priority and the government is a big user of ICT services as most departments have gone digital and online. The private sector is also an advance user of ICT services and products, so getting to the market would not be too difficult.

Looking at the greater picture, Cyberjaya is sitting in the midst of Asia. There is a market of over two billion people and growing by the day as trade packs are being pursued amongst the fast growing countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Australia, China and India. With trade barriers being broken down, the future of trade, especially with the ICT sector, will reach heights never seen before in Asia. As of January 2010, China and the ASEAN countries put into effect their free trade agreement where tariffs are progressively being knocked down to near zero. Not to miss the boat, the US is trying to rope in countries around the Pacific Rim to form another free trade pact that will have a market size of three billion. So the future of ICT companies in MSC Malaysia is rosy, to say the least. Success is assured, provided high tech industries are embraced. Would you like to take a piece of the cake?
If you want to invest your time in an ICT company and enjoy top rated benefits and assured successes, go to MSC Consultant to launch your business.

Taking a periscope view of Biotechnology

2010-05-21T00:21:00.000-07:00

Touted as a savior to mankind, Biotechnology was ushered in as the next big wave. The year was 1988 and with the help of emerging digital technology, biological sciences were about to be redeveloped into something that mankind would never have imagined twenty years ago. Just reading the headlines would have put us in cloud nine. “Bio-technology-the new frontier to save mankind from famine, disease and old age” reads most news headlines. It was a time when computers were making the world smaller and communication technology was the great promise to waiting obsolescence.

Twenty years later and after touching double digit growth on a yearly basis, biotechnology seems to have promised more than it can deliver. Undoubtedly, biotechnology has progressed immensely. With the help of super computers, man has managed to identify all the human genes. The future looks promising. The time has come for man to design drugs that can cure stubborn diseases. We should be near the stage where human parts can be grown in labs and food to be churned out from laboratories. Food supply would no more be concern, whatever the weather takes. And we would have no more fears for those super bacteria and viruses that seem to be able to mutate.

But alas, with the world under the spell of recession, where money is in short supply, concerns are mounting due to the cut back in venture funds affecting biotechnology startups. With funds shrinking, research and development in the bio-sciences has been shoved to the back seat. Adding to the problem is the mounting backlogs of patents waiting for examination. To be sure, millions of dollars are being wasted due to slow down of commercialization of university researches. With it, thousand of jobs cannot be realized. Still, hope is set on biotechnology with its many possibilities. No other sectors can even come near it. Just think about it; health, food and fuel will drive mankind to do anything to secure them. We will even go to war if any one of these criteria affects our future.

Bear with us

2010-05-12T01:30:00.000-07:00

It is your concern. It is also our concern. Well, it is time to reveal what goes on at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). We are talking about the speed at which the department approves new seed; new seed here means biologically modified seed. They used to approve about five new seeds in a year, but of late, especially with the new Obama Administration, things are going slow. They now only approved three. And this has the big three firms going out making noises. Just imagine, we get five new seeds in a year. In a decade, we will get about fifty new ones. It took Mother Nature millions of years to give us those few cash crops like corn, rice and maize. So we are hastening the progress of mankind, or perhaps driving us faster into our graves!

The biotechnology crop advancement was started by Monsanto with its modified and fortified soy bean that can withstand herbicides . Since then, the biologically modified sector has mushroomed into a ten billion dollar industry, and probably will shoot even higher with world weather going into tail spin. The question that has all been put forward is how safe are these seeds? Are we inadvertently eating ourselves to destruction? To be certain, there have been no adverse ill effects, or at least no discernible ill effects. But we can never be sure. Just look at those super-bugs and the mutating flu virus. Things always have a certain trigger point, and we do not have the benefit of a longer term exposure of these modified seeds to know for sure that nothing bad happens.

But who really knows what happens behind those labs? Certainly, the big three, namely, Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta won’t be telling. Too much is at stake. And the Agriculture Department? Well, it is much easier to play ball as well, rather then to go reverse pace. Indeed, the world’s survival will depend on biologically modified seed to overcome food shortage in the very near future. We just might have to take the risk. With climatic changes taking place in ever more countries, planting food crops might just be that riskier and big economies from the third world might not be able to survive a sudden change of weather. So is the supply of water becoming uncertain, which will immediately impact on the food chain. Unlike oil, we cannot store enough of it to mitigate hunger.

And the debate will go on. Will the third world countries take the risk of embracing modified seed for their crop industries? Time is of course running out fast. For one thing, the agriculture department will have to speed up their approval time for these new seeds, never mind whether who ultimately owns the intellectual property of these new seed. However, with the debate on the viability of granting patents for genes, which will somehow impact on the future of these modified seeds, we will have to embrace ourselves for some sudden shake up of how things come to the marketplace. If we are weary of these new seeds, perhaps we should allow ourselves the opportunity to put planting first and then storing up these seeds for the time when natural seed can no longer exist, due to one reason or another. When we are faced with hunger, then bad things don’t count!

The China Asean AFTA: will there be turmoil?

2010-04-22T02:49:00.000-07:00

January 2010 was a milestone of sorts. After years of negotiations, the China Asean free trade agreement (FTA) came into force. It was a grand plan of sorts. For a start, the whole market has a population of almost two billion people. For another, tariff barriers on 90% of the goods between the two regions were slashed down dramatically. The repercussion is that Chinese goods will have very little barrier in getting into Asean. And Asean goods will get easier entry into China. Well and good on the surface but when put into practice, the picture is full of discords.

When we look into the nature of goods from the two parties, we will be able to see what is going to happen. Take the example of consumer goods like rubber shoes (more appropriately called plastic shoes since the rubber parts have been mostly replaced by plastics), we have countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines producing quite a large amount mostly for domestic consumptions. Now, with reduced entry barrier of Chinese made shoes into Asean, these manufacturers in Asean will not be able to compete with the imports. The result; they would probably have to close shop, just like those in Malaysia.

What about the impact on China? Well, China says since they have the economies of scale, let them make the shoes and to make the equation look good, China says it will buy more of the raw products from Asean. So Asean has to restructure its economy to that of going back to selling raw materials like palm oil, timber and maybe some rubber (for making tires, not shoes). Like wise for other consumer products, there is no future for its manufacturing in Asean. For Asean, the future is going to be raw and semi-raw materials and maybe some high tech products that China might be willing to buy, not necessary to fill its needs (they do produce high tech products don’t they) but to make the FTA viable.

Out of all those important aspects of the FTA, one thing seems to be glaringly absent. That is intellectual property protections. Due to the low level of observance of intellectual property rights in both Asean and China and the lack of solid intellectual property laws and the diverse range of maturity among the group, no agreement has been reached on IPR and it might as well be. Perhaps there is no need for intellectual property protection here! China knows that it has the muscle to produce at the cheapest cost. If any member of Asean thinks that they can make cheap counterfeits of Chinese goods and sell it in Asean, then let them do it. Which obviously they can’t. On the other hand, China is not worried about buying counterfeit raw materials because the buying method is different from consumer products. They know that their money buys the real thing, so there is no need to observe intellectual property rights.

So what about the future? OK, it will probably take a decade to overhaul the marketplace. Asean industries that don’t have economies of scale will just have to wilt. In the meantime, China will have time to ride out the world economic recession. Never mind if the US buyers are not ordering; Asean will take up the slag. Ten years down the line, Asean would have revamped its economy to complement those of China. And there would be no reverse back. China in its part might dish out some investments in Asean on high tech products that have western intellectual contents. It would not be able to attract American investments on high technologies on its shore because it can’t guarantee western IPs in China.

As a result, some members of Asean will have high tech industries with American IPs and Chinese money and they would be termed politically correct. And America would be happy for staying out of the China circle with their IPs and still makes a sale to China via Asean. So will the Japanese, the Koreans and the Europeans stay happy following the example of the Americans? OK, it looks like the best of both worlds and trade war averted. What about India? Well, they of course will gain on receiving outsourcing jobs from the industrialized countries. What more do they want? As for Brazil, Russia and Mexico, probably small investments from the west to keep them in the picture and not allow them to rock the boat!

Is ACTA in contravention of basic human rights?

2010-04-10T00:24:00.000-07:00

As far as Europeans are concerned, they have it enacted in the laws that says everyone have a right to be heard in a court of law before they can be deem to be convicted of any crime, and that they are entitled to a fair and public hearing. Not only that, they must be given a reasonable time to be heard by an impartial body dully sanctioned by the state.

According to news going around the blocks, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) that is being championed by the US and gaining momentum with many nations agreeing on changing their copy right laws in support of copyright holders, specifically music and video producers, is being challenged by law groups who said it contravenes basic human rights if it were to be adopted.

With the adoption of ACTA, service providers will be given the onus to cut off the lines of customers who are suspected to have illegally downloaded copy righted files from the internet. This power if enacted will however clash with the basic human right law enacted by many states earlier. If the American First Amendment Law were to be taken at face value, then ACTA will surely be deemed as illegal and unenforceable in the US Courts.

Who is wining the music download game?

2010-04-04T20:20:00.000-07:00

It used to be in the news everyday: the music recording industry searching every where to find file infringers and bringing them to court. That was 2008. Then, it was the illegal music down-loaders that were targeted. Most of them caught were students who found the university’s servers to be convenient places to do peer to peer down loads. The university servers did offered the students an anonymous internet protocol (IP) address to illegally download music and movie files. It was a laborious method to track down people. But still, a few thousand down loaders were identified, including innocent housewives who don’t do any internet activities! There was a big hue and cry then when the music owners dragged the illegal file sharers to court. Incidentally, most of them were college students and the affected university authorities were caught unprepared. For the plaintiffs, it was an embarrassment as parents were yelling at their greed for money.

Now fast forward to 2010. There is a change in policy. Instead of tracking down the file sharers, the Record Industry of America is quietly making arrangements with university boards to install a music service program where for a small fee, students can legally download as much of the music as they like. They called it the ‘Choruss’ program. It is being tested in some universities and when it is accepted and proved workable, it would then be introduced on a wider scale. And why not? Instead of being termed illegal file down loaders, the students can now get as much music as they want for a small price, and without the worry of being labeled infringers. Surely the parents would have approved of it. Well, if you can’t beat them, join them! That is the way to make money, not using the big stick to drag people to court. In a similar fashion, the same scheme should be extended to the man in the street as well. Thanks to Apple’s pioneering of less than a dollar piece of legal music, the rest of us will hear less of people being dragged to court.

How to go about setting up an MSC Status company

2010-03-31T00:25:00.000-07:00

Many people have heard of MSC Malaysia Status companies. They have always wondered whether they too can set up one and get to enjoy the many benefits of attaining the prestigious MSC Status. Truth be told. You can get an MSC Status company up and running if you are that determined to do so. It is not that difficult anyway. Here are some pointers that will help you if you are interested to have an MSC Status company in your stable.

MSC Status is opened to both local and foreign companies. Unlike in some restrictive countries, you can have a hundred percent equity even if you are a foreigner. There are big and small foreign companies operating in MSC Malaysia. Some of the big names include Microsoft, IBM and Motorola. They normally set up base in MSC to do research and development. There are about 2500 companies with MSC Status and local setups makes up three quarters of the total.

When MSC was started in 1996, the idea then was to attract world class companies to bring their technologies here. Malaysia was then interested in information technology. It was then the in thing to do, and Malaysia came up with a plan to build a township to house all and sundry to research, develop and make information technology products and services. The original MSC hub was about seven thousand acres and was built from the ground up. World class infrastructure was laid with fiber optics cable, planned roadways and transport systems, affordable housings and a multimedia university to boot.

As activities expanded, MSC Malaysia has roped in other satellite areas (called cybercities) in the country and to accord them the MSC Status as well. For companies to be accorded the MSC Status, it has to be sited in the MSC designated area. As more companies have achieved MSC status, there was a need to extend the MSC area to other less developed regions in the country. As a result of the decentralization move, new areas have been accorded MSC status including Penang, Kedah, Johor, Malacca and even in Sarawak. There are also other purpose built areas and enclaves in Kuala Lumpur as most of the MSC Status companies find it necessary to locate in the capital.

Today, MSC Malaysia has expanded its activities to multi-media animations, outsourcing companies, educational setups, technology incubators, biotechnology, bio-pharmaceuticals and new materials. So with the expanded scope, entrepreneurs will easily find something that they can do. The MSC Malaysia is a government initiative, and being one that is being run with a ten point bill of guarantee, it has attracted world attention. It has help create over twenty thousand knowledge workers and thousands of high technology companies. It is a shining example of a twenty first century vision of what an advance economy model should be.

For a better understanding about obtaining MSC Status, go to MSC Status Insights

My Gene is your Gene?

2010-03-30T02:09:00.000-07:00

According to the books of Myriad Genetics, it is legally correct to be granted a patent on DNA sequences as long as they are claimed in the form of ‘isolated DNA’. Myriad had threatened anyone else using its patented method to test for breast cancer gene! But many others disagreed and among them were the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who were deeply concerned because accordingly, granting a gene patent is morally wrong (in reference to the USPTO).

The repercussions were dire as it would mean that what has been given by Mother Nature has now through a stroke of the pen belonged to some erstwhile lab testing company. The public protestation even brought in Public Patent Foundation, who together with ACLU sued Myriad. The case was subsequently heard in the US District Court. The presiding judge, Robert Sweet, subsequently invalidated Myriad’s gene patent saying that ‘nature’s law’ should not be considered a patent as there was nothing new. However, Myriad will be appealing the judgment and the case will most probably move its way to the US Supreme Court. The final verdict will have great repercussions for mankind and everyone will be watching because a part of their body’s ownership is being contested!

Patents are serious matters, but understanding what they are and how they can be optimized and to benefit you will need much reading and digestion. You can start by visiting How to go about increasing the value of your intangibles

Piracy can't be contained in China

2010-03-29T02:05:00.000-07:00

In a recent hearing, the US House of Foreign Affairs Committee was briefed on the seriousness of the lack of China’s protection of intellectual property rights. According to the report, it was found that 80% of PC software used in China was illegally copied. In reality, the figure could have touched ninety percent as a large number of software used in rural areas which was outside the surveyed area were suspected of being cheap rip offs. An indication of the extend of piracy is the increasing number of court cases.

What exactly is being pirated in China? Computer software is one of the most popular items that get copied around. It’s easily done, without people noticing, and with very little enforcement by the authorities, people just treat illegal copying as legal. Now, if you want to check on software, you have to check it at the company offices, and that cannot be done that easily. There are walls all over the place, security barriers to go through before you can get to the computers. When authorities did manage to penetrate these barriers, users are tipped off immediately; the result is that no copies of pirated software are found. Neither is home users easily napped for using illegal copies.

Of greater concern is the ease of obtaining illegal copies of movie DVDs. It is one of the hottest entertainment items. You can virtually get a copy anywhere and at dirt cheap prices. The network of illegal DVD pushers is so extensive that the moment one of them is being caught, three others are being recruited. It is the poor man's tobacco, so you don’t have the heart to arrest them for going illegal! From the point of view of the government, arresting procurers of pirated DVDs will make people angry with the government. It is therefore logical to close one eye and make the people happy, least they form a revolution and change the whole government.

Get to read more about China IP at China Patent Idea

What are your job options if you have a degree in law?

2010-03-28T02:53:00.000-07:00

If you have been trained in law, then you should choose to practice in law. Unfortunately, not everybody knows what is best and in many instances, when they chose to take law in college, they did so without any clear idea of what they want to do. Youngsters normally follow the advice of their parents, and some parents really like their children to take up one of those prestigious jobs like lawyer and medical doctor. So, just to be obedient, children just obeyed their parents and pursue a course that sounds glamorous but not what they had wanted to do in the first place. And law students are one of the more maligns of the lot. You can study law and be knowledgeable about law, but to practice it in court is another thing all together. Luckily, law students need not begrudge about their predicament as there are other careers that are equally satisfying. Here are a few of them.

Legal Officer

You will find that there are many companies both large and small that employ a technical person knowledgeable in law. There are contracts to be made between company and employees, contracts with clients, legal documents to be enacted and of course there are trademarks to be pursue and in certain cases, patents and copyrights to enforce. All these will require a legal person to undertake and prosecute. So, there is a need for a legal entity and in some large corporations, there might be a need to have more than law officer, each specializing in various fields.

Knowledgeable in intellectual properties

With many companies having built up their intellectual property (IPs) portfolios, there is indeed a need to have an in-house legal advisor on IPs on the team. Companies used to treat IPs as something that came about out of the blue and they only find the need to ask their IP lawyer for advice when there is a need for it. It is of course costly to consult an outside IP attorney, who would most likely charged by the hour. Depending on the type of business, most large companies should employ an in-house team knowledgeable in IPs. Enforcement of trademarks will be better done with a full time officer who can track what is happening, as infringers can come from anywhere in the world. For those that have valuable patents, it is more cost effective to have a team member who knows how to go about enforcing its intellectual property rights.

There are of course other matters that require a person trained in law, like a private practitioner who deals with will drafting. As properties and inheritance become hotly contested items, having a proper and timely drawn up will is becoming very important for the family just so that they won’t be squabbles later on. And of course, not forgetting that there is also an increasing demand for law lecturers in colleges and universities, so going out and teach what you have learned can be very satisfying. As economies get more sophisticated, many countries have found that they have inadvertently become also more litigious among its citizens. It would not be too far fetch if the companies of tomorrow find the need to have at least a member among themselves trained in law. You never know who is watching who now and taking people to court is just so common that companies would be better off equipped with a management that knows what constitutes a legal move.

More about job creations at Just more job creations

This is where a world trade war begins

2010-03-22T02:00:00.000-07:00

In late 2009, with world recession bringing out the worst in economies, and after many great financial stimulus campaigns, China came out with new conditions for bidders of Chinese government procurements. It now demands that companies bidding for government tenders will have to have intellectual properties (IPs like patents and trademarks) originating from China. What it means is that foreign companies will have to register their IPs in China first, and preferably even relocate their R & D to China before they can qualify for Chinese government tenders. This must be one of those new defense strategy that the Chinese are so familiar about; Sun Zhu war strategy. China might have foresaw the unreeling of the world economies! They are perhaps pre-empting the collapse of the world economy. With the big economies reeling from economic stagnation, any form of trade protection will easily start a trade war. Indeed, one has already started.

To make it worse, Google said it will withdraw from the China market come April 2010 after telling the world that its site has been hacked and the Chinese government putting up censorship requirements on its operation. There was also the issue of intellectual property thefts. The China market seems has to be a no go area for foreigners. China's priority seems to be to safeguarding its own economy first, and does not care about what happens to the rest of the world. With China expecting to be the second largest economy in the world comes 2011, whatever happens in China will greatly affect the recovering of the rest of the world’s economy. Already, China is winding down its ownership of US treasury papers in early 2010, with the effect of causing the value of the dollar to be destabilized, and followed by a rise in oil prices, the rest of the world can only just watch by. Is China factoring in the fall of the dollar and the collapse of the US economy, or is it more concerned with its own financial stimulus plan which has to be dis-continued? Perhaps bringing some funds back to China and help propping up its domestic economy is a safer bet?

However way we look at it, 2010 could end with great upheavals, if not in the Americas, then perhaps in the EU. There is just too much rot in the developed countries and very little solutions to cure those ills. Over in the US, job creation just seems to be unsustainable. There is money in the banks, but nobody dares to borrow for fear of not being able to repay loans. As a result, most industries are just opting to sustain themselves by hiring workers only as a last resort and by contracting workers on a monthly basis. With the major economies stagnating, and some economies on the brink of insolvency, and when shove comes to push, there is a real danger that economic walls will be the only option. But if a trade war indeed comes about, then when looking back, we will surely have to nail its cause to the housing crisis back in the US in mid 2008. Will we learn any lesson then? Not likely! Its laissez faire as usual!

Your MSC status company benefits

2010-03-15T22:29:00.000-07:00

Would you want to startup a company and get all these benefits? It is called the MSC status company benefits and they are:-

• Getting Pioneer Status (on easy terms) - 100% exemption from taxable statutory income for ten years.
• A 100% Investment Tax Allowance (ITA).
• Freedom to source capital and borrow funds from any sources.
• Duty free import of sophisticated multimedia equipment (DFI) for your enterprise.
• High-powered one-stop agency to assist your business startup.
• Easy remittance of fund out of the country with a no hassle policy.
• No undue censorship of the Internet.
• Freedom to importing knowledge workers.

There is this jewel of a place where you can startup your business and get loads of incentives including financial, logistical and market access. It is called MSC Malaysia. If you are into new media, information technology, animations, biotechnology, bio-medicines, bio-pharmaceuticals, new materials, generic medicines, and alternate energy, then MSC Malaysia is the place to be. A government development center, MSC houses all the big names of industries like Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Shell, DHL, Ericsson and many others. It does not matter whether you are big or small; all it takes is that you have something new and potential and you would like to share it with the world. MSC sits at the center of over two billion population and growing fast by the day. It also has the world’s largest free trade agreement encompassing China, Australia, Japan, Korea and ASEAN so you will have no complaints about the market. Would you not blink your eyes? If you are interested, surf over to
MSC Status benefit to learn more about this jewel of a place.

Does a Rapid increase of number of patent filings in China indicate its trading prowess?

2010-03-08T21:48:00.000-08:00

The statistics shows that in a year where everyone is trying to recover from the financial crisis, there is a dip in the amount of intellectual property filed with the various bodies. According to a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) statistics, there has been a reduction of PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) filings from around the world by as much as 4.5% in 2009. There are no surprises here. One main reason being that people are busy trying to salvage their companies in the light of dipped sales. It would only be logical that some of those funds earmarked for use in intellectual filings be allocated to something else that is more life threatening. However, looking deeper into those stats revealed that in contrast to the Western countries, the Eastern block of countries comprising China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan shows an increase. IP filings can wait. Indeed, China became the fifth largest PCT filer with a strong growth rate of 29.7%, representing some 7,900 international applications. These figures are giving those technocrats in Washington nightmares. In the same period, the US filing rate fell by over 11 percent. But does a fall in filing an indication of trouble, or for that matter does an increase indicate a great prowess?

On the surface, it does seem as a troubling sign when the IP filings dip because IP filings always precede the actual output of products, sometimes by three to four years. If there is a continuous decline for a few years, it will result in a declining growth for the future. However, IP filings today is quiet different from years gone by. The phenomenon started when the USPTO begun granting patents to software and business processes in the eighties. The result was an immense surge in the number of IP filings from all quarters. It was like a gold rush, notwithstanding that IP filing cost went up by several notches. It was more like every Tom, Dick and Harry putting in their last dime for a piece of cake. Fast forward to the days when in China, already swelled by a large and surging direct foreign investment, together with plenty of government encouragements, people were beating each other to file whatever they have in hand, never mind if it qualifies at all of being patentable or not. The factories were running at almost peak levels and the people running the R & D department had to do their share too. So it was a race of sorts; a race to beat your fellow men to see who is more sophisticated.

From the point of sophistication, it would not be surprised to find that there is very little matter in the China filings. Most of the patents don’t belong to those cutting edge types. Indeed, most of them are just variation of existing items. It is more of like patent splashing. You just go out and buy yourself a few cans of paints and start to splash it all over the place, like painting graffiti. That is just what is happening in China, and to a lesser extend in Taiwan and Korea. There will not be any revolutionary technology coming out from there. We can be sure that in another decade or so, those products with a make in China tag will not change the way we do things, like what Apple, or even Google had pioneered the way of life as we know of it now. The reason is because people’s mind takes a long path towards innovation and that has not occurred in China as it occurred in the west. It takes time and plenty of space. In particular, a space of free enterprise and an entrepreneurial spirit that is not constrained by the state and authorities. China has been a great factory backyard helped mostly by American money and buying power. In its endeavor to catch up with the west, it has invested a lot of money in enlarging its pool of technocrats and engineers, but sadly to say, you need something more to be able to bake that cake. You need freedom, freedom to explore, and freedom to do what you like, without having to be fearful of going against the grain.

2010-02-20T01:26:00.000-08:00

There is no protection whatsoever—wherever you may be!

The headline reads-----"40 people killed as they were about to start praying in a mosque when its minaret collapsed". The historic mosque, situated in the town of Meknes in Morocco, is an 18 century built edifice from adobe, a sun-dried brick of earth and straw. At the time of the tragedy, the mosque was packed with worshipers for their Friday prayers. A tragedy no doubt and of all places it happened in a place of worship! Of course this is not the only tragedy of its kind. There had been many such happenings all over the places. It does beg the question of whether there is indeed such a place where man can be save from the elements and it seems that even the almighty up there could not do anything?

Some would choose to call it an act of divinity. But whatever makes it happen, mankind will not get to learn about it, whether in this world or hereafter. No matter what mankind built, there is no protection what so ever that it will remain in perpetuity. The wind reminds us that it is uncontrollable. The sun is more forgiving by its sure rising and setting from the horizons. And the weather……….? It is now a big issue. More like mankind burning out of control, after being addicted to comfort derived from the use of fossil fuel. From the seas and oceans, man has harvested its richness and in its wake, left nothing else but utter destruction. Tell it to the Japanese that they should not kill off the whales and you get an astonished look like it was never written in the bible. The killing has to go on…just so that the restaurants remain viable and the hunger can be appeased.

If one were to look at all those sinful things that man secretly did, there is absolutely no reason that the almighty should give man its dues. Mankind, the modern type, is always seeking to satisfy his hunger for more, for mightier, and for grander lives to live. Many things are taken for granted. Like a chosen son, the priority must be man himself, even though there is no such edict. Look at the other species that are unfortunate to share with us this world; they have not got any protection at all. In fact, they are more likely being harvested to satisfy man’s greed or if they were harmful to man, then they become the target of extermination. Sometime even ruthlessly exterminated, as if they don’t deserve to be on the ‘A’ list! So man, the destroyer, should not get protection what so ever from the almighty, regardless of whether they belonged to the sinful or the sanctimonious class. To the animals and the birds that roam our earth, there is only one thing; that they obey the natural laws like eating to appease hunger and to pro-create. Perhaps mankind should abandon or played down all those things that they said they are doing in the name of the almighty!

It’s too late dude, we have bought too much rubbish!

2010-01-21T06:55:00.000-08:00

Yes, the situation is quite hopeless. We are of course talking about China. Google just revealed that doing business in China is just a stupid idea. In reality, you can’t make Chinese money like the way the Chinese make American money. Reality bites and it is painful. Least many people are carrying buckets of money to dump into Chinese factories, let it be a reminder that China has the dubious title of being the world’s largest un-elected government. It is also propped up by an active army of over two million troops. And there is no such a thing as human rights there. What the government does, no body can say no to it. And it takes another brave giant like Google to confront it head on and loose the fight.

But China is unlike any other country. It holds about two trillion dollars worth of US security papers. If Chinese interests (read as those who govern China) are threatened inside their country, then either of two things will happen. Either the rulers will escape from China and head for the US and live off the money that is stashed away in the US, or if the threat is from outside China (could be outside forces working inside China like Google or Baidu), then China will throw their security holdings into the market and destabilize the US dollar! Either way, it looks like a no win situation for everybody.

And how did the present situation came about in the first place? There is no doubt that it came about because of the great buying spree from the Americans for Chinese goods for over a decade and a half. The situation was made worse by the mad rush to pump in money into China to start even more manufacturing plants (mostly American money). Today we have an excess of Chinese factories making everything from Christmas trees to nuts and bolts, and their outputs have to be channeled to Chinese domestic buyers as western orders withered under the strain of global monetary crisis. Traditionally, the Chinese don’t buy made in China products if they have a choice. So the Chinese government pumped in 650 billion and gave the money to its citizen to go on a shopping spree. Fortunately the trick did work, but then, how long could the prime pumping last?

On of the side effect of the infusion of money to the Chinese citizen was that the realty sector got a boost. Not that it is no good for the housing and property sectors, but it is just bad economics for a large number of village folks beating each other to buy property for perhaps the first time (under the communist system, their cadres live in low rent houses provided by the state) With easy loans from banks (the banks were told to extend lending), property prices just ballooned because of the artificial demand. You just can’t build houses fast enough. Besides, the Chinese people have that pent up feeling of buying for themselves so called ‘affordable luxuries’ so that they can at least consider their life not wasted under the communist regime. For years, they have heard so much of their brethrens enjoying luxurious living (from their point of view) in South East Asian countries.

Fearing that the situation in China could get out of hand, the Chinese government has just instituted lending tightening. Fears of asset bubbles are just too great and real, no thanks to the knowledge that a similar bubble had catalyst the start of the financial meltdown in the US in 2008. What happened in the US should not be allowed to happen in China because there are about a billion frustrated people there waiting in the fringes for a chance to change their government! And whatever happens in China would have a great bearing to the rest of the world as well. Only the total melting of the polar ice caps is more frightening, perhaps!

Are we moving into a double dip recession?

2010-01-02T00:09:00.000-08:00

2009 is over, and might as well. There was not much of a hope then; after all, we were struck by the world economic crisis of end 2008, which was caused by the housing crisis of the US. Other things came into play as well, especially the shooting to the roof of oil prices and other commodity prices. In retrospect, there was this over confidence in everything. It was early 2007 and because everybody was so sure that they could just buy their way to riches. The credit card people were signing up everybody they can lay their hands on in the US. Even retired people who have no more jobs were lured into subscribing to the plastic card. And as a result, it was spend, spend and more spending, without having to worry where their next dollar was coming from. So were people asked to buy houses and entered into mortgages that they can’t afford to pay. But then, nobody cares, and the authorities who should be the guardians, never even bat an eyelid! One bad thing leads to another and thus begun the world economic crisis.

The shock came when Lehman Brothers was declared bankrupt at the end of 2008. The reverberation from the bank collapse went round the globe. The impossible has happened. At the other end of the globe, in China, people were still grappling with production runs, unaware that the orders that they had secured before would not be honored by buyers that had suddenly have their bank credit cut off. It was here that all the good things got started. With China getting to host the Olympics in the summer of 2008, there was a mad rush to build stadiums and sport facilities. It was this foolish undertaking that caused commodity prices to shoot upwards. The oil price increased followed suit and everybody then has to chase around for most of the things that is available for buying. Food prices went so high that poorer countries had to seek World Bank loans to secure just enough food for their citizens. But in the US, the buying binge just went on as usual, with budget deficit shooting through the roofs. The people here never for once believed their money will run out; after all, there are so many countries that found it convenient to park huge assets in US Treasuries.

Unfortunately the truth begins to strike just when everybody is off guard. The reality is that you can’t go on spending without the roof collapsing. And the roof did collapse with Lehman Brothers as well as many others. 2009 was a terrible year as far as my memory goes. For once, people have to pray very hard, just so that they can get their next order. But orders just simply disappear. Nobody seems to be buying any more! The governments around the world were shocked beyond beliefs. When the reality set in that there is a money crisis, governments around the world had to dig deep into their pockets to put money into their citizen’s pocket so that domestic consumption can continue. In this respect, China had to pump in six billion dollars just so that their manufacturing set-ups can survive the drought of orders from the US. In the US, the government had to buy into the banks and restore confidence so that there are no runs on banks. So too were countries like UK, Germany and Japan, where arrangements were quickly made to pump prime their economies to prevent total collapse. And they hope these measures will get them trough to the next wave?

Looking back again at China, where domestic consumption have continued unabated, the financial policies seems to have worked. But on deeper digging, we find that although the economy is surviving, there is an undertone of great anxiety. The confidence level is no more like pre-Olympics level. The manufacturers are just holding their breadth. Although orders seems to be picking up, the reality is that these orders are coming from goods that are destined for year end festive sale for the US and Europe. What will happen after Christmas? Will there be continuing orders then? If we were to look at the situation in the US, where it is supposed to be the consumption market of the world, there is dark cloud everywhere. Unemployment is everywhere. Due to the financial crisis, firms had managed to trim down to a size that there is no unnecessary bleeding. A lot of inefficiencies were blotted out. The result is that there is no need to look for workers to help out. Everybody is working trim, and when there is real work to be done, overtime is the preferred way, just in case the order dropped off the cliffs unexpectedly.

To be sure, there has been an increase of goods orders. But the reality is that these orders are mostly to replenish those things that have been made to run low due to the economic crisis. ‘Unnecessary inventories’ is that dirty word that nobody wants to be caught out with. So what we see today is a world working with very little fats. It is a new order indeed! It is a world working on the Toyota model of ‘just in time manufacturing’ where you will only order parts for assembling when you get a real order. It is no more speculating, and you do not buy forward at a low price to profit and sell at a higher price later. It is a ‘lean economic’ model. But it is appropriate to look closely at China again. A lot is still going on in this middle kingdom. They are not only buying commodities to sustain their manufacturing, but they are also buying companies around the world, and other big brands as well. Of course they have a big pocket and they still work on an old world basis. It is the Chinese mentality. They know that it will work as there have been seen to work for thousands of years. But it is a new world order. Having the power of a holding cost might not necessary get you to the next doorway!

And the Copenhagen affair is over and gone! There was much hope that the world will be able to take the opportunity to come to an agreement, between the rich and the poor countries to effect an upgrading in technologies that can affect our climate. Unfortunately, nothing came out of it, and it is doubtful there is salvation to that. The truth is that the rich countries or their governments do not see it as a good political move to give away the much need money and the poor countries can’t afford to make any changes to their technologies as there is no more money around. Overall, the world will be heading towards self destruction by over burning their fossil assets. But because there is no inertia of the monetary kind, and when money doesn’t flow, the poorer economies will get poorer and thus will impact the recovery of the world economy. People are just waiting for the mullahs to come and they will still be waiting come 2012 or even later! We have missed the chance to get a turnaround this time.

There has lately been a fear that our economic problem is veering into a double dip recession. This has been sounded out by non other than the Honk Kong Chief Executive in a New Year message. He should know what he is talking about as he can see the money movements (or the lack of it) and he is close to the manufacturing heartland of the world. He cautioned that a double dip recession is a possibility. From the way it looks, especially the scenario in US, UK, Greece, Spain, Iceland and some other unfortunate countries in Africa, there is indeed a new world order. One in which the majority of the people have no money to continue their consumption behavior of the past. A closer look at the US will tell us that for Americans to continue spending, they will have to print more money and hold inflation level at the 2009 level. It is a double blind for the US government. To print more money will devalue the dollar against other currencies and will effectively made buying more expensive for Americans. Inflation will reign and the poor will get poorer. Buying spree will nosedive. As a result, the world’s manufacturer (especially China based) will go back to receiving no new orders. How much longer can they hold? Perhaps another economic prime pumping exercise again? Is it possible for a double or even a triple dip recession?

2009-12-22T18:52:00.000-08:00

What ails our small industries? Could “flipping the model” be the answer?

Your guess is as good as mine. Well, all most. But a report from a “special task Force on Diversifying the New York State Economy through Industry-Higher Education Partnerships” indicates that perhaps our small industries should change the way they do business. In particular the way they bring about new ideas and innovations. You see, all along the way, industries have depended on either their own people or those working in research institutions to come up with ideas. However, because of cost constraints, most small industries and enterprises can’t afford their own R & D department, or even if they have one, little comes out of it. Whilst most researches are done at universities and state funded research institutions, the ideas that come out of it doesn’t fully feed into industry demands, simply because researchers don’t understand industry demands, or they are out of date. How then to resolve the mismatch?

What the New York State Economy special task force recommended was that instead of the industry people looking for ideas from the institutions, the industry people must go to these institutions to tell them what to research, and to come up with ideas that the industry needs. Now, that is a no brainer and something that should have been done long time ago. In an apparent emphasis of the importance of idea creation, the task force indicated that “intellectual properties are the raw material that leads to the creation of companies, jobs, and wealth”. Period. They also charted a way for New York based industries to talk to New York Universities. Julie Shimer, CEO of Welch Allyn, a New York-based medical equipment manufacturer and a member of the task force said “industries need to change the habit of waiting for researchers to come up with ideas, and instead should challenge them to develop ideas that would help our strategic needs and plans”. The idea is simply called “flipping the model”.

It is indeed a sad truth that there are tons of ideas sitting in the vaults of institution of higher learning, some of them have even obtained patents that are near expiring and without any takers for commercialization. And all those work paid from the people’s money! One of the obvious reasons is that academia is run for the sake of expanding education; it is not run to complement the industries. Looking at the heart and model of most universities, even some who are touted to be modern will show that academia is a traditional showpiece, one that has not changed its practice since the early days of education. It is a very inefficient machine. It creates mounts of books, research papers, most of which sits in the vaults, waiting for the day someone to pick it up and work on it. Unfortunately, there is no urge to change the system in these silver citadels because somehow or rather, the budget to run them is always available. You seldom see universities getting bankrupt! But just for how long, you may ask? This “flipping the model” idea might just be the start of the wind of change, and for good measure too.

2009-12-09T19:03:00.000-08:00

Intellectual property rights might exacerbate world hunger!

There are an estimated 200 million hungry children in the world now, and most of them lived in squalid conditions in countries that are inundated with floods, drought and man made war. Their sustenance is being partially supported by world food aids from developed nations. But as these poor malnourished children numbers are increasing at an ever alarming rate, the availability of food aids is decreasing due largely to pilferage from organized corrupted groups operating with or without the knowledge of local authorities. So what can be done to alleviate the situation? What about those wonder foods created by biotechnology that the developed countries have been espousing?

True, there have been much progress in the development of genetically modified (GM) strains of corn, wheat and rice but there has been a great fear from the under developed countries that widespread cultivation of these wonder crops might shackled them to the patronages of companies who have made the GM possible. The reason is that GM species of food crop comes with intellectual property rights. The patents belonged to the companies, most of which are giants from the west. Developing countries would not like to be chained to their necks. Could they not develop their own varieties, even though they might not be as good as the GM species? But when you are poor, and in need of aids, there is no resource to develop it on your own and receiving aids is the only solution.

It does look as if the developed countries are just biding their time with their GM programs. They know that sooner or later, the poor and the destitute will have to plant these GM species. What not when the world’s weather pattern is rapidly changing with global warming. Freak weather report is almost as frequent as the local scandals, and mankind just can’t do anything about it in the short term. So feeding the world will become a big task and the only way is to plant better crops, with or without the blessings of the patent holders. Will a time come when the GM patent holders have to give away their properties just to avert world hunger and in somebody’s courtyard? Certainly not by any measure! So it would be good to assume that intellectual property rights will exacerbate world hunger instead of its stated intention of helping mankind to progress.

December 10, 2009.

2009-12-01T00:39:00.000-08:00

Small is the only way to survive!

Here is the clincher. Apple sold seven million iPhones in third quarter 2009 and Nokia sold 113 million of theirs. But it defies logic when the profit Apple made is 1.6 billion dollars compared to Nokia’s 1.1 billion dollars! Some economists are scratching their heads because the doctrine that they espouse seems to be working in reverse. Yes, we have been told often that the most efficient way to go about anything is have economies of scale. It has always been true that it works out very costly if we will to just make one unit instead of making multiple units. Even a child will know that. But why then is Apple’s profit so much more than Nokia’s even though they are only churning out a small number of phones?

Ah, the reason could be that the profit margin for Apple is much higher than Nokia’s. Unfortunately, this is not a clear cut case as Nokia also have good margins for some of their smartphones. Perhaps, Nokia has grown too much and spreading it thin with churning out many models, some of which not selling too well. Indeed, almost three quarters of their models are considered duds and have to be withdrawn from the market prematurely. Obviously, Nokia is not the only example, nor the phenomenon is exclusive to the mobile phone industry. A look at the automobile market tells a similar story. We have the big threes like GM, Chrysler and Toyota having to trim down their productions during the financial crisis. Some of them even faces bankruptcies and had to be baled out by their governments. But look at the small players like Ferraris and Porsches! They are doing well with plenty of orders. So small is the way to go!

Small is indeed the preferred way. Smallness will ensure that a change in direction can be effected during trying times. A mouse can easily outwit an elephant. Going forward to the next decade, it would be useful for business schools to champion the small enterprise. It would be even better if they can operate in their niche area. In today’s economic climate, where competition is everywhere, there is a real need to create unique brands where people can associate with. No where will we find it truer than in the land of the middle kingdom (read China). Here you can find thousands of factories turning out similar looking goods with almost similar sounding brands with each trying to undercut each other in their prices. It is the norm here that for a product costing a hundred dollars, the production profit is around two dollars! So, before you jump into starting your business, first, think SMALL. It might be the only way for our troubled world.

Can you be sure that your idea will work 100%?

2009-11-09T20:54:00.000-08:00

According to Guy Kawasaki, “if you are not confident about your own product, then nobody else will be. Believe in yourself, believe in what you believe and the world will follow your belief”. As much as I would like to endorse what he said, I would like to add that you will never have a one hundred percent belief that your idea will work the way you envisioned it. The most you can have is thirty percent. Make it sixty five percent if you have conducted life testing on it. Behind this truth is that no matter how good you can design your product, you will always have that fear that perhaps you have not taken into account something that will render your conception unworkable. Although we have to show confidence in what we do, we are after all not infallible, and just like what Murphy’s Law states, “if anything can go wrong, it will”. And what if you are not sure?

If you have an idea and would like others to follow that idea, you will need plenty of showmanship. You not only need to be positive, you also need to act positive, no matter what amount of issues that you are worried about behind your mind. You will also have to pray diligently, hoping that the dreaded thing will not have the opportunity to disentangle all that you have built. But still, acting is acting, and reality will still be reality. Occasionally though, there are people out there who seems to have more confidence than ourselves. They have that intuition that our idea will work, even though they do not know about the mechanism that makes our idea work! And imagine the amount of euphoria that they can give us when they indicate to us that our idea is that fantastic. They are like the missing enzyme that can propel our idea to the stratosphere. It is rare, but it does happen, and most creators need it.

What about those who are dead set that their idea will work out, no matter what? These are incredible guys, no, make it obstinate guys, or gals if you like. They have what we called a ‘one track mind’, and they can really focus well. But unfortunately, some ideas don’t work at all, even after years of trying by their proponent. The least they can say is that ‘well, at least I have tried’. However, some of these ideas are revolutionary, to say the least. And like revolutions, there is a time and place for it to happen. Obviously, stories abound of ideas that failed, and obviously, many others were unrecorded. If however there is a place or a repository of these failed ideas, then perhaps someone can pick on it at a later date, and combined with newer materials, could add one and two together and make it work. If we look at some of those ideas that have changed our lifestyles through the ages, we will find many examples of ideas that are reworked from previous known ideas.

But looking back again where we have others who are more confident about our ideas than we ourselves. It does happen more often than we realize. And it does not confined to tangible ideas only. Certainly when a politician goes up the pulpit and shout out their battle cry for the first time and find that the crowd out there responded with plenty of agreement, the politician’s adrenalin will shoot up few hundred degrees. The unexpected boost will make the politician go further. He is made to believe that even God is with him! So are purveyors of ideas. If you are not sure about it yourself, go out there and tell it out loud and clear. Perhaps someone out there will give you that boost, that so called ‘intuitive endorsement’ that will make everything possible. Don’t be disheartened if you are only thirty percent sure of your idea working. Your other seventy percent might come from somewhere out there, on a fine day!

By an overworked inventor

Quo Vadis EU?

2009-10-22T04:22:00.000-07:00

According to a group of EU thinkers, there is a great need for forward thinking in the types of investments that should be implemented just so that the EU can better compete with the rest of the world. Consisting of policy makers and think-tankers, they have advised that the European Investment Fund (EIF) be expanded to also fund corporate ventures and innovation projects. Much of the funds have been used for building infrastructures and the likes. They would like the politicians to use the European Innovation Act, which will be launched in mid 2010 to better steer the direction of the EU in the face of massive debilitating unemployment among the member nations. Not withstanding the emergence of a third force ( BRIC) knocking at their doorsteps, the EU must seize the opportunity to come together and start leading again like what their forefathers have done during the industrial revolution. Much of their opinion was culled from an online discussion held recently.

Just what are they concerned with? First of all, they are concerned with the limited number of projects that do have a pan European cooperation. Things seem to move very slowly, perhaps due to the differing languages and the lack of impetus from the EU Commission themselves. There is real bureaucracy within the group. So the thinkers are suggesting that less political interference from Brussels and EU governments should be the order of the day. And of course the private sector should be roped in for any kind of investment financed by the EIF. One of the sectors that should be looked into is the intellectual property sector. They have suggested a real relook at the inefficiencies that bestride this sector, pointing to the large number of unused patents that are lying around in research labs and universities. The ideas are there, but there is no lead from those holding the funds, and this cannot go on if the EU is to be group to be respected by others.

Are there areas that the EU can pioneer and lead? Certainly, and they don’t have to look too far away. Remember there was a time when the combustion engine was the new toy. Well, the automobile is still the thing to get around places, and not forgetting to show off as well! In the face of global warming and the melting of the North West Passage, what can be better than to reinvent the car and make it greener? Europe, and in particular Germany, has got very little to show as far as designing a greener car is concerned. The Japanese are leading with their hybrid engines, followed by the Koreans. Can EU be depended on with reinventing the ubiquitous car? It is going to be a difficult task, looking at the disarray thrown up by the sale of Opel. And pressure is running high with the Copenhagen round in December 2009 where the leaders from around the world are scheduled to knock out an agreement to tackle global warming. There are noises from the emerging markets to get access to green technology for a song if they are to sign any sort of agreements to bind them to cut gas emissions but the question is whether a disarrayed Europe can have anything to concede? Perhaps only when they start to lead again, perhaps years after the Copenhagen summit!

2009-10-06T22:17:00.000-07:00

Virtual world problems heading for real world courtrooms

Whilst the recession has brought many real world economies to its knees, and many companies looking at cutting down employees number, the good stuffs has taken place in the virtual world. Yes, Second Live and Everquest have gained ground. So have many computer games companies recording strong growth for 2009. And one of the unbelievable things that happened in cyberspace is the stealing of intellectual properties. In cyberspace, you can buy or trade items that others have created to dress your virtual avatars, or to arm them so that they can win combats. There is buying, trading and stealing in virtual space now, and these activities will only increase as the activities claimed more adherents.

Just like in the real world, trading activities of virtual entities have their share of problems. People who patronize virtual websites have begun to horn their skills to such an extend that they have found it necessary to steal ideas and properties designed by others. The alternative is to pay for these items. Instead of buying such objects legally with virtual money, they just copied them without permission. Those who had earnestly spent their time creating these virtual objects are at a lost as to how to seek redress. And bringing these robbers to court might proved to be costly. To make it worse, real world lawyers who can understand this virtual world going on are few and difficult to find.

Just how big is the problem then? It was estimated that the virtual world transaction for 2009 could reach $5 billion! The virtual transaction cost for the US was estimated to be over $600 million for 2009 and growing at a rapid pace. There are many who now spend their full time designing unique caricatures, avatars, weaponry and costumes and put them up for trading and sales in the virtual space. And like the real world, they should have them copy righted, just in case someone comes and just copied it and called them theirs. Although in legal terms, once you have created something, and published it, you should hold the copy right; but in reality, you should seek proper documentations and proofs so that others cannot dispute it in a court. So a little bit of real world practice is needed if you want protection and a peace of mind, cyberspace or not.

2009-09-19T19:43:00.000-07:00

Dump that car now.

I now realize that the earth is warming towards a cataclysmic endpoint. No. I did not realize it yesterday. I still don't realize it now. I am told. Yes, everywhere you go, you are reminded to do your part. What part, you might ask? Global warming.....yes, we are constantly reminded that we have lead a spoiled life. We have over burnt! We have designed our lives around comfort, we drove in comfort, worked in comfort, lived in comfort.........and the bill goes on and on...And in the process, burnt away all those fossils that nature took millions of years to bake. Perhaps now, we are reaching towards irreversible self destruction? I prayed not, otherwise, others (those who came before us and those who are supposed to come after us) will blame us for the debacle! Where will we be able to hide then?

Here are some somber stats that might say something. Americans spent one third of their total fuel consumptions on using their cars and trucks. If they were to be deprived of using their vehicles just for twenty four hours, the gas that is saved will amount to 8 million barrels, capable of meeting the fuel needs for the whole population of Laos (population of 7 million).........for 7300 year! Is it necessary then to reluctantly wake up to the tune of our alarm clock in the early morning, washed and draped in expensive colognes, rush through bacon and eggs, plunged our bottom in the driver's seat, zoomed through traffic lights and clocked in at our office with just one minute to spar.

That is work you said, with a tinge of pride. Mind you, mankind (the modern type), have been doing it for hundreds of years. Oops....sorry, mankind was on the wrong path for hundreds of years.....and still is. So now, we ought to do something about it yeah before it is too late to do anything. Looking hard at it, I still could not fathom why we should be doing those silly things that we have been doing for hundreds of years, in the name of work? And this driving to work thing is really stupid, to say the least. Starring at the other frustrated guy during traffic crawls is even more stupid. But it is certainly not true that the whole world is doing such stuff. Just for want of an example, look no further than this Shangri-La place called Bhutan. Nestled somewhere between the Himalaya mountains and India, Bhutan does not have highways (those that allowed autos to speed at one hundred over miles per hour). Oh no...it’s incorrect, it does have highways, but those that straddles up high mountains and serviced by horses and mules.....Yes, this Bhutan and many other less known places don't have this thingy thing called driving to work. Their work place is their farm, situated very close by their homes. They don't need cars and they don't burnt fossils to clock in to work. And when they do go to work, their faces project those smiles that you so seldom see among our office slaves! They really enjoy live, and in the comfort of fresh mountain air to boot. Looking back at those office calisthenics and back stabbing that is too common in our perverted societies, I would like to just ask...wtfiiaa..(sorry for the unspoken expletives)? Can't we just stay at home ....and do our work from there? By doing so, we could have saved loads of fossils and most certainly averted global warming, and there might not been an Iraq war....shhhhh. Just imagine, with all these new fangled devices and crack berries, we should take a holiday in Bhutan and still finish our work from up those sweet mountain air and send it back via satellite connections. We do need a portable battery though! And not to forget mentioning plenty of blessings from our neglected loved ones still staying put pushing those clunky (yah, you are right, even President Obama calls them that) jalopy that sucks in earth's juices just to go to work. If it is anything, we should have good reasons to re-architect our way of doing the 'political right thing' before we stand accused of bringing down mother ship.

Think of intellectual property as Noise: The more the Better.

2009-09-16T19:51:00.000-07:00

So you don't believe?
Well, to most people, when the topic of intellectual property is mooted, they will usually withdraw from giving any opinion or worse, they feign total ignorance. The reason I found out was because intellectual property is a heavy word. Certainly they did not learn it in school. And they probably first come across it reading the news papers. But being the less intellectual types, they probably will not go any further to find the actual meaning from the dictionary (small dictionaries usually don't have the term). Asking Mom or Pop about the meaning probably gets them a vague answer. So as time past, people will just grab the meaning from thin air. And it is usually the wrong one.

Soon enough, they will knock unto a story in the news that some big shot is suing somebody for 'infringing their intellectual property', and since it is a good talking point, the topic was passed around at the coffee table. There, more opinions was traded, but still, no body knows exactly what is that infringement thing is all about. Then, someone asked in a toned down voice does illegal downloads get tracked by big brother? Obviously they were referring to stories of illegal downloads of music as intellectual property infringements. Now, the number piles up here. Big companies filing suits against small little guys for stealing their music (and videos as well). This is noise to be sure, and the bigger it is, the better! People like to add to the noise and want to be in the know. But seriously, when asked what is intellectual property infringement, nobody knows exactly what it is. These things are best left to your lawyers!

And not any lawyers at that, only intellectual property attorneys know what is intellectual property infringements. So for the rest of us, intellectual property means being sued for something. Intellectual property itself don't mean anything. But because of these high profile cases, like the case of Microsoft suing people for using pirated software, and the fact that average Joe could be a victim, people learn more about what constitutes an intellectual property. And being hauled to court for infringement makes a big noise. The bigger the noise, the better the topic, and lives goes on.