This is the year of the unicorns. Or maybe just the year of unicorns going public. Firms including Lyft, Uber, AirBnB, WeWork and Pinterest either have, will or are contemplating going public. Last week, The Economist published an interesting briefing on unicorns. The primary thesis is that they are overvalued. At heart, their users are not faithful, and barriers to entry won’t stop competitors from encroaching on their base. Yet, for all the reasons unicorns try to downplay this concern, there’s no mention of patents and IP as a line of defense. Why not?
Read MoreThis week’s edition of The Economist addresses an interesting spin on the prospects of budding Silicon Valley startups living under the shadow of Big Tech. The fantasy of getting bought is being supplanted by the reality of getting taken out. The Economist argues that startups now live within a kill zone maintained by Big Tech—either sell out on our terms, or we’ll co-opt your technology and launch our own product. While antitrust may be one solution to give more leverage to innovators, what about patents?
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