New York SBDC Research Network

Looking for a deep dive into U.S. patent trends to help inform your next invention? The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) PatentsView tool allows individuals to explore nearly 40 years of data on patenting activity in the United States. Data has been categorized and is easily searchable by patent titles and types, inventors, assignees, patent classes, locations and dates. So whether you're looking for the top inventors of the 1980s or the total amount of patents a company owns, the tool can serve as a source of history and inspiration. Read more at: patentsview

This isn't a story about nudity; it's a story about disruption and innovation. Times, tastes and technology have changed everything. Even at 89, Hugh Hefner understands a simple fact: In today's rapidly evolving world you innovate or you become irrelevant. It's the biggest challenge facing businesses around the world... It may seem ironic to think that the very nudity that Playboy pioneered has been "overtaken" by the Internet where you are "one click away from every sex act imaginable for free." However, that's always how it happens. The thing that made you famous won't keep you relevant in a progressive world. Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975, but it was so focused on its film and printing domination, it missed every opportunity in digital. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2012. Blockbuster created a desire to rent and stay in to enjoy movies from the comfort of our homes, and passed on the opportunity to buy Netflix, not ...

Search engines like Google are wonderful for anyone wanting to perform standard searches. Google has an amazing ability to cover the depth and breadth of the internet, which is a major reason why so many people depend upon it. Google also has a real knack for always providing the most popular search results first. What happens, however, if you are looking for something that is not popular like ancestral records or obscure historic documents? Now there is another way to perform searches on the internet for your ancestors. It is called Million Short. The name Million Short derives from the fact that this search engine basically ignores the 1 million most popular websites on the internet. Instead, it focuses on less-common websites. Basically, it specializes in what are known as long-tail searches, which focus on the obscure and the uncommon. Many genealogy records are obscure. The search engine worked well in general when looking for ancestral records...

The December-January issue of The Small Business Advocate newsletter features new research from Advocacy, the chief counsel’s review of 2013 highlights, and the chief economist’s perspective on the important policy choices of 2014. The issue also includes reports on regulatory activities in several areas that affect small business: crowdfunding, cybersecurity, reverse auctions, and critical habitat designations. In This Issue (PDF) The Year of Innovation: The Ride to Entrepreneurial Advancement Factors Leading to Firms’ Hiring Their First Employee Positive Small Business Indicators in 2013 and the Challenge Ahead New York City Roundtable on Crowdfunding Comments Filed on Fish and Wildlife Service Proposals Congressional Testimony on GSA’s Reverse Auctions Advocacy Comments on NIST’s Preliminary Cybersecurity Infrastructure

http://www.sba.gov/advocacy/7540/621871 This study investigates whether the age of a business is linked to innovation and productivity, specifically whether young firms have an edge on older firms. Previous research on innovation has shown that small businesses are more efficient at innovation than large businesses. Background/History Innovative productivity is closely related to the life cycles of firms: the flow from exuberant startup to mature firm. Large and older firms are expected to have an innovative advantage because of their resources (large labs, equipment, financing, experience, etc.); small and younger firms have a different kind of innovative advantage in the ease with which they may engage in unrestrained brainstorming (with no cost justification needed).

The idea for Slick Text was born in 2012 when founder Matt Baglia worked for a company that was considering adding text messaging to its marketing mix. After reviewing several providers Matt recognized some common flaws among all of them. Each platform was fairly difficult to understand and use. None of them placed emphasis on educating their customers on how to be successful with their product, and all lacked personal customer service. Matt and his partner Ryan Kinal realized that if they could create a service without those flaws, there would be an excellent opportunity for a piece of the industry’s pie. “When Slick Text first launched, the platform had very few features. It was intended to be a minimum viable product so we could get it in front of customers and start covering our costs. Even though it was relatively basic, we stuck tight to the core ideology of simplicity and it really resonated with the early adopters,” commented Matt Baglia. “Over the past year, new customers...

Follow these rules, and you'll see a dramatic difference in your own team's ability to innovate: 1. Manage Creative Friction The wrong type of friction on teams makes people hate each other and hold back, but the right type gets results. How do you encourage good creative friction? Share the experience. The whole team, including the client, work together through all steps of the ideation process from consumer learning, to analysis of possibilities, to envisioning the final idea. Working with consumers directly to understand their needs and aspirations is an especially powerful bonding experience that gives the team a common sense of purpose, and creates a shared foundation of facts and feelings. Remove communication barriers. People communicate in different ways, so we do social styles analyses to help people understand how their teammates tend to communicate. Are they a driver, amiable, expressive or analytical? They learn that it is not that Harry is necessarily overb...

Previous Advocacy-funded studies of small business patenting activity established the existence of a cohort of independent, for-profit innovative small firms with 15 or more patents over a five-year period. The studies also showed that innovative small firms had a higher percentage of emerging technology patents in their portfolios than their larger counterparts. A recent focus on “green” jobs, businesses, and technology led to this study of a subset of these innovative patent holders [PDF] . This project was designed to highlight differences in the patent activity of small and large firms in green technologies and industries. Small innovative firms in this study are even more productive, measured in terms of patents per employee, than was shown in the previous studies. The current study finds that small innovative firms are 16 times more productive than large innovative firms in terms of patents per employee. Small firms are more likely than larger firms to have green technology as ...

From the executive summary : Innovation and entrepreneurship are crucial for long-term economic development. Over the years, America’s well-being has been furthered by science and technology. Fears set off by the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of its Sputnik satellite initiated a wave of U.S. investment in science, engineering, aerospace, and technology. Both public and private sector investment created jobs, built industries, fueled innovation, and propelled the U.S. to leadership in a number of different fields. Link to full report (PDF) .