

Clone Wars: Rise of the Fast Follower Startups - TruffleLabs
http://www.betabeat.com/2011/09/02/clone-wars-rise-of-the-fast-follower-startups/

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ontoillogical
"The reasons for both have to do with the country’s overloaded, backed-up
patent system. A startup’s design and branding can be protected with a
copyright or trademark, which takes six months to a year to process. A new
technology or method, like Groupon’s “tipping point,” would need to be
protected with a patent in order for Groupon to take its clones to court. But
a patent application usually takes two or three or three years to be
examined—an eternity for a web 2.0 startup—and it’s never certain whether it
will be granted, said Elliot Furman, a patent lawyer who has a masters degree
in engineering from Stanford and specializes in software and web start-ups.
And even if a company owns a patent, legal action is difficult, time-consuming
and expensive. Pursuing a case is often not worth it to a young startup,
especially those in the earlier stage who are working with limited funds."

I don't think that the fact that Groupon can't patent their buisness model
quickly enough to ward off competition is the problem with "the country’s
overloaded, backed-up patent system"

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TruffleLabs
The intro is pretty funny. But then this raises the question about how to use
copyright to defend design. And how much design can be defended?

