The 271 Patent Blog: In an interesting study, John Allison, Mark Lemley & Joshua Walker have taken a microscope to Stanford's IP Litigation Clearinghouse information in search of a defining set of distinctive traits of highly-litigated patents. The study, "Extreme Value or Trolls on Top? The Characteristics of the Most-Litigated Patents," unearthed some interesting gems after separating the overburden from the pay dirt. Among them is this not unexpected discovery:

More than 80% of the most litigated patent suits are filed by NPEs. Overwhelmingly these are filed by inventor-owned or inventor-developed companies; those companies account for 74.4% of the most-litigated patent lawsuits. The share of suits filed by licensing shops actually falls to 6.7% of all suits. Non-practicing entities are a small share of once-litigated patents, but they represent an overwhelming share of the suits filed on the most-litigated patents.

Certain NPEs are often derogatorily called "patent trolls" by some in the intellectual property industry, although the category also includes non-productive inventors. The researchers also discovered at least one patent that had been litigated 97 times, which deserves either an award for stubbornness or a raspberry for making a mess of all things patent protection. Read Peter Zura's Looking at the Most-Litigated Patents for more on the study results and a link to the study itself.

Innovate on Purpose: Michael Mandel's provocatively entitled BusinessWeek.com piece, The Failed Promise of Innovation, continues to create hubbub among the innovation cognoscenti and Jeffrey Phillips joins the fray with a few words of his own. Phillips isn't so sure the end of innovation is nigh:

Innovation isn't dead, and it hasn't failed to meet unreasonable expectations or promises. Instead of creating these false peaks and unrealistic expectations about innovation, perhaps we should simply create the environment where innovation can thrive and get out of the way. Some of the biggest impediments to innovation aren't technological or even monetary, they are cultural and bureaucratic. The next article written about this will certainly suggest that since innovation has "failed" in the private sector, perhaps the Federal Government should create specific programs to "manage" and fund innovation in specific segments[.]

Innovative ideas are destined to fail some of the time and that's part of the magic: without failures, and the drive to try again, there would be no reason to continue researching a difficult solution to a critical problem or start a new business after declaring bankruptcy after a previously unsuccessful venture. Failure is the currency of success; hard-earned and valuable, each false step lead inevitably to untold riches of knowledge, and occasionally, hidden treasure beyond one's wildest dreams. Click on Promises Kept - Why Innovation works for a look at the other side of innovative misadventure.

ArsTechnica.com: The RIAA is going to rue the day they started their ex parte lawsuit campaign, and soon, if rising IP patent lawyer Kiwi Camara has anything to say about it. From Nate Anderson's Lawyers plan class-action to reclaim "$100M+" RIAA "stole", we learn that Camara isn't afraid to dream big, and with the backing of the infamous Harvard legal professor, "Billion Dollar Charlie" Neeson, he's ready to take on the recording industry watchdog in a courtroom death match. Anderson reports, "The recording industry has spent (and continues to spend) millions of dollars on its litigation campaign against accused file-swappers, but if two lawyers have their way, the RIAA will have to pay all the money back. Not content simply to defend Jammie Thomas-Rasset in her high-profile retrial next week in Minnesota, lawyer Kiwi Camara is joining forces with Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson to file a class-action lawsuit against the recording industry later this summer. The goal is nothing less than to force the industry to pay back the alleged '$100+ million' it has collected over the last few years. Perhaps the RIAA had good reason not to send those settlement letters to Harvard for so long." Check out the whole story for details on Camara's proposed battle tactics with some surprisingly clever legal maneuvering in store for the RIAA's litigation team. Ready? Fight!

The New York Times: The new frontier for venture capital investment lies not Westward, as in the previously halcyon days of Silicon Valley domination, but rather Eastward, towards the world's most populous country. Claire Cain Miller captures some of the new-found excitement of pouring LP dollars into new frontiers with her recent article, China Wins for Venture Capitalists Looking Abroad. Here are a few startling statistics to back up the claim that China will soon be the crowned the new king of venture capitalism: "Almost half of American venture capitalists surveyed said China had the most to gain in overall economic stature over the next three years, while only a quarter said the same about the United States. Fifty-seven percent said the United States had the most to lose. Perhaps not surprisingly, just over half of Asia Pacific venture capitalists said China had the most to gain in economic stature, while only 5 percent said the United States did." Ouch! That's gotta hurt the Sand Hill crew where it hurts most, in the pocketbook, as their prospects for continued VC domination rapidly disappear into the ether.

Investors.com: The outlook for VC investing in the US is continuing its grim progression towards un-profitability and eventual failure. An upcoming global survey by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and the National Venture Capital Association will reveal the facts supporting this bleak outlook. NVCA president Mark Heesen is quoted in Venture Capitalists To Entrepreneurs: Hard Times as saying: " U.S. firms may still get most of the VC funding, but they will no longer dominate as in the past. He sees VC groups getting stronger in the U.K., Germany, France and Israel. Moreover, investment opportunities are growing in China, India, South America and other parts of the Asia-Pacific region, and less so in the U.S. One reason is that many foreign entrepreneurs educated and trained in the U.S. have returned home to start companies in the past couple of years. As more VC funds flow into other regions, U.S. firms will have to compete harder for a slice of the pie." Combined the the flood of funds being siphoned off to Chinese investment opportunities, the VC business is sure to see a highly reduced number of new funds as the poorly performing among then fade into black (or should that be red?). There is a one spot of light in the blackness ahead: the future offers the best chances of VC success "for firms in the cleantech and medical device sectors."