Smart governments have backed some of the biggest and riskiest waves of innovation by guaranteeing demand not only for technical solutions themselves, but for the steps along the way. Read More

Everyone wants to know how to build the next Silicon Valley: an innovation hub that draws talent and capital, and that creates jobs, companies, and whole new industries. Many policymakers are overlooking an essential ingredient: demand. Read More

If you’re a history buff, Forbes.com has a great column this week on how and why the Founding Fathers consciously designed the U.S. patent system to work the way it does. Read More

Intellectual Ventures is deeply invested in the business of ideas. We have built our business on the concept that ideas are valuable, and we work hard to create an invention marketplace by investing in, improving, and monetizing invention. Read More

In an important footnote to U.S. economic history, July 31, 1790 marks the date of the first patent granted in the U.S. The Patent Board had only recently been signed into law, and the patent application submitted for improvements “in the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process” was reviewed by no less than Secretary of State and patent-examiner-in-chief, Thomas Jefferson. Read More