Innovation & IP Asset Consulting
Convergence for divergent trends

CREATIVITY FOR NEW ITEMS DEMANDED

According to Simon Hage and Christoph Neßhöver from the Management Magazine, only two German suppliers such as T-Systems and SAP can keep up with the competition of the hundred largest technology companies. A strength of the Germans is the optimization of already established products, while the core objective must not only aim at assuring the continued existence. Creativity and risk-taking are lacking factors in this country. Large corporations are primarily about profit maximization, which blocks courageous entrepreneurs and start-ups. At the time of the “founding boom” they had the vision to conquer markets and realize preliminary losses. In order to not loose world ranking, new business ideas and marketplaces must increase, because the result of the lack of vision is as follows: Although there are some German world leaders in niche markets (for example, dog leashes), however, in megatrends (such as smartphones) the German economy’s performance appears rather weak. Creative minds wander off, because other nations lure with far more attractive conditions: creation and innovation is encouraged, creativity promoted, as well as from the political side. There, Germany cannot contend.

ANOTHER SUCCESS STORY IN A GARAGE OF SILICON VALLEY STARTED

 

Mountain View January 2014: For 3.2 billion U.S. dollars, Google took over Nest Labs, a manufacturer of digital thermostats and smoke detectors. The special thing about these devices is that they both conform to the preferences of their users as well as being controllable from Smartphones. Temperatures are automatically lowered when no one is home through integration of motion sensors. This success story is characterized mainly by a targeted patent strategy. After founding the company in 2010, Nest Labs began to secure the monopoly by a pro-active, early purchase of applications and patents. The two founders Matt Rogers and Tony Fadell were once significantly involved in the invention of the iPod and its development at Apple. Google does not only step into new business with the automation of households, but also secures data from millions of households. Even if the CEO Tony Fadell assured that the data will be used only to improve the produced products, Google’s acquisition sparked heated controversies around the topic of data protection.