The JOBS Act appears likely to pass Congress and to be signed into law by President Obama. If so, it may just "jumpstart our business strength" by increasing the funding of worthy startups that may not pass muster with VCs and angels today. See CNET's Rafe Needleman's Reporters' Roundtable: JOBS Act makes crowdfunding the law which gives various opinions on the likely impact of the JOBS Act.
What's this have to do with patents? In a related article, EquityNet claims crowdfunding patent, Mr. Needleman tells us the change in the law is likely to flush out patents and EquityNet already claims it has a related patent (See U.S. Patent Nos. 7,698,188 and 7,908,194) that evaluates startup risk and matches potential investors with startups. EquityNet CEO Judd Hollas expects that without his patented rating of risk the crowdfunding directory of startups will be "a disorganized mess of results." Sounds like business method patents and I expect that the U.S. Supreme Court's Bilski Section 101 decision will come into play to "organize the mess of patents."
Thanks to Alan Cooper for sending the EquityNet claims crowdfunding patent article!
Copyright © 2012 Robert Moll. All rights reserved.
