Archive for December, 2008
Sunday, December 28th, 2008
For those of you who also follow Portland’s start-up scene, the Leftbank project on the east side has been receiving press throughout the year, and recently received more coverage from the Portland Tribune here. The project is intriguing for it’s objective — to house under one roof a group of creative, design and sustainable businesses, which are the types of businesses that already make up a large segment of Portland start-ups. Included among those businesses are bicycle companies, which have also been heavily featured (more…)
Tags: design, green, startups, sustainable
Posted in Corporate, Green Business | No Comments »
Friday, December 26th, 2008
Occasionally we drop by the Kauffman Foundation’s site to see what’s the news at one of the centers of American entrepreneurialism (maybe an overstatement, but it’s very important). Their site is packed full of useful information for the entrepreneurial-minded. We were pleasantly surprised to see on their front page this article about the Foundation’s recent $10 million investment to cultivate innovation-friendly law, policy and legal scholarship. Investment in this area is crucial; the law is notoriously slow to catch up, especially so when applied to innovative industries and 2.0 (more…)
Tags: Corporate, entrepreneurs, Intellectual Property, startups
Posted in Corporate, Intellectual Property | 1 Comment »
Thursday, December 25th, 2008
Next month’s cover story in Oregon Business Magazine is about the recent growth of Oregon’s bicycle industry. It’s great to see an industry so resilient — and prosperous — despite the floundering economy. So add Oregon’s bicycle industry to the handful of growth industries that make this area so unique, like green tech, outdoor apparel, design, and microbrewing, among others. As these industries grow, expect to see smaller companies sprout up around the main players, providing complementary products and services. (more…)
Tags: bicycles, entrepreneurs, oregon, portland
Posted in Corporate, Green Business | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
Of the many challenges that face start-ups, one is assembling a network of advisors to assist in achieving the company’s goals. Fortunately for Portland area companies, there is a strong entrepreneurial community that plays that role. Think of groups such as OEN, OTBC, Oregonstartups.com or even OECDD, not to mention the wealth of Internet resources. On a national level, the federal Small Business Administration (SBA) plays a significant role in providing financing to start-ups, as we wrote (more…)
Tags: Corporate, financing, startups
Posted in Corporate | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008
Sometimes it can be hard to keep up with the green business wave sweeping over Oregon. In the wake of last week’s news about foreign solar companies choosing the Portland area for their American headquarters, we wrote a post about the various tax incentives, and other reasons, that green companies are attracted to this area. Apparently the news is spreading: the Wall Street Journal recently published this article on more renewable businesses choosing to locate in the Portland area.
(more…)
Tags: green business, portland, renewable
Posted in Corporate, Green Business | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008
While browsing through earth2tech’s daily roundup of headlines for green startups we came across a couple of stories about startups receiving “Series A funding,” which made us think about the many ways to finance new businesses. Getting an idea from A to Z requires money, often from an outside source (if you can get any these days). Outside money typically comes in the form of bank loans, a sale of securities (often called a “private placement of securities”), venture capital or government (more…)
Tags: financing, green business, Securities, startups
Posted in Corporate, Green Business, Securities | 2 Comments »
Friday, December 12th, 2008
We recently came across Read Write Web’s coverage of Google’s new Chrome Browser.When we saw their article this morning about the controversy over Chrome’s End User License Agreement (EULA), including their call for a trained legal eye to have a second look at it, we couldn’t resist. After all, I did say in my previous Transferring Copyrights post that I’d write about Open Source Software soon.
(more…)
Tags: copyright, google chrome, open source software, oss
Posted in Copyrights, Intellectual Property | 1 Comment »
Thursday, December 11th, 2008
With a wealth of creative companies in the Portland area, one of the common legal issues we see as attorneys for small businesses, and especially for advertising agencies, is who owns the copyrights to the work that these agencies produce. This post builds upon my earlier post, Transferring Copyrights, and is written specifically for this legal issue. Agencies are often wise enough to enter into detailed written contracts with the companies for which they agree to act as agency of record. And, (more…)
Tags: advertising, advertising agency, Copyrights
Posted in Copyrights, Intellectual Property | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 10th, 2008
With the national economy in the dumps, and Oregon as a whole not doing much better, one of the lone hot areas for entrepreneurs, especially in the Portland area, appears to be in starting up so-called green businesses. There is no exact definition for a green business, but there are certain characteristics that seem to indicate some companies are more conscious about the environment, saving energy and reducing waste than others. However you define this group of companies, a green wave of growth is happening in Oregon. Outside businesses are choosing to locate here and new businesses are opening their doors.
(more…)
Tags: Corporate, green business
Posted in Corporate, Green Business | 5 Comments »
Monday, December 8th, 2008
As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, “Copyright Basics,” copyrights give their owners a bundle of exclusive rights — to copy, distribute and perform. Owners can voluntarily transfer any or all of these rights in a variety of unique ways, including by transferring them all together, breaking them up and transferring them individually, or even further dividing them by, for instance, permitting any of the rights to be exercised at certain times and locations. An example would be a publisher who enters into an agreement allowing a distributor to sell a magazine only in Portland for the month of December. Owners can also transfer their rights on a exclusive or non-exclusive basis, giving even more flexibility to parties in negotiating over who gets what.
(more…)
Tags: Copyrights, Intellectual Property
Posted in Copyrights, Intellectual Property | No Comments »
