Startups, Patents, and Me

This morning, Mobihealth news reported that Bosch Healthcare has sued three companies on alleged infringements of the Health Hero patent portfolio. Although I don't know the details of the lawsuit beyond what is reported, my former role as COO/CTO and author of several patents for Health Hero resulted in me waking to numerous emails asking me what I thought. There was even one that asked me if I felt like I had "blood on my hands." I searched around the bed for a horse head.

Of course, I had three options.

1. Keep my mouth shut
2. Reply "no comment"
3. Blog about my opinion

A smart person would have chosen one of the first two options.

The Caveat
Before I get to my biggest issue, let me be clear that I'm not against patents, only their abuse. Our patent portfolio saved us many times, and was, as a defensive mechanism, a brilliant device. It gave some people confidence to choose us in a competitive situation, for example, with Panasonic. It lead to a license with Philips Electronics and others, who were going to run over the top of us without it. It made us better partners to McKesson, and certainly enhanced our valuation. Most of the credit for the depth and size of the patent portfolio goes to Steve Brown, who started patenting many of these core ideas long before there was a Health Hero Network. If you look closely, priority dates go back to 1992. That's amazing foresight, and also why some of the claims which look "obvious" today are actually shockingly predictive. 

On Startups and Healthcare
My disappointment is predictable and obvious. Bosch is litigating MedApps, Waldo, and Express MD Solutions. These are hardly brand name companies. You only need to look at my dedication to Rock Health or view AngelList page to know I believe Healthcare and Technology (in general) are both best served by supporting entrepreneurs and startups.  Most will fail. Some will change the world. But there is nothing more motivating, exciting, and encouraging than seeing experts of all kinds coming together to solve real problems that scare other people away.

There is a sign that hangs at the doorway to Rock Health, paraphrasing something I wrote in response to a different topic, but it sums up the point of view.

(Credit to Ryan Panchadsaram for the layout and design)

Every "big" company has to decide how to work within its ecosystem. Most simply ignore it, outside large conferences and events. There are some who focus supporting the ecosystem, through the availability of APIs, Hackathons, incubation sponsorships, and other vehicles. There are, of course, also those that choose not to ignore it, and not to support it, but consciously attack. Nothing wrong with that either, but who you choose to pick on matters. I'm uneasy not so much with patent litigation, but with the targeted companies.  I hope the community does not quickly forget this action next time someone offers a conference sponsorship or speaking engagement.

Lawsuits like these have, much to the determent of true progress, become the new normal. With a sigh, I read through the quotes from Bosch defending the process:

"We feel it is important to demonstrate that IP is important, and not just to our company"

Does anyone - and I'm serious, is there a single person - who feels that this demonstrated IP was necessary for other companies? Did you read the article and think "thank you for clarifying that for me, I had no idea IP was important."

Just say it - you have a patent, the system allows you to protect it, and clearly there is some competitive threat from the market you feel the need to defend yourself. Okay, that's fine and within your rights. But when you start to talk about making a demonstration of someone, here's what I read: "We're going to take someone out behind the shed to make a point. We picked someone we know can't fight us with dollars or time, and we're sending a message to the rest of the market." When it's three startups with barely any traction, it's hard to read it any other way.

Now, I have no idea if there's a misquote in there or not, but read this one (emphasis added):

"Bosch is open to working with those companies that are interested in securing this technology through a licensing agreement."

I've got a better idea. Build something people want, and technology licensing won't require a shotgun. Again, I don't know the details, but if this is really about forcing severely outdated technology down the throats of others, that's an even more horrible state. I hope that's misquoted and pure patent license is on the table, if nothing else.

Bosch and Health Hero are better than this. There was a time when we built great, patient-centered solutions to real problems, and there are still so many high-quality people there who are, in the end, only motivated to fix a broken healthcare system. But this can't go without comment – the very companies being litigated against could be the next Health Hero, and the market, the healthcare system, and our patients deserve better. I want Bosch and HealthHero to be great, and I'm sure they can again rise to that greatness, but this is not the path.

While this "demonstration" may be Bosch's right, that doesn't make it right.

Expectations, Ethics, and College Athletics

I usually don't write about stuff like this. First, it's dealing with religion, second, it's a team I don't care about (Sorry, BYU) and I don't follow college sports as, um, religiously as I do pro sports. Don't get me wrong, if "B" in BYU stood for Boston, I'd probably be a fan....but I digress. This is about sports journalism, and what we expect from our colleges and universities today.

Today, Brandon Davies of the BYU basketball team was dismissed for violating the teams ethics standards, known as the BYU Honor Code, which includes things like:

• Live a chaste and virtuous life
• Obey the law and all campus policies
• Use clean language
• Respect others
• Abstain from alcoholic beverages, tobacco, tea, coffee and substance abuse

Let's start right of the top - this is just a subset of what's required, and clearly, I don't qualify, as I sit here swearing about this article, drinking my Starbucks. But I know, clearly, what the rules are. I can see how I fit in, or not. Expectations and requirements are very clear. 

ESPN covered the dismissal, which I read during lunch (after the Apple iPad2 announcement).  The article started with a good summary of how big a blow this might have been:

"A 27-2 record. A possible No. 1 seed. The best and most entertaining player in the country. A chance at a national title. Yes, BYU fans are in the midst of a dream season. The only problem with dreams? Eventually, you always have to wake up."

We're not talking about Duke or North Carolina - the idea that BYU was ranked as high as #3 in the nation, a likely number-one seed going into the tournament, this is more than a big deal for the sport of college basketball, never mind the BYU campus and state of Utah. In a season when there Utah Jazz have dismissed their long-time coach, traded away key assets, and looks non-competitive in the West for the first time in memory, BYU was the torch bearer for the region.

This had to be an agonizing decision for the school, the student, and the community. Not just because of the team, but because maybe, just maybe, they take their honor code seriously. Having a student fail either academically or socially is not a success for the university on any level. I was hoping for the rest of the article to talk about the lone bright spot in college athletics, where honor and ethics take priority over bowl standings and final-four rankings.

Instead, the article took a direction that shocked me:

"Davies is far too important to BYU's chances at a deep tournament run for this to be anything other than a serious violation, or at least "serious" relative to the Cougars' strict rules regarding student behavior at the school."

Everything that is wrong with college sports became crystallized in one sentence. Since they are good this year, it must have been a big deal. Clearly, this implies that if they were not as good "anything other than a serious violation" may have been overlooked. Further, he states "Davies is far too important to BYU's chances" - again implying that his value to the basketball team outweighs his commitment and promise he made to the University. Finally, putting serious in quotes read like a cheap-shot at the Honor Code of BYU.

I'm not Mormon, or overly religious. You could even argue that sports is my religion,  but the faux-reality of college sports has tired me to no end. These schools are openly and actively expected by sports media (and their fans, I expect) to put the sport above their honor code, their academics, and their beliefs. This is about  BYU, of all schools. The only place I could think of being less surprising for dismissing a player on ethical grounds would be The Citadel. Yet here is the media suggesting that sports could, or should, have influenced the decision.

For the thousands of alumni, and students who don't play sports at BYU, I'm personally thankful they did what they did, putting the University above the individual or the team.

I wish that was the story we were talking about.