M•CAM NEWSLETTER
WINTER 2011
PAGE 1
THE NAVIGARE
WINTER 2011
www.M‐CAM.com
Volume 1, Number 3
FEATURE STORY: INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Regaining Humanity in Papua New Guinea
1‐3
Integral Accounting of a Christmas Tree
2‐5
Special Thanks to “Mamma T”
3
Integral Accounting Hits 4 Nepal Occupy M•CAM
5‐7
Spotlight on Patently Obvi‐ ous
6‐8
Meet our Media Intern: Tara DeLuccia
6
Special Message to our Readers
8
Did You know?
9
Featured Community Mem‐ ber of the Quarter
9
REGAINING HUMANITY IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA By Ken Dabkowski and David Martin Named “New Guinea” by Yñigo Ortiz de Retez in 1545 and later administered by the Germans and Australians until it gained independence from Australia in 1975 the Independent State of Papua New Guinea is home to some of humanity’s oldest cultures. Given its geologic history and inestimable bio‐ diversity, outsiders have seen Papua New Guinea as “a mountain of gold floating on a sea of oil.” Ger‐ man occupiers, Catholic missionaries, and Australian miners and drillers have a long history of seeing the inhabitants of Papua New Guinea as cheap labor on the best of days and a complete nuisance in their quest for resource extraction and pillage the rest of the time. Aided by “development bank” manipulation, misinformation, and explicit inequitable business nego‐ tiations, Esso Highlands Limited, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil Corporation received the license to be the latest in a string of marauding interests in the country. Buoyed by their November 2009 off‐take agreement with Sinopec Corp with which Exxon has agreed to sell 2 million tones of liquefied natural gas (LNG); the PNG LNG Project has enriched several investors while adding to the systematic abuse of the local communities. From “accidental deaths” including a recent fatality of a child who happened to be playing with blast‐ ing caps left unattended by contractors to forced relocation through coercion and force, thousands of Highland communities – many of whom have been living in their villages for tens of thousands of years – have become Exxon refugees. These displaced persons have scattered across the country but many – estimated to be between 10,000 and 15,000 have descended onto squatter towns around Port Moresby. These displaced person encampments have no gardens, no potable water, no sanita‐ tion and no prospect of having these issues addressed. All the while, Exxon trucks, pristine white Toy‐ ota trucks and Land Cruisers, and contractor vehicles race through these dusty villages as they race towards completion of an estimated $15 billion project that will be a windfall for U.S., European, Chi‐ nese, and Japanese investors. For about six years, David Martin had been working on various community engagement projects in Papua New Guinea. Some of the work has included restructuring mining contracts, repatriating land from the Catholic Church to an East New Britain community, and expanding the global reach of the regions first organic certified spice company. Through this previous work in Papua New Guinea, we were introduced to Clement Kanau, a gentleman who sees a future for PNG that empowers the citi‐ zens in partnership with, rather than exploited by, the world. Clement has decided to run for Continued on page 3
M•CAM NEWSLETTER
WINTER 2011
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INTEGRAL ACCOUNTING OF A CHRISTMAS TREE By Denise L. Holman
dates back to the 16th century with trees in guild halls decorated with sweets such as apples, nuts, dates and pretzels to be en‐ When I first started learning about Integral Accounting (IA), David joyed by the apprentices and children. Martin asked each of us to find a news article (any news article) and to apply the 6 core principles to it (Commodity, Custom & Culture, Knowledge, Technology, Money, and Well‐Being). I leapt onto my computer, opened Google in the browser, let out a The first record of one being on display was in the 1830’s by the rather loud thought sigh before I could start my search, while simultaneously observing a copy of Cosmopolitan laying near my German settlers of Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania German set‐ feet. Needless to say, I ended up using a quite unusual magazine tlements had community trees as early as 1747 although 19th‐ century Americans viewed Christmas trees as pagan symbols. article for the task David had assigned to us. The article was about how to have a cheap date at home with your beau. It really demonstrated how Integral Accounting (IA) can be applied to anything in our day‐to‐day lives; even an article in Cosmopolitan. Isn’t that exciting to think about? Living my life through an IA lens continues today and into the holiday season. With that being said, I wanted to share an Integral Accounting synopsis of a Christmas tree and to take a moment to wish each of you a joyous and memorable Holiday season! Commodity The tree itself and the benefits it boasts in its simple state of be‐ ing: it provides us with oxygen, clean air and water, beauty, shel‐ ter, shade, fruit, nuts, and wood products such as paper, furni‐ ture, and bark for landscaping. The tree bowls can be used to make holiday wreaths and mantle decorations. After Christmas, the tree can be used as fire wood. Source: http://www.idahoforests.org/wood_you.htm Custom & Culture
Source: http://www.history.com/topics/history‐of‐christmas‐ trees Knowledge Types of trees that can be used as Christmas trees: Norway Spruce, Silver Fir, Nordmann Fir, Serbian Spruce, Scots Pine, Stone Pine, Swiss Pine, Douglas‐fir, Balsam Fir, Fraser Fir, Grand Fir, Guatemalman Fir, Noble Fir, Red Fir, White Fir, Pinyon Pine, Jef‐ frey Pine, Scots Pine, Norfolk Island Pine, Artificial (to name a few). Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree Technology The ways in which Christmas trees have been decorated has greatly evolved over time. Beginning with edible items such as apples, and nuts evolving into tinsel and candles, later to orna‐ ments and eventually to electric lights.
The ancient Egyptians worshipped a god called Ra, who had the Source: head of a hawk and wore the sun as a blazing disk in his crown. At the solstice, when Ra began to recover from illness, the Egyptians http://www.christmasarchives.com/trees.html filled their homes with green palm which symbolized the triumph of life over death. Early Romans marked the solstice with a feast called the Saturna‐ lia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The Romans knew the solstice meant soon farms and orchards would be green and fruitful. To mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs. In Northern Europe Druids, the priests of the ancient Celts, also decorated their temples with evergreen boughs as a symbol of everlasting life.
The custom of erecting a Christmas tree is historically linked to present day Estonia and Latvia and 16th century Northern Ger‐ many. The first evidence of Christmas trees outside of a church
Continued on page 5
M•CAM NEWSLETTER
WINTER 2011
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SPECIAL THANKS TO “MAMA T” Theresa Arek is many things to M•CAM, Inc. She is our primary connection in the South Pacific islands and serves as “mother” to our annual Heritable Innovation Trust Internship teams. In collaboration with David Martin, she developed the framework and mode of deployment for the Heritable Innovation Trust several years ago. She continues to work closely with Katie Martin to coor‐ dinate and organize HIT intern trips each year. “Not only is she a very important part of the M•CAM business team, but she truly is part of our family.” — Katie Martin, HIT Trips Coordinator “While Theresa is oceans away from our M•CAM office, she is constantly in the hearts and minds of everyone at M•CAM due to her colossal courage and dedi‐ cation towards making a positive change for the entire country of PNG. She embodies true wisdom and strength; there is nothing she cannot do. She reminds me how anything is possible.” Exuberance in Times Square
“Mama T is one of the warmest people I have had the pleasure of spending an extended period of time with and she also is not afraid to tell you like it is, a rare, but welcomed trait to have. For someone who works as hard and endlessly as she does, it is a won‐ der that she has the energy to host HIT interns like us every year, and the world is blessed to have her around. I am amazed at her ability to go with the flow and stay true to herself. I feel honored to have learned so much from her this summer.” — Roger Bohon, HIT Intern 2011
— Denise Holman
REGAINING HUMANITY IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA Continued from page 1
Parliament to build a new sense of identity for Papua New Guinea. Rather than waiting to get into a position of power, he elected to demonstrate the type of policy he would like to see implemented by officials – policies that would address real needs of communi‐ ties. Feeling compelled to act, Clement negotiated with the land‐ owners to use a section of government land to build a model village in which we could relocate the displaced communities.
could we, together with the elders and PNG community engage the global community to participate on this project? On the flight out of Port Moresby, David Martin wrote a blog post and challenged the world to step up to the situation. Two people responded. First, David’s mom, Ruth Martin, reached out followed quickly by Bob Kendall. Upon discussing options, Ruth and Aaron Martin decided to fund the windmill infrastructure. The deal was structured so that windmill would be the basis for a water utility and income In May of 2011, Clement Kanau met with David and asked if he from the utility would be used to maintain the operation, pay work‐ would hold a meeting with representatives from the displaced ers, invest in additional technology and store wealth to replicate communities. David agreed and met the group on Elder’s Hill this operation in further deployments. Knowledge of this process, (located on the new property). When he saw 50 people walking up which includes a multi valued return of principal, allows the com‐ the hill to meet him, they greeted each other and immediately de‐ munity to perpetuate and persist a cycle of communities respond‐ cided to start living a new story. ing to communities. We are getting the first process started and we want to obsolete ourselves as quickly as possible! We’d like to Rather than repeat a systemic story of destitution, brokenness and invite you into our world and manifest the next community and abuse, the group decided to use this moment to give the members build a community of action around the principles stated above. of the community something that had been lost. Using M•CAM’s Integral Accounting environmental audit process, they took stock of Currently, next steps are underway. The team working on the pro‐ the possibilities present in their local environment. Since the com‐ ject has partnered with the Aermotor Windmill Company. Aermo‐ munities had been moved from their homelands rich with water tor has shipped a windmill (built to pump ground water) to Port supplies, they jointly decided that clean water would be the best Moresby and it is expected to arrive on December 29, 2011. In building block to start rebuilding the communities. early 2012, a global team of participants will join the community After leaving the meeting, there was a lot of work to do. How
members in Papua New Guinea and together will set up the wind‐ mill, water utility and community engagement plans.
M•CAM NEWSLETTER
WINTER 2011
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INTEGRAL ACCOUNTING HITS NEPAL! By Kimberly Schreiber Our partnership with the Kevin Rohan Eco Foundation in the Kathmandua Valley of Nepal has led to the performance an “Integral Accounting Audit” on the Foundation. The aim of this process has been to describe in detail the various attributes of the Foundation through the lens of integral accounting in order to understand each attributes current use, its level of abundance, and all of the possi‐ bilities each one holds. I worked with the head of the Foundation, Krishna Gurung, to document everything the eco village has ac‐ cess to that has value in one of the dimensions of Integral Accounting. Together, we looked at the different aspects of the eco village in terms of commodity, custom & culture, knowledge, money, technology and well‐being. The process was an enlightening experience. Krishna and I composed a list of 155 different attributes of the ecosystem of the Foun‐ dation and we started by defining each one from his perspective. Then, we began to shift every attribute and explore the ways in which each one has value in all of the integral accounting categories. This process is illustrated in Figure A. Next, we decided which of the categories the attribute currently expresses the most value. We also described how positive or negative the attribute is in this context from Krishna’s perspective. Lastly, we included the level of abundance of the attribute within different parts of the ecosys‐ tem through the use of a numerical scale we developed. Figure A: Krishna’s Original Defi‐ nition
cow dung‐ can be used as compost manure for agricultural
Commodity
cow dung‐ compost ma‐ nure
Custom and Culture
Knowledge
cow dung ‐ religious im‐ portance in Hindu culture
cow dung ‐ methane con‐ version, good source of compost
Money
Technology
Well‐being
Final category Polarity
cow dung ‐ trade (compost, energy)
cow dung ‐ biodigester, fuel, fertilizer
cow dung ‐ energy, fertil‐ izer, holy pur‐ poses
Abundance Technology Commodity +++ 3 (in founda‐ tion)
2 (in village)
Increasing the Well‐Being of the community is our end goal and the audit helps us explore ways in which parts of the whole ecosys‐ tem interact. It has shown us different ways to view what the foundation has in abundance. Krishna is sharing our results with mem‐ bers of the community in order to incorporate their feedback and perspective into the process. By looking at value creatively and from multiple perspectives, we find the possibilities that exist within what is already present. We hope that the final audit will serve as an integral planning tool for the foundation’s future projects. Figure B:
Figure B: This pie chart, created from the Eco Foundation Integral Accounting audit data, was created to visually demonstrate the scale of abundance by dimension.
M•CAM NEWSLETTER
WINTER 2011
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INTEGRAL ACCOUNTING OF A CHRISTMAS TREE Continued from page 2 Money:
Well‐Being:
According to the National Christmas Tree Association, last year, 27 million farm‐grown Christmas trees were purchased. The price of purchasing a real Christmas tree varies depending upon the type of tree and size. It can range anywhere from $16‐ $200. For example ,White Pines start at $42 and are 6‐7 feet tall. Frasier Fir trees start at $52 and can grow to 7 feet tall.
There is no question Christmas trees increase well‐being this time of the year! From the way their branches smell so fragrantly to the way the lights and ornaments entice cheer! They summon us to gather around them with our loved ones to decorate them, listen to and sing Christmas music, and put gifts to those we love under them. Christmas trees truly invite happiness and a little holiday magic into our lives!
The average farm‐grown tree costs $36.12 down from $40.92 in 2009. The upfront cost of an artificial tree can be high (up to $200 for a 6‐foot‐tree), but it’s a one‐time cost for a tree that should last years. If you want to go all out, there are pre‐lit 6‐foot trees avail‐ able for around $600. Sources: http://www.greenneedleschristmastreefarm.com/ http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/11/30/how‐to‐find‐the‐best‐ christmas‐tree‐prices/ http://www.nwitimes.com/lifestyles/home‐and‐garden/the‐real‐ thing‐christmas‐tree‐farms‐bring‐holiday‐cheer/article_b2f7e464‐ 68d0‐50d9‐b08f‐ecd58d7ade66.html
How would you like to be featured in our first volume of “The Navigare” in 2012? All you have to do is use an article of your choice and apply the 6 principles of Integral Accounting to it. Submit the original article and your application of IA by February 29, 2012 to enter for your opportunity to be featured in the next volume of “The Navigare”!
OCCUPY M•CAM By David E. Martin
This is the Winter of our Discontent if the popular media is the gauge by which we measure contentment. The G‐20 finance ministers and heads of state are all huddled on the precariously thin ice created by their decade long unsustainable debt and monetary supply accountability deferral and the sounds of the cracking are snapping in the chilly air. The hurried testing of currency and trade unification, with its weaknesses temporarily obscured by BRIC economic expansion, is now being shown for what it really was – a Post‐Cold War Great Experiment that is more Hindenburg‐esque than anyone had been willing to sug‐ gest. David Cameron’s protectionism appears vindicated in his vocal opposition to European concessions that threaten to un‐ dermine the institutions of London. As the junta of Myanmar warms to welcome Secretary of State Clinton, Syria appears to be slipping into North Korean‐style isolationism and tyranny. What is the role of a financial institution – conventional or M•CAM in the moment? Institutional and private money man‐ agers are beyond caring about return as they watch their fiduci‐ ary roles hang like the Sword of Damocles over their heads in the spectacular wake of MF Global. Far from the heady days of risk‐ free returns (now carrying costs) they just want to know if a cur‐
rency is going to be around tomorrow, next week, or next month. Unemployed and under‐employed hear politicians tell them to get a job as though that’s a novel idea that hadn’t oc‐ curred to them as they were out golfing at the club. Peace activ‐ ists call for an end to the military and the industrial complex feeding its yawning jaws while offering no solution to the fact that such an end would expand unemployment by over 20%. Occupites demand equitable economic power distribution with‐ out realizing that the object of their derision (albeit many would love a bit more money in their own pockets) is but one tired illu‐ sion in overall scheme of wealth. Tragically, the solutions that are promoted – End the Fed; Cut the Military; Shrink Government; Stimulate Employment – all are both structurally ill‐conceived and untenably amorphous to the point of convincing many to give up because there’s nothing an individual can do. Beyond the obvious impotence felt by the average citizen when encouraged to dismantle vaunted institu‐ tions, these suggestions are so outlandish they actually lessen the resolve of individuals to engage in transformative acts. More egregiously, these recommendations are utilizing the very Keynesian tools (when fueled by consumerism) that architected our current quagmire. Continued on page 7
M•CAM NEWSLETTER
WINTER 2011
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SPOTLIGHT ON...
PATENTLY OBVIOUS By Stephanie Skeen Coming into the holiday season (complete with Christmas trees, Hannukah Harrys, and Festivus poles), it’s typically a time when business is less rushed. A time when we're all able to take a breather before new years, air our grievances, and demon‐ strate feats of strengh at the annual Christ‐ mas party.
patents might suggest. This report has been quoted in several articles, and was especially complementary to David Mar‐ tin's Bloomberg interview about Kodak.
As the quarter progressed, and the patent battles surrounding the Android platform continued to heat up, Google and its An‐ droid phone manufacturers were staying in So while most companies are asleep in constant litigation against Microsoft and their beds, Patently Obvious is awake and Apple. So in response, we did what anyone always ready to shine the light on any rest‐ would do: We introduced A Christmas less patent trolls. And since many of our Story reference on Halloween and called reports were picked up by the media last the participants deranged Easter bunnies. quarter (especially ones concerning the The holiday visual probably helped some of misadventures of Intellectual Ventures), these reports get picked up by Techdirt keeping watch has become that much eas‐ and Boy Genius Report. ier. We had a bit more fun with Apple though – This quarter, we paid even more attention mainly by pointing out just how far USPTO to what the average Joe and investors alike examiners will go to please the iCompany's might enjoy learning more about. In Sep‐ attorneys. Some little known facts: Apple claims to have invented the rectangle, a tember, we analyzed a dying Kodak and their patent portfolio, and found that the finger, and a way to infinitely slide a lock with said finger across said rectangle for‐ $3 billion price tag floating around was a ever. We’d like to say these reports write little higher than what the quality of the
themselves, but that’s probably been pat‐ ented by Apple, too. But moving away from Apple and World War Android, we also aimed to educate investors of publically traded patent licens‐ ing companies like InterDigital and Univer‐ sal Display Corporation. In the wake of the MMI and Nortel patent sales, InterDigital put up a "For Sale" sign on own portfolio. Unfortunately for IDCC, this happened dur‐ ing the prime of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and we drew quite a few paral‐ lels between businesses that provide prod‐ ucts and jobs, versus businesses that sue these companies and only produce pat‐ ents. In addition to the IDCC report, we also pointed out the possible fraudulent SEC behavior of Universal Display Corp. This report in particular generated quite the discussion on PANL's Yahoo! Message board, as well as helped inspire a Decem‐ ber 13 article of the StreetSweeper, in which Dr. Martin is also interviewed. Continued on page 8
MEET OUR MEDIA INTERN—TARA Full Name: Tara DeLuccia Age: 21 Hometown: Chesapeake, VA Education/School: Virginia Com‐ monwealth University (VCU)
Major: Mass Communications— concentration in Strategic Adver‐ tising Hobbies: Reading, listening to mu‐ sic, and Pinterest! Three Random Facts: 1. I’ve been to Tasmania 2. I am a member of Alpha Gamma Delta 3. I’ve spent my last 6 Summers as a camp counselor at YMCA camps on the Eastern Coast
Since September, Tara has been teaming up with our internal Media Team to publish more content to the Global Innovation Commons and Heritable Innovation Trust websites. She has been doing an awesome job posting on topics ranging from how song and dance routines can create awareness about rising sea levels and climate change to a touchless interactive kitchen tap! To read these posts and more please visit: http://www.heritableinnovationtrust.org/node/864 http://www.globalinnovationcommons.org/blog/wacky‐technology‐wednesday‐spatial‐
M•CAM NEWSLETTER
WINTER 2011
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OCCUPY M•CAM Continued from page 5 M•CAM has been a Sisyphean quest for years to bring the as‐ sets of our knowledge economy into productive use in capital systems in such a way as to insure future productivity fueled by innovation can lead to economic vitality. M•CAM, in col‐ laboration with reinsurance experts and senior bank reserve managers, have just completed an underwriting review of ap‐ proximately $30 billion of commercial credit held by the na‐ tion’s largest commercial banks. This syndicated pool repre‐ sents a fraction of credit assets against which major banks are holding excessive capital due to antiquated risk weighted asset calculations that ignore the majority of collateral in corpora‐ tions across the globe. From sovereign resource and energy rights to state‐of‐the‐art patents, the absence of efficient capi‐ tal support collateralized by intangibles in not just ill‐advised, but it’s precluding our economic recovery. Using our internationally recognized intangible asset collateral enhancement process developed over a decade ago to allow banks to lend to technology companies (a program featured by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond in its Winter 2000 Fo‐ cus) we have identified $8.5 billion in cash‐flow linked intan‐ gible assets that are offering no regulatory capital relief to any credit syndicate member bank. By confirming regulatory ac‐ ceptance of our collateral enhancement – a forward purchase guarantee that provides liquidity in the event of asset foreclo‐ sure – these assets, held under General Intangible U.C.C. liens, can add billions of dollars of risk weighted relief to banks ena‐ bling credit to flow into vital industries to stimulate the econ‐ omy and get America back to work. The time to ACT is now. Launched in October 1998 to address credit access barriers for small businesses in the United States, M•CAM has been the leading structuring agent for intangible asset management across a host of applications. From our pioneering intangible asset collateral enhancement products – using intangible as‐ sets as creditworthy collateral – to our assistance with OCC, FDIC, and Federal Reserve inquiries, M•CAM was able to bring reliable discipline to the intangible world. Working with Con‐ gress, the Treasury and Regulators, we have demonstrated consistent performance on understanding asset quality, trans‐ ferability and monetization, and capital market risk manage‐ ment for over a decade. As a Virginia‐based company with operations around the world it we have been able to bring global visibility to Knowledge Economy accountability in un‐ precedented scale. Within every senior secured credit facility, a General Intangible Lien wraps all intangible assets into the collateral pool. Histori‐ cally structured to enable a bankruptcy trustee to transfer op‐ erating businesses, this lien embraces patents, copyrights, trademarks, licenses and many contractual rights, but provides no monetary or risk amelioration value within credit risk met‐ rics. During the industrial economy when companies owned physical real estate, raw materials and inventory, these assets
were seen as ancillary. However today, these assets represent the majority of enterprise value yet are precluded from being used by our banking system in any fashion. In partnership with regulators and the U.S. Small Business Ad‐ ministration, M•CAM developed a collateral enhancement; an insurance product that guarantees a purchase of intangible assets in the event of foreclosure for small business lending. This inaugural product was structured with counterparty risk supported by SwissRe. Built as a loan origination product, M•CAM’s program provided commercial loans to credit‐ worthy, tangible collateral deficient borrowers. This private sector solution required no government appropriation and no legislative reform. We have now applied the same underwriting and structuring to credit assets held by the world’s leading banks. During the past several months, we have met with the senior risk man‐ agement executives within several of the nation’s largest banks and have been offered billions of dollars in over‐ reserved credits to audit for intangible asset optionality. The results are remarkable. We’ve identified hundreds of thou‐ sands of assets; many of them directly linked to cash‐flow – that are sitting outside the credit risk weighting reach of lend‐ ers. Based on our analysis of active credits and confirmed by senior banking executives, we are now prepared to construct the nation’s first structured risk transfer facility on up to $8.5 billion in intangible asset liquidation purchase contracts. This pilot tranche will establish the pathway to bring billions of dol‐ lars of vital capital relief to the nation’s banks and requires no new legislation or appropriation. During this quarter, while the world’s economic establishment appears to be crumbling, M•CAM has been working with pol‐ icy‐makers on Capitol Hill to begin to educate our nation’s leadership on transforming a Winter of Uncertainty into a Spring of Vitality. We have benefited from the critique and support offered by Virginia’s Fifth District Representative Robert Hurt and his staff. We have encountered warm recep‐ tions in Congress, in Bermuda, and with the leading banks in New York. Far from discontent, we know that we’re offering a private sector solution that can make a difference for the benefit of our national and international economic outlook. In short, we’re living in the best of times. To read more about M•CAM’s response to the Occupy Wall Street movement, be sure to check out David’s blog: http://www.invertedalchemy.blogspot.com/ and our video responses on our YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/InnoCommons#p/u
M•CAM NEWSLETTER
WINTER 2011
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SPOTLIGHT ON...
PATENTLY OBVIOUS Continued from page 6 But not to leave Intellectual Ventures out entirely this quarter, we reported on how this “patent mafia” could effectively be shut down with the financial support of Korea, Taiwan and Japan backing their exploited home companies. Because speaking of exploitation... when we produced another report on Google's Motorola Mobility acquisition, instead of praising the Department of Justice for checking into the possibility of Google's anticompetitiveness, we asked them to take a look at the real shakedown happening. This received press coverage as well, not the least of which was Techdirt.
and others over intellectual property infringement. And fi‐ nally, in a Patently Obvious first, and with special thanks to Jeff Bellsey, Kim Schreiber, and Ken Dabkowski, we produced a full report about patent trolls in the media sector exclusively in poem form. Because fighting deranged Easter bunny patents with analytic poetry is just a typical day at M∙CAM.
If you are interested in learning more about M•CAM ’s weekly Patently Obvious reports please visit our website Ahh... the fight against patent trolls and their half trillion dol‐ http://www.mcam.com/patentlyobvious or sign up to become lar exploitation of the global economy – it never ends. But it's part of the Patently Obvious release email list by sending your request to Denise Holman or Megan Deluccia at a good thing Mhyrvold can counter‐balance his part in this dlh@mcam.com or mld@mcam.com. exploitation by stimulating the U.S. economy with a $400 cookbook. We close this quarter though in the spirit of the season, com‐ plete with Suess references galore. In our report about Per‐ sonalWeb Technologies, we pointed out the irony of an NPE, run by former file‐sharing "pirates," that's now suing Amazon
HOLIDAY GREETINGS
May this Holiday season be filled with love, laughter, and light!
M•CAM NEWSLETTER
WINTER 2011
GET IN TOUCH WITH US!
M•CAM, Inc 210 Ridge McIntire Rd, Suite 300 Charlottesville, VA 22903 Phone: 434-979-7240 Fax: 434-979-7528 Email: info@m-cam.com http://www.m-cam.com
PAGE 9
DID YOU KNOW…. •
Papua New Guinea has a greater density of languages (850 total) than any other nation on earth, except Vanuatu.
•
Papua New Guinea is one of the few regions close to the equator that experience snowfall, which occurs in the most elevated parts of the mainland.
•
Papua New Guinea is one of the Earth’s least explored terrains.
•
While coconuts are all over the place, they were origi‐ nally brought over by the Germans who used them as a cash crop and as a control mechanism to have power over the PNG natives.
http://www.heritableinnovationtrust.org http://www.globalinnovationcommons.org
Sources:
http://invertedalchemy.blogspot.com
Roger Bohon , 2011 Heritable Innovation Trust Intern
“The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.” - Mark Twain
FEATURED COMMUNITY MEMBER OF THE QUARTER Name: Dex Wheeler Age: 25 Hometown: Charlottesville, VA Education: Economics at the University of Virginia Length at M•CAM: 2 Years Hobbies/activities: Fishing, Volleyball, Skiing Three random facts about yourself: I was born, raised, and educated and now work in Charlottesville My favorite novel is Catch‐22 I studied Electrical Engineering at UVA for 2 years before realizing circuitry would be just fine without me. Favorite thing about your engagement at M•CAM: Working to effect real change with a passionate com‐ munity.
http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/papu a‐new‐guinea‐guide/