Modern scientific societies are increasingly vulnerable due to their dependence on membership fees and journal subscriptions, which are being challenged by the rise of virtual networking and open-access publishing.
WIPO is not merely a distant UN bureaucracy; it is a dynamic, fee-driven organization that has been undergoing significant operational and cultural transformation in recent years.
In the AI era, it should be easier than ever for people to build new businesses. We want to build the services that enable this. This is important for ensuring that people broadly share in the prosperity created by superintelligence.
In 2023, China's business sector contributed about 80% of the nation's US$780 billion expenditure on research and development, up from 75% in 2015. In contrast, the United States saw just 70% of its total expenditure of $820 billion coming from businesses.
Empirical Ventures has secured a £10 million commitment from the British Business Bank through its Regional Angels Programme, bringing the Bank's total support for the firm to £15 million. This funding will allow Empirical to write larger cheques to early-stage science-led founders across the UK, particularly outside London.
Awards may be encouraging and occasionally useful for visibility, but they are weak indicators of validation and poor predictors of long-term success. In the longevity and healthspan industry, where timelines are long and claims are easy to overstate, venture capital ultimately follows alignment and evidence, not applause received at glitzy industry events.
ADIN uses AI to replace the human analysts involved in venture dealmaking. Put in a startup's pitch deck, and out comes a detailed analysis of its business model and founding team, a list of diligence questions and compliance risks, an estimate of the total addressable market, and a suggested valuation. ADIN has about a dozen different agentic investors, each with a distinct persona and investing thesis.
The boss of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the public body which spends 8bn of taxpayer money each year on research and innovation in the UK, has warned the organisation faces "hard decisions" on funding future projects. In an open letter, Ian Chapman said the government had told it to "focus and do fewer things better", which "will result in negative outcomes for some".
But he'd been considering an idea for new technology-an autonomous, wind-powered cargo ship. Then, while on paternity leave in 2024, he discovered a free program that helps scientists and engineers launch businesses for the first time. Weeks after finishing the program, called 5050, Cymbalist had launched a startup called Clippership. The company's first ship is being built in the Netherlands this year. Without the accelerator, he says, the company likely wouldn't exist.
Because startups typically don't have a track record of success to attract potential clients, they can offer a trial of their platform for free or at a lower cost to showcase what their platform can do and how reliable it is. The enterprise - a potential client - can test the newest technologies without the worry of committing to a complete and often costly rollout.
But if you're innovating within your industry, it's a problem you should expect and prepare for because it means having to operate in two realities-the internal reality where you know the challenges in your industry and how you're going to solve them, and the external reality where nobody else has recognized the problem that needs to be solved. In a highly regulated industry like healthcare, safety, and stability create an inertia that often works against innovation.
In a recent Tradespace and Above the Law survey, two-thirds of companies that draft patents in-house described IP as a value driver, while 71 percent of companies that outsource drafting viewed IP as a cost. When drafting and prosecution move inside, IP teams work closer to engineers and product leaders. This proximity improves invention quality, strengthens claim strategy, and aligns patent decisions with product direction, market timing, and business priorities.
However, alongside these tangible indicators sits another layer of value, one that does not always surface cleanly in financial statements and may even remain invisible if it is not properly understood or articulated: Put simply, intangible assets are the non-physical elements a company has built that enable it to generate revenue, scale efficiently, or defend its market position. In technology companies, this typically includes proprietary software, intellectual property, datasets, customer relationships, brand equity, and internal systems or processes.
