First on the Scene

FRAMINGHAM (04/24/2000) - Kevin Rivette, co-author of Rembrandts in the Attic, an intellectual property book published by Harvard Business School Publishing, says Wired magazine could probably have patented the now-ubiquitous Web page banner advertisement.

A patent on banner ads, which, when clicked on, transports the viewer to the advertiser's Web site, would now be quite valuable.

Rivette suggests that Wired should have engaged in what he calls "choke-point analysis" to figure out what it should patent.

"What you want to patent are the things that will prevent your competitors from solving the same industrywide problem that you are solving," Rivette says. "If Wired didn't patent any other stuff, they should have patented the banner ad, because it was the one thing that everybody who was going to compete with them had to do. It was the industrywide problem that they solved - the choke-point."

More about: Harvard Business School

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the Computerworld comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Whitepapers
All whitepapers
Sign up now to get free exclusive access to reports, research and invitation only events.
Featured Download
/downloads/product/160/ultraiso/

UltraISO

UltraISO is an ISO CD/DVD image file tool that creates, edits and converts. It is also a bootable CD/DVD maker that has the ability to ...

Computerworld newsletter

Join the most dedicated community for IT managers, leaders and professionals in Australia