NASA Once Again Auctioning Off Patents Your Tax Dollars Paid For

from the why-the-exclusivity dept

One of the few good things in the US concerning copyright law was the decision to make sure that all federal government documents, that are released, are released into the public domain rather than covered by any sort of government copyright (such as crown copyright found in other countries). However, for some reason, the government has not done the same thing when it comes to federally funded research that is turned into patents. A couple of years ago, we questioned why NASA was auctioning off patents that were taxpayer funded. It appears that NASA doesn't care.Ben points us to the news that NASA is about to auction off a bunch of other patents as well, including five patents around "automated software generation." There's simply no reason not to put this research into the public domain where it can actually be used to benefit both commercial and non-commercial projects. By auctioning off a patent monopoly, it will almost certainly be using taxpayer-funded research to stifle innovation.

Filed Under: auction, federal government, nasa, patents, taxes

The First Printed Copy Of SuperFreakonomics Auctioned Off For Charity

from the not-so-superfreaky dept

With the follow-up to Freakonomics coming out, as part of the plan to promote SuperFreakonomics, the books' authors are auctioning off the very 1st printed copy on eBay for charity. The winner of the auction gets a signed copy of this book, as well as a verification letter and a limited-edition SuperFreak t-shirt. Clearly, the economists behind this offer understand the value of scarce goods, and they've tried to increase that value with a couple extra goodies (as well as a matching donation up to $5,000 from Stephen Dubner). But wouldn't it be more interesting to see additional "reasons to buy" around the content, along with typical "freakonomic" analysis of what works and why? Dubner has already suggested (tongue-in-cheek) that the winner won't suffer from winner's curse, but will there be more practical lessons to be learned from this auction? How would the results of this charity auction be different if it did a Dutch auction (like xkcd did recently)? Auctioning off another copy of the book without the charity aspect would be an interesting test, too. And are there other scarce items that Stephen Dubner or Steven Levitt could offer for their book sales?

Filed Under: auction, charity, freakonomics, rtb, superfreakonomics

eBay Finally Realizes That No One Is Interested In Voice Communication With Others During An Online Auction

from the about-time dept

When eBay first bought Skype we were among the many, many, many people left scratching their heads wondering where the supposed "synergies" were. We were told two things. First, that Skype had many users in China who would now suddenly start using eBay for auctions. Why? No one knows. In reality it had almost no effect. Just because you make calls via a software program it doesn't make you any more interested in doing online auctions through its parent company, apparently. Second, it would now allow buyers and sellers to communicate by voice. But why would they want to? Sure, maybe in a very rare case it might be helpful, but one of the advantages of an online auction system like eBay is that you don't need to actually talk to the other party. And if it was that important to talk, the buyer and seller could just agree to use Skype on their own without eBay spending billions. And, in fact, studies showed that this "feature" wasn't wanted by most eBay users.

But, still, in an effort to show that there really (no, really, really!) were some synergies, eBay integrated Skype into online auctions. Of course, now that eBay has finally admitted that there really were no synergies, taken a huge writedown on the investment and is looking to spin off Skype, the company is finally removing the integrated Skype buttons on auctions, and are even admitting that the company is involved "in an effort to remove features with limited buyer and seller usage." Was it really that hard to recognize how little synergies there were before spending multiple billions of dollars?

Filed Under: auction, synergies, voice
Companies: ebay, skype

AT&T-Funded Politicians Accuse Google Of Gaming The Spectrum Auction System

from the please-explain dept

We've already explained why Google's actions in the recent 700 MHz spectrum auction wasn't "fleecing" taxpayers as some lobbyists had contended. Yet, it appears that the lobbying has been effective. A set of Congressional representatives have started asking whether or not Google gamed the system. This is a pretty bizarre claim against a company that put up $4.6 billion in an auction and was then outbid. Clearly, in putting up the bid, there was a chance that Google could have won and had to pay the $4.6 billion. There's no rule that Google had to keep bidding. The company stopped at the point at which it was comfortable bidding. Of course, it will probably surprise no one that if you look at the top campaign contributor to all 3 representatives attacking Google's actions, you'll notice a pattern (in the letters A, T and T). Check it out for yourself. There's Fred Upton, Cliff Stearns and John Shimkus. You think that had something to do with their opinion on the spectrum auction process? Nah...

Filed Under: 700 mhz, auction, politics, spectrum
Companies: at&t, congress, fcc, google

No, Google Did Not Fleece Taxpayers Out Of $7 Billion

from the bad-math dept

We've talked about Scott Cleland before. He's a "telecom analyst" who has a reputation for stretching the truth as far as it can go in order to contort himself into making telcos look good and anyone opposing the telcos look bad. Jim Harper points us to Cleland's latest, where he accuses Google of "fleecing taxpayers" out of approximately $7 billion with its actions in the recent 700 MHz auction. He notes Google's admission that it was only in the auction to push the bid over the threshold requiring any service on the network to be open. This isn't a surprise. It was widely assumed that Google would merely bid up to the threshold, knowing that if it could buy the spectrum at that price, that would be great, but if someone else got it and the network was then required to be open, that was great too. So this is hardly a shocking admission on the part of Google.

Cleland then compares the prices of the other blocks of spectrum available (those that didn't have open access rules) and does a back of the envelope calculation that the average price per MHz was noticeably higher on the closed access spectrum than the open access spectrum. From that point, he jumps to the conclusion that the C block (the open access block) was significantly underpriced because (he claims) telcos valued it less since it was open. Of course, there are all sorts of problems with this. He determines the amount of the underbidding by merely averaging the % difference in the A and B blocks to the C block -- but it's a massive difference. The A block was 50% higher and the B block was 250% higher. He then just averages that to 150%. Yet, anyone who bothered to actually think about it (rather than look for a weapon with which to bash Google) would note that this calculation is quite dubious. Beyond the "small sample size" problem, the very difference in price-per-MHz in the A and B blocks should make it clear that there are many other reasons why the price would fluctuate having absolutely nothing to do with whether the network was open or closed. To assign the entire blame to that makes no sense whatsoever and ignores the realities of what these different blocks of spectrum were good for.

Next, Cleland tries to spin this story as Google illegally swiping $7 billion from taxpayers -- since this entirely mythical $7 billion would have gone into the treasury, which will now have to make it up from taxpayers. On top of that, he suggests (totally incorrectly) that the only real beneficiary of the open access rules would be Google for its Android offering. Except... not quite. He's ignoring (conveniently) the other half of the equation. The open access rules benefit plenty of other companies beyond Google (in fact, any company that wants to take advantage of those rules), and will likely lead to much greater innovation and new and valuable businesses and services, that will likely generate much more tax revenue for the government than the totally mythical $7 billion. But Cleland decides to ignore all that inconvenient information in order to make an entirely bogus claim against Google.

Filed Under: auction, scott cleland, spectrum, taxpayers
Companies: google

Frontline Shuts Down; Spectrum Buying No Place For Startups Apparently

from the can't-upset-the-world-without-some-money dept

There was tremendous hype and a number of big names behind the wireless startup Frontline, who was talked up as a possible upstart bidder (and potential winner) for a segment of the spectrum that the FCC is auctioning off later this month. However, if one thing has become clear over the years, spectrum auctions are not a game for startups to play -- as unfortunate as that may be. On Tuesday, the news came out that Frontline had shut down after it was unable to find financial backers to pony up all the money it needed. There are some questions about this, as some of the company's early supporters represent a ton of money, but some are noting that this could actually cause something of a domino effect impacting all of the spectrum being auctioned off. There are a variety of rules and hurdles that various bidders need to meet, and if those hurdles aren't cleared, then the FCC can cancel the auction and try again -- with different rules that could toss out the open access requirements the FCC put in place. It's not clear if that will actually happen, but it appears to increase the likelihood significantly.

Filed Under: auction, spectrum
Companies: frontline