The meeting "New Media and Telecom Opportunities - Predicting the Next Decade Trends & Exits" organized by MIT Enterprise forum of Israel and LabOne Innovations at the Tel Aviv University (http://www.mit-forum.org.il/2008events/media_exits/index_e.htm) was a first opportunity for me to hear an insider discussion about the world of communication and, well, about the future. A common insight among the speakers referred to the role of startups in promoting technologies. The large firms have the role of promoting the probable technologies, investing large sums of money in R&D and assimilation of technologies. Startups (almost by definition) try non-probable ways and applications but represent opportunities to cause large breakthroughs. Interesting in this context was a platform of Amazon on which entrepreneurs may develop applications more quickly, and reach larger potential customers than they would have, had they worked alone. Amdocs also presented an initiative intending to assist independent developers as well as to pair them with large clients of Amdocs.

Intellectual property, however, was not mentioned in a word. Not only that patents were not acknowledged in the context of business strategies, but the discussion did not relate to patents as informatively marking the way to the future. As the meeting was meant to aim at the far future and not at "how to make an exit now", I missed insights relating both to directions of the IP "industry" and to technological directions as mirrored by existing patents. Are we missing something? Is there anything we can do better to explain our clients how important IP protection is?