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A friend of mine did a project once with Indiana rocker John Mellencamp and said he was one of the biggest jerks he’d ever met. It put a bad taste in my mouth. Not one who was wild about his music to begin with, I liked him even less after that. Well, the Hoosier musical icon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame March 10 after failing to get enough votes when nominated in both 2003 and…
A federal bill expected to receive a vote from the Senate this year would trigger the most radical changes to the U.S. patent system in more than 50 years. Supporters of the Patent Reform Act of 2007 want to switch to a “first-to-file” system that would grant patent rights to the first person to file an application. The United States is the lone country still using a “first-to-invent” system that rewards an inventor who first conceives the innovation, even if…
In 2005, assessors valued the 559-acre Indianapolis Motor Speedway at $34.4 million for property tax purposes. According to
the latest Marion County reassessment, it now has a market value of $170 million. Thousands of other businesses also would
see extraordinary spikes in property values, according to an IBJ analysis of the latest assessment data.
As an intellectual property lawyer, it is often my duty to deliver unexpected answers to questions with seemingly innocent intentions: It’s OK to include a short clip from “Animal House” in our company’s annual meeting presentation, right? As long as we cite our sources, we can send our customers copies of helpful newspaper articles, right? It’s not a problem to embed a nifty video we found on the Internet on our own Web site, right? Unfortunately, incorrect assumptions like these…
Like the people who can solve a Rubik’s Cube behind their backs, origami artists have thought processes the rest of us mere mortals can’t fathom. Even more so than with chess masters, it’s difficult not to be awed by people who can think 50 steps ahead in order to make recognizably representational beasts out of paper, without the use of scissors. The new Indianapolis Museum of Art exhibition “Squares-Folds-Life: Contemporary Origami by Robert J. Lang” (through July 20) illustrates the…
Of this, that and the other while sifting through the e-mails that made it clear many of you still believe the Indiana Pacers are the embodiment of evil and incompetence. Oh, well; I tried. It was just a few years ago, wasn’t it, when Indiana college basketball was in a swoon? Now you see the Hoosier influence here, there and everywhere. When the NCAA Tournament pairings are announced, four Indiana teams-Butler, Purdue, Notre Dame and Indiana-are assured of being in…
With the possible exception of the people who run this newspaper and either allow me to write for it or haven’t noticed that I do, David Little is the greatest newspaperman in America today. Little is the editor of the Chico (Calif.) Enterprise-Record, who declared his paper a Britney-free publication-No Spears, None Of The Time. He wrote in his column: “This is a woman who seems to have mental health issues, shall we say. We’d never make light of a…
A nationally renowned headhunter is tracking down candidates to fill the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association’s top job in hopes of having a new president in place by June 1. Industry observers expect plenty of applicants given an upcoming hospitality building spree. “This is potentially the chance of a lifetime for someone to come in and make a huge difference,” said Amanda Cecil, an assistant professor in IUPUI’s Convention and Event Management Department. She called the Indianapolis market a “gold…
Eric Tobias, the IT architect behind Carmel-based online battery supplier Technuity Inc., now is energizing another startup, Indianapolis-based iGoDigital, a fast-growing player in “recommendation” software for retailers. Tobias, 31, was chief technology officer of Technuity, which distributes batteries, carrying cases and electronics accessories. He left the company, once known as Batteries.com, after it was acquired in November by Hauppauge, N.Y.-based Audiovox Corp. for $16.5 million, plus the repayment of $4 million in debt. The deal added $30 million to Audiovox’s…
Mitch Daniels has done many controversial things as governor. He leased the Indiana Toll Road. He got rid of the state employees’ union. He convinced the Legislature to switch to daylight-saving time. He proposed a property tax package that has many popular features. He also has advanced various ideas, some good, and some less good that went nowhere. Now our governor has come forth with the most positive and important initiative of his administration: awards for academic excellence. As Daniels…
Presidential campaigns hitting a sour note? Candidates using pop songs face IP issues While this may be “Our Country” and you may have been “Born in the U.S.A.,” that doesn’t mean you can use those tunes in political campaigns without venturing “Into The Great Wide Open” of intellectual property law. Political candidates have been discovering this truth for decades as they’ve used musical hits at political rallies and campaign events, including the 2008 presidential election season. Wherever people gather to…
in an uncommon move among Indiana manufacturers typically more preoccupied with foreign competition and deteriorating margins,
Knauf Insulation is rebuilding its research and development facility, destroyed in a fire last year, to make it 30 percent
more energy-efficient than a conventional office building of its size.
The “father of health savings accounts” isn’t satisfied. At 80, J. Patrick Rooney is gearing up for another health care reform
battle in Washington–five years after winning a colossal victory when Congress awarded health savings accounts tax-free status.
As Eli Lilly and Co. fends off allegations in an Alaskan courtroom involving its top-selling Zyprexa drug, the pharmaceutical giant is locked in another battle closer to home. The dispute winding through U.S. District Court in Indianapolis concerns the billion-dollar cancer drug Gemzar and Lilly’s attempts to prevent rivals from selling generic versions. While patent-infringement claims may be less intriguing than accusations that Lilly failed to warn doctors and patients about complications related to Zyprexa, the Gemzar case still has…
The Federal Reserve’s Ben Bernanke has come under a lot of glib criticism from the financial-services sector. Generally, Wall Street types are unhappy because they think he should have addressed the subprime crisis with a greater sense of urgency. The truly bizarre rant by Jim Cramer on “Mad Money” has morphed into lower-level critiques of Bernanke’s experience and judgment appearing in columns and trade journals. But is this characterization fair or even correct? I think not, and here’s why. The…
As we prepared this column at midweek, there still was no certainty about a property tax relief and reform package resulting from the regular session, set to adjourn sine die March 14. While some lawmakers were proclaiming no hope of enacting a package before time expired in the regular session, others were seeing movement toward a plan that was structured largely along the lines of the original package offered by Gov. Mitch Daniels. Democrats altered strategy as the scheduled adjournment…
Hoosiers fretting over Eli Lilly and Co.’s future have new reasons to worry. Even in the best of times, the pharmaceutical business is a highstakes gambit, with every company’s fate hinging on ushering new blockbusters through its R&D pipeline. But those stakes never have been higher at Lilly, which faces a devastating onslaught of patent expirations between now and 2014. The problem isn’t just Zyprexa, the antipsychotic that loses U.S. and European protection in 2011. It accounted for 26 percent…
Texas investor Sardar Biglari rode a wave of shareholder anger to a landslide victory in his quest for Steak n Shake Co. board
seats. Now, the dissident 30-year-old investor who models his approach after Warren Buffett’s is hoping to deliver on his
promise to turn around the Indianapolis-based chain, with or without the chairmanship he covets.
LAFAYETTE-For years, they’ve driven on little more than paved-over wagon trails pioneers carved into the hills nestling the Wabash River. Motorists on State Road 25 between Logansport and Lafayette have grown desperate for a replacement: the final, 33-mile western leg of the “Hoosier Heartland Highway.” Today, the Hoosier Heartland expressway ends in Logansport-the western terminus of a newly improved, four-lane U.S. 24 that runs east, to Fort Wayne. But last month Gov. Mitch Daniels surprised highway proponents with word that…
This isn’t a column about business technology per se, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to write about a half-dozen states thumbing their noses at the federal government and potentially backing up travel this spring at airports all over the country, including some of the world’s busiest, all over a piece of plastic. After the tragedy of 9/11, one of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations was to create a hard-to-fake identity card for Americans. In 2005, Congress passed a huge defense…
