Ideas to products (Shark Tank(-ish) @ Austin)

Matt Harris matt at netfire.net
Sat Jun 29 20:06:58 UTC 2019


On Sat, Jun 29, 2019 at 11:35 AM Mehmet Akcin <mehmet at akcin.net> wrote:

> Great point ;-) thanks Tom
>
> On Sat, Jun 29, 2019 at 09:29 Tom Daly <tjd at fastly.com> wrote:
>
>> Mehmet,
>>
>> Good idea, the opportunity for innovation and supporting ideas of others
>> in our operator groups is important, but NANOG is probably the wrong venue.
>>
>> Have you considered NANOG's 501c3 not-for-profit status in your analysis
>> of bringing this idea to the community? As a presenter, how would one
>> protect his/her intellectual property being shown to the proposed "sharks"
>> and/or the audience? (would an audience be permitted in the room?)
>>
>> I can't speak for the NANOG Board nor the Program Committee, but as an
>> interested party in NANOG's 501(c)3 not-for-profit status, I am pretty
>> certain this activity would jeopardize our recognized exemption with the
>> IRS. I think this is an important detail you explore before proceeding.
>>
>
As someone who had dealt with non-profit management many times and served
on several non-profit entity boards of varying sorts, I don't see any issue
here at all with simply hosting such an event. As long as NANOG handles the
procedes from the event properly, there should be no issue. In fact, there
are 501(c)3 organizations which exist with a primary goal very similar to
this: connecting investors with potential investments. Check out Code2040,
the Techstars Foundation, and Change Catalyst, among others.

I'd like to hear why you feel this sort of event may cause an issue or
jeopardize NANOG's tax status. Can you be a bit more clear about why you
are concerned about this? Perhaps there's something I'm overlooking.

As far as intellectual property goes, it would of course be up to the
presenter how much they would want to share publicly. Not all intellectual
property is a "trade secret", plenty is covered by copyrights and patents
and can generally be shared with an audience without granting said audience
unlimited rights to that intellectual property. For example, just because
you attend a concert with a particularly performer does not mean you then
have rights to illegally download that performer's mp3s. Of course anyone
who does treat their work product as a trade secret would not share such
work product with any audience. If a presenter did wish to share additional
information with the "shark"/investor participants above and beyond what is
shown to the general audience, they could establish non-disclosure
agreements with the interested parties. NDA's between potential investors
and recipients of investments are extremely common. This would of course be
between the presenter and their attorney to determine the appropriate
course of action and to draw up any relevant documents. Any time anyone is
considering accepting an investment in their work product, I would very
highly recommend that they engage an attorney whom they trust in order to
vet any agreements and ensure that they fully understand all ramifications
thereof.

Good luck folks!
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