Mortgaging the Meme: Financing and Managing Disruptive Innovation

This Article focuses on the original aspects of profound disruptive innovation. The Article does not, however, emphasize the distinction between technological innovation and business innovation. Instead, it focuses on managing the most fundamental and profound disruptive innovations. While particular disruptions are—by definition—incapable of being predicted, the shape they take and havoc they reap does follow a fairly predictable pattern.

More importantly, application of traditional and non-traditional uses of intellectual property assets can allow both incumbents and start-ups some predictability in this environment. These lessons shape how strategic industry assets and venture capital should be deployed for industries struggling in the midst of upheaval. This Article provides an overview of disruptive innovation using examples from the past decade, identifies the underlying patterns of change common to these examples of disruptive innovation, highlights strategies to mitigate disruption for existing industry, and addresses the intellectual property securitization aspects of venture capital investment to structure effective deals for both the investors and innovators.