Lightbulb is a law blog on intellectual property and its commercialisation. They might be regarded as esoteric or technical subjects. They are, and they aren't. For example, their broader context is business law and business needs generally.

Prominent in those contexts is the topic of business survival.

Here is a tool to help our readers to conduct a business audit for business survival. What are the signals your business must respond to for survival?

Our law firm is now geared for more regular production of online video. The latest videos are linked below. In technology terms we've achieved that competency in collaboration with Michael Ney at Sensory Image and Jason Kemp at Dialog.

Michael and Jason would happy to have a dialogue with you if video online suits your marketing or other needs. Contact them directly or email me.

For our firm the business model for internet video is very clear.

Sometime this week Apple's App Store will reach the milestone of one billion downloads. That is a billion downloads of applications, available free-of-charge or for a fee, from the App Store on Apple's iTunes, for use on an Apple iPhone or iTouch. The number is a sign of the mobile changing times.

A less-heralded fact is that back on 19 November 2008 the Mozilla Firefox browser and Firefox Add-ons (ie browser applications or plug-ins) also reached the milestone of one billion downloads. That is a billion downloads, all eating away at the browser leader, Microsoft Explorer. It's a sign of the browser changing times.

Perhaps you are thinking of selling, buying, investing or advising on a transaction in which valuation of intellectual property is required?

This article sets out seven questions to review with specialist advisers.

Valuation is a complex subject.

To simplify the discussion we'll use the term intellectual property, though broadly defined. That term is used instead of using additional technical terms - such as intangible assets (as used in accounting) or intellectual capital (as used in management consultancy).

It's time for Australian retailers to get on their online bike. As lawyers specialising in internet and web services we see many IT trends years before they become common knowledge in the market. For example we've noted for years that Australian marketers of apparel will miss potential sales if their brands have a poor online presence.

We now have more statistical evidence supporting our view on IT and marketing trends relating to retailing of apparel.

Microsoft's announcement in March 2009 that it will discontinue Encarta provides valuable business strategy and management lessons. Encarta is an encyclopaedia offered from 1993 on a CD-ROM disc and subsequently on the web. All will end in 2009.

While money was not the motivator, the crowd that clouds at Wikipedia and elsewhere on the internet has helped starve the business out of Microsoft's Encarta. That crowd are computer users and they cloud in the sense that they are part of cloud computing sending content by them or others to external hosted servers.

This article is a case study on 250 years of business and legal history relevant to three encyclopaedias - Encarta, Encylopaedia Britannica and Wikipedia. It is structured by three historical periods, or Acts, as we've called them here. Our focus is on content licensing for these three publications. Their content includes images, text, video and other data. Like them, others with an interest in methods for making money from content include business consultants, authors, creators, and various intermediaries.

QUESTION: What is the biggest franchise group in the world in terms of its number of sites or outlets?

CLUES: (1) It is a franchise group, ie it owns more than one brand. (2) Its sites are restaurants, there's 36,000 of them in more than 110 countries. (3) It had total revenues in 2008 of US$11 billion (A$15.3 billion). That includes revenues in Australia of A$1.5 billion. (4) It is the world's second biggest franchise group in terms of market capitalisation, after McDonald's.  So it's not McDonald's.

ANSWER: The group is the owner of KFC and Pizza Hut, both operating in Australia. Of the 36,000 sites mentioned above, 14,000 are KFC outlets. The group also owns Taco Bell, A&W and Long John Silvers - all untried or unsuccessful in Australia. With all these brands, this is why it is a franchise group. The group is the United States-based YUM! Brands - http://www.yum.com.

Further reading: Franchising legal services. See also this Insight Guide for franchisors: Insulating Franchises from Failure [PDF].

The Dilanchian website received substantial international positive feedback yesterday. One of our articles was included in the  March 2009 "SMEs Newsletter". That enewsletter is published by the World Intellectual Property Organisation. WIPO is a United Nations agency based in Geneva.

We've had WIPO's positive feedback twice before, for example here. Yesterday's mention is as follows:

The Most Successful Product Ever Marketed in America: This article by Noric Dilanchian narrates the story of Chester Carlson's invention and development of xerography, based on the original book, "Copies in Seconds: Chester Carlson and the Birth of the Xerox" written by David Owen.  In providing 14 commercial axioms, it analyses the key success factors from the perspective of collaborative entrepreneurship.

A retailer with a poor web presence is like a white wall watching commuters pass by.

I was struck today by the clarity of a retailing client's email to me.

It helps anyone understand website development, e-commerce, branding online, and other elements of an effective online presence.

This is the February 2009 issue of Cue, the Dilanchian email newsletter. Cue is a monthly selected list of our Library articles and Lighbulb blog posts on IP commercialisation. You can freely subscribe to Cue or our full RSS feed, or both.