A $120 Million Win-Win for the Arbutus Corridor?

Posted on 25/09/2014 by innovadmin

Observers to a negotiation must sometimes think the parties go back-and-forth like hamsters in a Ferris wheel–running without moving; going round-and-round; ink never stopping. Thus it is with the Arbutus Corridor railway line property fight. But there are good business reasons for the Railway to get good return.

The property covers approximately 20 hectares.

Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) wants $100M for it. The City of Vancouver (COV) has offered $20M. CPR has reactivated the line so it can earn its keep. And the City has conceded it may want to profit from future sales.

$80M is a hard gap to bridge.

Rare Stamp Discovered 20130810 But there may be a neat twist; a relatively simple way to resolve the impasse, so both parties win.

The original statute setting out the CPR assigns lands to carry out the “…perpetual and efficient operation…” of the railway: Clause 3: 44 Victoria, Chapter I, An Act Respecting the Canadian Pacific Railway (Assented Feb 15, 1881).

1st) Would this suggest that CPR can also lease lands in perpetuity (in practical terms, forever)? Making a lease-in-perpetuity to COV for $20M functionally equivalent to a sale?

2nd) It appears that Air Estate values cannot be transferred or sold by government. If this is correct, the AE value is lost if the COV buys the property. By retaining ownership, CPR is able to sell &/or leverage the Air Estate.

Could we combine these two ideas to create a mechanism that works? Could the parties split the air rights (20 hectares of Air Estate: AE) from the real property (20 hectares of Real Estate: RE)? Could this produce a reasonable solution to the impasse, or a spark to bring the parties to the table? Could this create a win-win for everyone?

* CPR leases RE to COV in perpetuity for $20M
* CPR obtains the right to recover unneeded parcels for future sale
* CPR sells or leases AE for $100M to Bondholders (Ledcor, OMERS, CPPIB)
* Bondholders tranche the AE Bond and everyone takes a % of Leveraged Net
* Net Pre-Leveraged Sale: $120M

3rd) Could this mechanism be used across Canada, for every disused railway line with continuing property asset value but under-performing operations’ asset values? Could it be used globally, in every jurisdiction where property rights include air rights?

dhuer-arbutus-solution-aug2014-2

Will this spark a run on disused urban railway lines, I wonder?

By Dave Huer

Images:

Backhoe: the Province here

Queen Victoria stamp here

Diagram – personal artwork, using Board of Innovation business model tool. [PDF version here]

Abandoned railway line here by Elliott Brown (CC BY 2.0)

One small step for CGI, one giant leap against piracy

Posted on 27/08/2014 by innovadmin

Imprint on the Moon – with Motion Capture dots

Whilst walking the exhibits at SIGGRAPH 2014, I noticed how CGI could cut media pirate profits. With CGI Cultural Dubbing.

SIGGRAPH 2014 is a five-day interdisciplinary computer generated imagery (CGI) research conference and trade fair showcasing the latest in digital art, technical collaboration, and emerging tech. This year, 175 companies from 18 countries; and 14,000 artists, software developers, research scientists, filmmakers, academics and students from 75 countries attended the fair.

Stopping Piracy Profitability

Right now, movie companies lose billions of dollars to international pre-release piracy. By one estimate, a 7% lower return on 70% of revenue.

Here’s how:

Piracy takes advantage of the premiere lag window

Could we advance the gift of the actor with CGI . . . dealing piracy a body-blow? Here’s the idea – modify facial features, speech, and cultural nuances for each target audience.

The Cost-Benefit Question?

If you live in Dhaka or Lagos or Caracas, would you pay for a poorly dubbed copy if you could get the original?

. . . in your language
. . . with the hero looking and sounding
. . . like someone you’d pass by at the local market,
. . . or share a coffee with?

I’m an (on leave) member of AB/BC Cave Rescue, and got this idea by combining what I saw at Maxon’s booth (Cinema 4D™ 3D rendering software and Robert Hranitzky‘s cool helicopter and lighthouse image which led me to think about rescue practice) with what I saw from Dynamixyz (their Performer™ facial capture and analysis software) and 3DMD (ImageFusion™ craniofacial virtual reality medtech modeling).

I got to thinking Performer™ could be used for “mouth-shape mirroring” during speech therapy, and learned that it has been used this way: 1-4% of North Americans naturally stutter, and additional speech disabilities arise from the adult neurological effect of Parkinson’s disease, Stroke, etc. I could see speech therapy as a use case: someone looking at themselves stuttering, learning-by-seeing-how-to-change enunciation and mouth-shape to minimize the stuttering event, whilst working with the therapist to use the tool to practice voicing and mouth-shaping.

And then thought about the insignia emblazoned on Mr. Hranitzky’s Sea King helicopter image: imagining that image modified to display the insignia of each national market.

And then thought about new disciplines coming over from the medtech side to the CGI digital media industry side:

– CGI Ethnographers
– CGI Anthropologists
– CGI Linguists & Translators
– CGI Speech Pathologists & Audiologists

Could CGI grow the industry by changing the cost structure of pre-release piracy?

– Using artistic wizardry to globally grow local markets, without changing the internal technical practices of the industry?

– Cutting into the margins of media pirates, using technical advances to modify legacy release date cycles?

– Extending the professional ranks of colour and detail specialists by adding networks of specialized skills to build local markets?

– Using demand, economies of scale, and a global network of specialty skills to make a big chunk of piracy unprofitable?

If we could cut piracy losses to 1% or less, would there be sufficient net balance sheet, economic, trade, and stock price materiality ROI to justify the change?

Moon boot imprint – US Public Domain via NASA

Helicopter & Lighthouse: © Copyright Maxon Computer, Artwork by Robert Hranitzky. Used with permission. Cropped for blog post. Original is here.

Images in notes – citations here [huer-image-links-siggraph01]

Should Patent Terms be Auctioned like Electromagnetic Spectrum?

Posted on 19/08/2014 by innovadmin

AFVPR is a public resource conservation framework: calculating the AFVPR of a limited resource, so that we can plan for recovery and return of the value of those resources back to their original value, the intrinsic state we all enjoy.

Electromagnetic Spectrum

I wonder, could we apply the framework to patent rights?

Since (Quoting USPTO) “the term of a patent for utility/patent patent(s) is no longer based upon a term fixed at grant, the number of factors that must be considered increase the difficulty in calculating the term of a patent. A patent owner or the public must consider the following factors in calculating the expiration date of a patent for utility and plant applications. The factors include the following:

– type of application(utility, design, plant);
– filing date of the application;
– the grant date of the patent;
– benefit claims under 35 U.S.C. § 120, 121 or 365(c);
– patent term adjustments and extensions under 35 U.S.C. § 154;
– patent term extensions under 35 U.S.C. § 156;
– terminal disclaimer(s); and
– timely payment of maintenance fees.

Electromagnetic Spectrum is periodically auctioned off.

Governments reserve spectra for small players to prevent anti-competitive private cartel dominance of the public resource; and encourage full and frank ownership disclosure to get the license.

In the Age of Patent Aggregators, do we not have the same need?

– Are patent “barons” discouraging innovation outside University-Aggregator partnerships?

– Will more entrepreneurs leave jurisdictions that think that control of the patent sector in partnership with Aggregators mean that entrepreneurs will simply buckle?

– Will more entrepreneurs simply take their minds and wallets elsewhere, or simply expose patents, or simply sit back to watch patent portfolios drop in value if markets slowly decide that portfolios (and all the threatened “Pay Us or Else” lawsuits) have become a millstone around the necks of investors, and financiers, and insurers?

Since term duration is now malleable, should we manage patent rights differently?

– Should Patent Rights be treated as electromagnetic spectrum?

– With a segment reserved for small players;

– With full and frank ownership disclosure (including shell and associate companies):

– Periodically shuffled to encourage maximum competition?

– Foreign government-owned companies and entities required to adhere to the same transparent rules that domestic companies face?

– Foreign government-owned Aggregator partners made to face the same rules, or be excluded from the domestic marketplace?

Spectrum Image by: Sharayanan (Creative Commons license via Wikipedia)

DAVID HUER

Category Archives: Managing Risks

A $120 Million Win-Win for the Arbutus Corridor?

One small step for CGI, one giant leap against piracy

Should Patent Terms be Auctioned like Electromagnetic Spectrum?