R&D spinoffs: Serendipity vs. a managed process

This paper describes some of the spinoff benefits that can result from R&D projects, and categorizes them in terms of the dimensions of market and technical newness. These dimensions are discussed with reference to two types of spinoffs: 1) alternative market applications, when the results of an R&D project are subsequently applied to a market or use that differs from the originally intended application, and 2) second-generation technologies, when the technology that was the subject of an R&D project is significantly altered or enhanced in unanticipated ways through subsequent R&D. Examples from the Department of Energy's Energy-Related Inventions Program are integrated into the results of literature review to illustrate key concepts, including core technologies, degrees of market and technology newness, technology robustness, and the nature of connections linking spinoffs to prior R&D investments. The paper concludes by discussing spinoffs as a managerial strategy.     

Last rights. In sickness and in health, more people are taking life's biggest decision away from doctors and into their own hands

When dying is all that awaits them, more and more people are choosing certain death now rather than uncertain life on medical support systems. But the decision seldom comes easy, as a Newsweek reporter discovers during three weeks with the doctors, nurses, patients and families in an intensive-care ward. A best-selling guide to suicide fires debate over when it is right to let life go--and who should make that choice when the patient no longer can.