For me personally, it comes down to cost and acceptability. I would like to pursue nanodegrees but the cost is much higher than Coursera - which has a monthly subscription model. Also, Coursera has an expanding offering of Master's degrees from world renowned Univerities which employers will accept (my employer - a Canadian Bank will even pay for online masters degrees) but nanodegrees seem like vaporware, if Udacity goes under how do I get my nanodegrees verified? If the cost were lower, i could take the risk.
The Fraser institute, which published this study, has a right wing bias and is funded by the Koch Brothers. It seeks to displace the public system in Canada with private healthcare modelled after the US. While they claim independence and give their research away freely, one should be aware of their interests.
It is astounding that someone with the resources to pay for the best medical care was unable to arrive at the correct diagnosis. As we move towards AI assisted diagnoses, hopefully such suffering can be mitigated.
Do neurologists follow checklists when diagnosing symptoms? Will this case change their procedures going forward?
I doubt any of the developers being sued by Lodsys knew they were infringing on these patents.
And there is no sure way to know which small thing is under patent than to spend hours going through the patent archives or hiring expensive patent lawyers.
When I said tech startup, i meant companies developing web applications that people pay for. So for example, if people use DropBox or Basecamp, and there is no guy making a commission, then you can only tax the company in which ever state it is in?
Also, what about incorporating abroad but having your customers in the US?