In a sense, dot-coms destroyed whatever minimal proprietary barriers, technologies and strategies they had by divulging their business models to the world before they had even established market traction.
Equally important is an evaluation of the company's competitive position: does it have unique products or services, proprietary technology, strong barriers to entry or other factors to drive the company's growth?
Apart from confidentiality and IP issues, the use of a wide variety of ELNs, each with their own, often proprietary, data structures, is a significant barrier.
If someone becomes ill in another state or on the other side of town, barriers, born from the proprietary nature of public and private health systems, keep electronic information from helping the doctor treat the patient.
Second, the queries were built within the proprietary I2E software package potentially presenting barriers to dissemination.
Although scientific rigor is necessary for the new toxicology to move forward, the scientific and public-interest communities must ensure that inappropriate definitions of rigor, as well as proprietary interests, do not create unnecessary barriers to more effective public health protection.
Nowadays, mattress manufacturers use a grab bag of both chemicals (the health effects of which aren't fully known) and off-gassing barrier materials, changing their often-proprietary formulations based on supply.
Flammable barriers may be protected with proprietary fire retardant treatments such as decaBDE.
Bulldozers are forming mountains of sand along the narrow island's main road to block an oily washover, and troops are assembling a four-mile, experimental barrier involving fabric, metal and a proprietary powder that turns petroleum products into solid jelly on contact.
Proprietary health information impairs delivery of good care and deepens barriers to switching doctors, hospitals or health plans.
Our first technology was an open standard that liberated publishing from proprietary printing systems, and soon afterward our PDF technology eliminated barriers to sharing documents across platforms.
