Posts in Technology & Innovation

With the advent of blue LED lighting, it is now possible to create white light devices by combining blue light with red and green. As the Nobel Foundation points out in their background report on the 2014 physics laureates, “Incandescent light bulbs had lit the 20th century; the 21st century will be lit by LED lamps. The fact that LEDs could supplant all incandescents and fluorescents in lighting applications alone has major implications for energy efficiency in our world. In an LED bulb, about half of the electricity charging the diode is converted into light, whereas incandescent bulbs only convert about four percent of their charge into light.

Nothing clarified the stakes in orphan drug development like hearing Ron Bartek describe how after 16 years a promising treatment for his son’s disease finally emerged with TRND’s help. The therapy demonstrated enough potential that it was licensed by a small company which took it through Phase I and II trials. Both showed very promising results. Ron choked up describing how he felt after such a long struggle to help his child and finally seeing a real glimpse of hope. Everyone in the room shared the lump in his throat. A day like that reminds you why tech transfer and intellectual property are so important. When used correctly they improve and protect lives all around the world.

There are few more interesting tragedies in the history of American business than the demise of Kodak, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2012. and few that are more frustrating given the fact that the key to the company’s renewed success lay within its grasp for years. Digital photography, the technology that decimated Kodak in the 1990s and 2000s, was originally a Kodak innovation. The company’s stubborn refusal to support the development that rivalled its core product, film, should be a cautionary tale to any major corporation and a sign to innovative start-ups that even the most monolithic corporations can become vulnerable.

One of the big reasons there is such a need for software forensics is to interject objectivity into what is otherwise a battle of experts who are supposed to be unbiased but who may be strongly influenced by, if not outright pressured to support, the positions of their clients. This is just as true of experts in other areas of litigation, but as more complex technologies are at issue in today’s IP cases, lay judges and juries are less capable of weeding through technical intricacies to weigh opposing views of experts. Compounding this reality is the ever increasing popularity of police dramas on television, which elevate the desire for juries to have some kind of objective information they can rely on; something of a smoking gun if you will. Software forensics can often provide that smoking gun and cut through the haze. But the question remains, how do we assure that software forensic tools are reliable and consistent and that the expert witnesses who use them are qualified and honest about their analyses?

In the patent applications filed by this company, we found an interesting trio of printing technologies, including one filing which would protect an improved system for printing and binding booklets. Medical innovations, including an endoscopic tool which can be selectively made transparent and visible depending on endoscopic operation needs, are discussed below. We also noted an innovation for reducing erroneous operations in an electronic device with multiple touchscreen panels. There have been many recent additions to Canon’s already globally renowned patent portfolio that we profile today. We discuss a few patents issued to protect improvements to robotics technologies for manufacturing facilities. A couple of patents show Canon’s interest in improving nanofabrication techniques for creating semiconductors. We also explore inventions related to printing copy-forgery-inhibited patterns and high precision scanning technologies.

The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum will host an Innovation Festival Nov. 1 and 2, a collaboration between the Smithsonian and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The festival will highlight accomplishments of American inventors and the spirit of innovation. It will feature displays, talks, performances and craft projects for children and adults.

According to a myriad of patent applications filed at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Nikon is serious about expanding its intellectual property holdings in the area of lithography, especially immersion lithography, for the manufacture of semiconductors and other electronics. An X-ray device which is less affected by thermal expansion and a digital bulletin board for an online electronic album service are also discussed in recently filed Nikon patent applications. Nikon’s patent portfolio isn’t the most extensive one we feature on IPWatchdog, but it is still quite valuable. A number of immersion lithography innovations are featured in these patents and we discuss a couple of technologies designed to improve the control of fluids or vapors in use by these systems. Digital cameras and their electronic components were the feature of a smorgasbord of other patents that we came across. A couple of these protect techniques designed to increase the ease that image file data may be shared and edited by other cameras or external devices.

The Raze 4G/LTE patent portfolio, which includes patents having priority filing dates all the way back to April 2001, is currently for sale and could well fetch a handsome sum even given downward pressure in the market because these standard essential patents cover carrier grade technologies… This 4G/LTE patent portfolio includes 18 issued U.S. patents and another 4 pending U.S. patent applications. Broadly speaking, these patents are applicable to several technology areas with the next generation wireless and wireline technologies, particularly wide-area networks, narrow-area networks and cellular traffic to network offloading. The patents have no encumbrances, have never been licensed and have all commonly owned by Raze Technologies since the development of the underlying innovations.

Software forensics is the examination of software for producing results in court. The objective of software forensics is to find evidence for a legal proceeding by examining the literal expression and the functionality of software. Software forensics requires a knowledge of the software, often including things such as the programming language in which it’s written, its functionality, the system on which it’s intended to run, the devices that the software controls, and the processor that’s executing the code. Whereas a digital forensics examiner may attempt to locate files or sections of files that are identical, a software forensics examiner must look at code that has similar functionality even though the exact representation might be different.

J&J is pretty active in terms of patenting, and our recent survey of patent applications filed with the USPTO showed us that the company is looking to usher in the next age of contact lenses. In a time when many people are talking about Google Glass and other wearable technologies, we were intrigued to find a large number of patent applications filed by J&J to protect methods of incorporating semiconductor components into contact lenses for digitizing vision care and correction. A surgical implant for hernia repair and cosmetic compositions which cause less skin irritation are also discussed below… Even more contact lens innovation is reflected in these recently issued patents, including contact lenses for stopping myopia progression or for providing more stability when worn on the eye. Anti-tumor topical compositions and disposable assay devices for the simpler completion of biochemical tests have also recently entered the intellectual property portfolio of this firm.

Caterpillar holds a respectable patent portfolio and has some strong intellectual property holdings in the field of industrial equipment. In 2013, the company earned 332 patents, an increase of 4.1 percent over the number of patents earned by Caterpillar in 2012 according to the Intellectual Property Owners Association. 2014 may be an even brighter year for corporate innovation at Caterpillar, as the company has received more than 60 patents within the past few weeks alone… Innovation is strong at Caterpillar and seemingly increasing in scope over the past few months. Some patent applications which we’ve discussed below include technologies for removing environmental pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, from machinery exhaust gas. Another patent application discusses a drive assist system for starting a heavy vehicle while parked on a hill. Many improvements to Caterpillar’s hardware, including an enhanced metallurgy process for casting metal parts, are also featured.

P&G is a company well-known for its extensive lineup of personal care products, and many of its brands are found on the shelves of retail stores and pharmacies all over the world. The company has achieved varying levels of success since it was established in 1837. Some media commentators have speculated that reduced levels of recent innovation at Procter & Gamble have hurt the company, but a newly announced corporate refocus on core brands could help increase its development of intellectual property. Many recent Procter & Gamble innovations can be found on the company’s official website and involve major company brands such as Crest, Olay and Gillette.

Recently, a team of scientists working at Ohio State University created the world’s solar battery, which includes a solar cell and a battery within a singly hybrid device. These batteries, which could achieve a length of charge comparable to other rechargeable batteries, achieves a cost reduction in utilizing solar energy of about 25 percent. It also reduces the need for any process of transmitting electricity from a solar cell to a battery, in which up to 20 percent of electrons are successfully transmitted to the battery.

In viewing Fujitsu’s recently filed patent applications, we saw a multitude of inventions in the field of information processing, whether for the analysis of computing processes or virtualization of computing resources on physical servers. A couple of biometrics innovations are discussed, including a system of electrodes meant to detect and prevent a vehicle driver from becoming drowsy. Methods for enhanced online classroom discussions are also explored. Fujitsu enjoys a very robust patent portfolio, and much of the company’s recent additions to that portfolio involve semiconductor devices. Many of the inventions which have been recently protected for Fujitsu are design to accommodate the further miniaturization of semiconductors for electronic applications. Technologies for converting voice data into useful textual objects on a computing device, as well as another biometrics innovation for better methods of authenticating a person, are also featured below.