Posts Tagged: "innovation"

April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month and many organizations are gearing up their pitch for greater safety on the roads by avoiding the need to text or take a phone call while driving. Here on IPWatchdog, we’ve discussed the topic of distracted driving and how autonomous vehicles and device disablement technologies might be able to address some concerns of distracted driving. With the month-long observation of this issue upon us, it’s a good time to revisit the world of innovation to find if new answers to the problem of distracted driving are being developed.

Fans of the Star Wars movie franchise might remember Princess Leia’s desperate plea for help to Obi-Wan Kenobi via hologram in Episode IV. Microsoft’s holoportation system goes a step beyond that by offering real-time interaction between remote participants, although a headset is needed to fully participate. The three-dimensional content feed is created by putting a person in a space with a multi-camera array which records video of a participant from multiple angles. Those different angles are spliced together to create a holographic version of a person moving through space and viewable through a headset.

Earlier this week the National Cancer Institute (NCI), which is part of the National Institutes of Health, announced a Blue Ribbon Panel of scientific experts, cancer leaders, and patient advocates that will work to inform the scientific direction and goals for Vice President Joe Biden’s National Cancer Moonshot Initiative. “Thanks to advances in science, we are now in a historically unique position to make profound improvements in the way we treat, detect, and prevent cancer,” said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. He is correct, and here is why.

With an average price of 12 cents per kilowatt hour (Kwh) as of January 2016, the American electrical grid system still does a good job of getting electrical energy to consumers in a cost-effective fashion. However, the electrical grid is an aging infrastructure in desperate need of modernization. A 2013 report card issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers issued a D+ grade to the country’s electricity infrastructure despite increased investment since 2005. A report card synopsis cites the age of distribution systems, some of which were in use during the 1880s, as well as weather events and limited maintenance as serious issues. As more electrical grid resources become connected to the Internet in the race to develop smarter grids, cyber attacks will become an area of growing concern, which utility providers will have to stay ahead of.

This speech by Director Lee is exceptionally important for two reasons. First, the strong and explicit recognition that abuse can and does happen on both sides of a patent dispute, which can and does lead to large companies taking advantage of smaller innovators. Second, the explicit appreciation of the fundamental purpose of the patent system, to create strong property rights that require others to design around as they seek follow-on innovation.

Without immigrants and the influx of knowledge brought by them to our country’s shores, American innovation and the overall economy would look nothing like it does today. The current election cycle, as with many recent ones, has seen a great deal of focus turned towards the issue of immigration reform, with much of the debate centered on 11 million undocumented workers currently in America. But we wanted to take some time to explore how foreigners have been able to contribute to our nation’s spirit of innovation. Surprisingly, we found that some of these inventions encompass products that are about as American as apple pie.

Just when you thought the race for the White House couldn’t get any more unpredictable and bizarre, the 2012 Republican Nominee rebuked the current Republican frontrunner, Donald J. Trump. Romney won’t rule out a possibility of accepting the mantle if drafted at the Republican Convention, although he says he will endorse one of the remaining three candidates at some point. There is always the possibility that Romney is trying to keep the door open for someone else, perhaps his former running mate and current Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI). Given the Romney turn of events we thought it might be appropriate to take a look at what we know about Romney and Ryan as it pertains to patent and innovation policy.

The 2016 inductee class for the National Inventors Hall of Fame includes two microbiologists whose contributions to the field of food safety have helped to keep many foodborne pathogens, especially Salmonella, in check: John H. Silliker and Welton I. Taylor. These two scientists worked together to develop more effective monitoring techniques for food products in response to the growing concerns in the mid-20th century regarding Salmonella outbreaks, especially those which hit children the hardest. With the anniversaries for important patents issued to both of these food safety engineers having passed in early March, we thought we’d visit their scientific contributions from in our Evolution of Technology series here on IPWatchdog.

Powered exoskeletons, which can improve a person’s gait, are starting to gain traction as a new area of bionic development, which could potentially improve the lives of many. Recently, the California-based bionics firm suitX was selected as the winner of the $1 million top prize at the event for its pediatric medical exoskeleton at the 2016 UAE AI & Robotics Competition for Good. The company’s Phoenix exoskeleton is a modular unit which has a maximum weight of 27 pounds and is adjustable in size. The pediatric exoskeleton that won the award is based on the company’s Phoenix exoskeleton platform. The pediatric version of the Phoenix exoskeleton has been envisioned for helping children suffering from cerebral palsy or spina bifida to gain ambulatory mobility.

In 2015, Samsung took home the second-greatest number of patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office with 5,072 U.S. patents, which trailed only perennial patent giant IBM (NYSE:IBM) in terms of patents earned last year. That amount represents a slight uptick for Samsung from 2014, when the company took in 4,936 U.S. patents. Through the first month and a half of 2016, Samsung has earned 955 U.S. patents, a torrid pace of innovation that would easily eclipse Samsung’s 2015 patent totals if this pace holds. The patent portfolio analysis tools available through Innography show us that these recently issued patents are focused fairly evenly in the sectors of semiconductor devices, electronic devices, control units, memory devices and display units.

Superconductivity, and especially room temperature superconductivity, has been a holy grail of sorts, which the scientific community has sought for decades. Superconductors are materials which are capable of conducting electricity for an indefinite period of time without exhibiting resistance. This lack of resistance could revolutionize electricity transmission through a grid’s power lines, where as much as 10 percent to 15…

The U.S. cannot win a trade war based on raising tariffs. Rather than engage in a trade war that the U.S. can’t win, why not embrace smarter manufacturing policies? when we outsource manufacturing we are handing over the follow-on innovation that will take place on the factory floor. Therefore, by outsourcing manufacturing to the lowest bidder abroad not only have we destroyed the working middle class in America, but we are also increasingly turning over our last economic advantage – our intellectual property. How long will the United States be able to remain one of the world’s leading economies if we continue to outsource that follow-on innovation that takes place through the manufacturing processes?

Researchers at the National University of Singapore have developed a robotic glove designed to improve patient rehabilitation after injuries or nerve-related conditions that may have affected a person’s full range of motion with his or her hand, such as those suffered by a stroke or from muscular dystrophy. The robotic glove unit, known as the EsoGlove, is mainly made of fabric which is secured to a user’s hand with Velcro straps and a number of soft actuator components. These soft actuators are pressurized by air to distribute forces along the length of a wearer’s finger to encourage natural movements like bending or twisting.

The first mover storyline also provides a false narrative because it is flat wrong from the customer perspective as well. Simply stated, the first mover myth ignores the very real concerns facing customers in the marketplace for expensive enterprise solutions. An innovative solution provider with a complicated enterprise software product must show an established and growing customer base or big money behind them, or more likely both, in order to pass the first step of a sales process, which itself can take a year or more. Then there may be large upfront costs until the system is integrated and running before it becomes profitable. This all means an enterprise software startup must have substantial funding if they are to have any chance to succeed. This, of course, requires strong patent rights.

Data mining and predictive analytics designed to enhance the decision making process for law enforcement officials have been utilized in Richmond, VA, for more than a decade now. These techniques can provide police officers with predictions of high crime areas that can be reviewed prior to starting a shift when used in conjunction with a geographic information system (GIS). Using this digital platform for predictive crime analytics, Richmond saw a greater than 20 percent reduction in major crimes between 2005 and 2006 while reducing its standing among the most dangerous cities in America. Similar data mining and analytics systems put in place by police in the city of Memphis, TN, have had a similar payoff, helping to reduce serious crime in that city by 31 percent in the four years between 2006 and 2010. That city’s Blue CRUSH predictive analytics system was developed in partnership with the University of Memphis’ criminal justice department using software developed by American tech giant IBM (NYSE:IBM).