Posts Tagged: "innovation"

Tuesday’s list of issued patents published by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office includes 27 patents assigned to Cupertino, California device manufacturer Apple Inc. Each week, Apple is awarded a few patents that pertain to their electronic devices or computer systems. This week, Apple was awarded a new design patent for its laptops, as well as patents protecting methods of either creating more rugged touchscreens or finding useful social network recommendations through data analysis.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Smithsonian Institution have signed a Memorandum of Agreement for the USPTO to support the Smithsonian’s development of an “Innovation Pavilion” that will showcase educational programs and exhibitions about American innovation. The pavilion will be housed at the Arts and Industries (A&I) Building in Washington, DC, after the historic building’s re-opening in 2014. It will serve as a forum for public discussions, symposiums, workshops, and recognition ceremonies related to American innovation, highlighting the vital role patents play in supporting that innovation. Also, the USPTO and the Smithsonian will partner in hosting an Innovation Expo on June 20-22, 2013, at the USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia.

In 1906, when Upton Sinclair published “The Jungle,” that expose of unsanitary conditions in the meat industry shocked the nation, ranging from the public to regulators. Today, it is too well known how much can go wrong in the food supply chain, which is increasingly global. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that in the U.S. alone, each year there are 37.2 million foodborne diseases, 228,744 hospitalizations, and 2,612 deaths. In addition to this human tragedy there are the negative commercial impacts such as the cost of recalls, which can bankrupt a company as it did the Peanut Corporation of America after the 2008 outbreak of Salmonella in its products. That means jobs are lost and communities financially devastated. Also, reputational capital takes a hit, demand could be down for exports, and lawsuits are filed. The full extent of these effects is unknown which is why WHO created the Initiative to Estimate the Global Burden of Foodborne Diseases.

Right now the best business to be in at the moment is the patent enforcement business, at least if you are concerning yourself with low-risk monetization with high reward. Between the legacy issue of bad patents, patent auctions and the many who purchase patents, what has started to happen is that the patent system rewards those who have the finances and ability to game the system. But the problem is extraordinarily complex.

In a 1972 court decision, United States Supreme Court Justice Stewart wrote: “Property does not have rights. People have rights.” Accordingly, Blacks must be diligent in making sure that they are aware of their intellectual property rights, like any other civil right, and seek IP legal counsel to secure and enforce these rights for economic gain, the avoidance of economic exploitation and the creation of wealth in the new millennium and beyond. That will only be achieved with the help of those (of all races and other categories that divide us) who work within the IP community. Until then, in a society where innovation is the key to individual wealth and national economic prosperity and where IP attorneys who represent innovators should be the “next generation civil rights lawyer,” I (and many like me) will have failed to live up to my mother’s dream.

Like so many other popular science fiction books, movies and franchises, Star Trek has inspired many innovators to ask the question “why not?” Although Star Trek did not have a monopoly on inspiration for cloaking devices, a technology that was first awarded a U.S. patent earlier this year, it is hard to imagine a more powerful motivation for the pursuit of deflector shields. And earlier today the company that owns the first patented cloaking device claims to have successfully created a deflector shield body armor suit.

According to the company, Apple’s method utilizes a solid-state air mover using “corona discharge—an electrical discharge near a charged conductor caused by the ionization of the surrounding air.” This is made of one corona electrode, one collector electrode, and a high voltage power supply. An electric field is created when voltage is applied to electrodes; the electric field causes surrounding particles to become ionized (charged). The electric field “spreads” a charge toward the collector electrode, and the charge continues to spread and create air movement en masse.

One just thinks of the fact that five years ago Blackberry was the industry standard, dominant forever, and now it is basically exposed to ridicule because virtually it’s dropped to third or fourth on the distribution list. You look at the rate of technological progress between then and now, it just doesn’t seem in any way, shape or form to have been slowed down so it seems to me that in face of rapid technological advance to say that the current system is a disaster is a mistake.

Ongoing efforts to support student entrepreneurship and/or invention on campus included a variety of programs: 84% of schools have entrepreneurship classes, bootcamps or other similar programs; 72% have business plan competitions; 50% have incubators for student-owned companies; and 41% offer student entrepreneurship funding. “By supporting student innovation and entrepreneurship, AUTM hopes to see commercialization of student inventions grow just as we have seen growth in the commercialization of faculty inventions,” says AUTM Vice President for Membership Phyl Speser.

NASA has selected 10 university-led proposals for study of innovative, early-stage space technologies designed to improve shielding from space radiation, spacecraft thermal management and optical systems. The 1-year grants are worth approximately $250,000 each, with an additional year of research possible. Each of these technology areas requires dramatic improvements over existing capabilities for future science and human exploration missions. Early stage, or low technology readiness level concepts, could mature into tools that solve the difficult challenges facing future NASA missions.

The Federal Trade Commission is challenging the public to create an innovative solution that will block illegal commercial robocalls on landlines and mobile phones. As part of its ongoing campaign against these illegal, prerecorded telemarketing calls, the agency is launching the FTC Robocall Challenge, and offering a $50,000 cash prize for the best technical solution.

Innovation and how to foster next generation technologies is a topic of very active discussion within businesses across the country. But how can America continue to be one of the most innovative countries in the world? The rapid adoption of IP management and licensing platforms built around social collaboration seems to lead us to one answer – open innovation. Indeed, with today’s technology allowing for the seamless transfer of information – R&D departments have little to no choice but to begin to embrace the open innovation model and use it to their advantage. Understanding your intellectual assets and being able to capitalize on them in order to generate more revenue must be an important part of managing IP and fostering innovation.

In a recently published Forbes.com article titled”The Federal Circuit, Not the Supreme Court, Legalized Software Patents,” Lee doubled down with his absurd and provably incorrect assertions regarding the patentability of software patents. But he also more or less sheepishly admitted that his reading of the most relevant case is not one that is widely accepted as correct by anyone other than himself. He wrote: “To be clear, plenty of people disagree with me about how Diehr should be interpreted.” Thus, Lee admits that his primary assertion is one he created from whole cloth and contrary to the widely held views to the contrary. Of course, the fact that his radical views are in the minority was conveniently omitted from his ?Ars Technica? article. If Lee has any integrity he will issue a public apology to the Federal Circuit and issue a retraction. If Lee doesn’t come to his senses and do the right thing in the face of overwhelming evidence that he is wrong then Forbes.com and Ars Technica should step in and do what needs to be done.

Indeed, few articles have struck a nerve in me quite the way that a recent Ars Technica article did. The article is titled How a rogue appeals court wrecked the patent system??. It is a cheap shot, factually inaccurate and embarrassingly incorrect “news” story that concludes the Federal Circuit is at the heart of all the problems in the patent system. A real Pinocchio tale. Ars Technica? should be ashamed at having published such an inaccurate attack piece. If they are not going to properly vet articles in advance of publication then what have they become? Little more than an online technology specific version of those tabloids with the salacious headings. The patent system is far to important to the U.S. economy and our way of life to suffer from that level of journalistic ignorance and bias.