Monday, May 13, 2013
Monday, May 6, 2013
Post 28: Best Solution for Finals
Eureka!! Student's life during the week of finals became so much easier now. Don't take any substances to stay awake or focused to pull another allnighter to prepare for finals. Just have a bite of a....
BRAIN BUZZER !!!
This amazing and super useful device will let you stay awake by sending vibrations to your brain after you
bite it. To use, simply bite down on the vibrating wand -- please bite the thin end -- and vibrations will be transmitted to the brain, waking you up without aggravating your neighbors. Thinky Corporation of Tokyo, Japan has filed an international patent for this absurd invention.
This great device meets all the requirements to be considered as a valid international patent:
1. Usefulness. I shouldn't even talk about this, but rather find out where I can get one RIGHT NOW! I am a student, and as finals approach, I realize that all the well-known methods failed to prevent me from falling asleep when I am reading on some of the most fascinating business topics. I can see many more applications of this extremely useful device. I wouldn't mind having it on my last not-so-hot date when by all means I tried to express my "genuine" interest in the person but I couldn't help yawning being bored to death. For those who have to stay awake overnight - like security guards or long distance drivers, this device would work magic.
2. Obviousness. What a brilliant idea. I wish the inventors came up with it before 1998 - but the technology sounds so sophisticated. It is a very simple method to keep people awake - that's really hard to understand.
3. Novelty. It is an absolutely novel concept of letting people stay awake without making them drink, eat, swallow different substances. Great job, Thinky !!!
The theme of this week posts is: most absurd patents. Please forgive me my sarcastic tone.
Have a fabulous summer !
Post 27: Your house is saved from your bird's "negative externalities"
What a fabulous invention. All birds' owners are saved. Now they can let their Geshas and Pollies out of the cage to fly freely in the house without being worried that their house will covered with their favorite pets poop all over the place. Say thanks to United States patent 5934226 for [a] bird diaper for an uncaged pet bird to wear, featuring an enclosed pouch for receiving and containing excrement, and apertures to accommodate both the wings and the tail of the bird, now a happy bird owner who prefers to keep his house tidy will be able to accommodate his pet's happy lifestyle without compromising his love for a clean house.
However, I am not sure how happy the bird will be to wear this fashionable accessory, and how difficult it will for the owner to put on the diaper on a bird. It might be easier to clean up the mess after Polly's flying tour around the house than it is to make it wear the diaper. However, it can be a happy solution for both - the pet owner who loves tidiness, and for a bird that loves "fly freely" lifestyle.
It is clear how the patent covers three main concepts for it to be a ligit patent:
1. Novelty - People have created diapers before but no one would ever think that it is a possibility for birds. The novelty of this idea is accommodation of bird's wings when it wears a diaper.
2. Usefulness. No comment here. I am sure it relieves lives of millions of unhappy birds who are prevented from flying around the house because they can't control their desires to poop all over the place. It also makes bird owners happy - now they can keep their house tidy and let the bird do whatever it wants to do.
3. Non-obviousness. After looking at several diagrams, drawings and descriptions of the patent it is still hard for me to imagine the bird in a diaper. Please look at the picture below:
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Post 26: Micrsoft signed a licensing agreement with Hon Hai
Microsoft has signed a striking agreement with Foxconn parent company Hon Hai, one of the largest contractor manufacturers in China.
“We are pleased that the list of companies benefitting from Microsoft’s Android licensing program now includes the world’s largest contract manufacturer, Hon Hai,” Horacio Gutierrez, corporate VP and deputy general counsel of the IP group at Microsoft, said in a statement.The licensing agreement means that on any manufactured Chrome or Android device, such as handsets and notebooks, Hon Hai group will pay royalties to Microsoft.
In response to this announcement Google's shares dropped by 1.5% to $780 on Wednesday morning. Google has been fighting on Microsoft's infringement of Chrome's and Android's software. However, several manufacturers, like LG, HTC and Samsung, have already signed licensing agreements and agreed on paying royalties to Microsoft for manufacturing these devices.
“We recognize and respect the importance of international efforts that seek to protect intellectual property,” Samuel Fu, director of the Intellectual Property Department at Hon Hai, said in a statement. “The licensing agreement with Microsoft represents those efforts and our continued support of international trade agreements that facilitate implementation of effective patent protection.”Read more at AllthingsD
Post 25: Role of foreign inventors in the US innovation
America is heavily relying on patents and technological progress in fostering its economy. Every sector in the US economy is currently using or relying somehow on patented technology. It is important to understand the main sources of technological innovation in the US and explore possible opportunities to foster the US technological progress further.
An interesting fact that allows to understand better the role of foreign inventors in the US patent system is the number of patents filed by foreign scientists, students and entrepreneurs. The research examined in the report “Patent Pending: How Immigrants Are Reinventing The American Economy" highlights that more than 3 out of 4 patents in the top ten patent producing universities have been filed by at least one foreign scientist. More than 50% of foreign patents have been awarded to the group of scientists from abroad that were likely to face some visa hurdles: inventors, students, entrepreneurs, scientists.
The findings confirm that the US heavily depends on inventions made by immigrants, and it is in the interest of the US to attract even more brightest minds from all over the world. Foreign inventors played an invaluable role in the cutting edge research made in high-tech.
Foreign inventors bring in new ideas and technologies to the US,which creates new jobs and stimulates the economy. It is important to create a favorable environment for their research and living in the US. The government should offer more opportunities to the inventors to immigrate to the US:
1.Startup visas for cutting edge technology entrepreneurs.
2. Green cards for inventors involved in STEM areas: science, technology, engineering, and math. It is reported that 99% of patents are related to these areas.
3. Raise or remove caps for HB1 visas. HB1 visa is issued to highly skilled professionals, and currently the requirements for this type of visa are very high.
Foreign born inventors come from 88 countries, and they create technologies in the US that allow the US be on edge of the technology. It is important to create more opportunities for innovators from abroad to immigrate to the US to continue the trend of fostering innovation.
Read more at “Patent Pending: How Immigrants Are Reinventing The American Economy"
An interesting fact that allows to understand better the role of foreign inventors in the US patent system is the number of patents filed by foreign scientists, students and entrepreneurs. The research examined in the report “Patent Pending: How Immigrants Are Reinventing The American Economy" highlights that more than 3 out of 4 patents in the top ten patent producing universities have been filed by at least one foreign scientist. More than 50% of foreign patents have been awarded to the group of scientists from abroad that were likely to face some visa hurdles: inventors, students, entrepreneurs, scientists.
The findings confirm that the US heavily depends on inventions made by immigrants, and it is in the interest of the US to attract even more brightest minds from all over the world. Foreign inventors played an invaluable role in the cutting edge research made in high-tech. 
1.Startup visas for cutting edge technology entrepreneurs.
2. Green cards for inventors involved in STEM areas: science, technology, engineering, and math. It is reported that 99% of patents are related to these areas.
3. Raise or remove caps for HB1 visas. HB1 visa is issued to highly skilled professionals, and currently the requirements for this type of visa are very high.
Foreign born inventors come from 88 countries, and they create technologies in the US that allow the US be on edge of the technology. It is important to create more opportunities for innovators from abroad to immigrate to the US to continue the trend of fostering innovation.
Read more at “Patent Pending: How Immigrants Are Reinventing The American Economy"
Post 24: Apple's new patent on disabling phone based on location
The patent "Apparatus and methods for enforcement of policies upon a wireless device"was filed last Thursday and has features similar with the patent filed in 2011, as pointed out by the Apple Insider. The original patent describes the concept that would use the sensor to detect whether it is allowed to take pictures or make phone calls on a mobile device. The new patent uses GPS or WiFi or data to determine the location and "change one or more functional or operational aspects" of the device".
The practical application of the new feature is obvious: the volume will be turned down in the movie theaters, outgoing calls can be prevented in the classrooms, the device can be turned off when the plane is taking off or landing.
However, implementing this function can cause an ethical dilemma because it can abused by the authorities, like during the protests in San Francisco last year, when cellular services where shut down for the sake of "safety of Bart passengers".
Apple has filed multiple patents on many features to have control over the technology, without any intentions to develop it. By doing so, Apple is looking to increase its revenue streams by licensing.
Read more at NBSNEWS
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Post 23: Amazon Anonymous Payment System
With a new patent filed Amazon found a way for users to exchange less information about each party when they engage in a mobile payment transaction. The patent describes how the information identifying users, such as email and name will be masked under unique identifiers for a seller and a buyer.
Each transaction sellers and buyers will have temporary tokens created to initiate and complete the transaction. Once the transaction is completed, tokens will expire, thus creating anonymity between the parties involved in a transaction. No information will be revealed about each party and Amazon will be the only party involved in the identity of a seller and a buyer.
To initiate a payment, you would have to send a text to Amazon, "pay 20". Amazon would credit your account and send you the code via text, and you could send the code to the seller. The seller would be able then to debit the code onto their account.
Security measures like attaching the code to the payee would decrease the chance of interception of the code by unauthorized parties.
If Amazon were to implement this, it would become the competitor to payment systems like Paypal. Keeping in mind that Amazon is already a competitor to the owner of Paypal - Ebay, this movement would increase Amazon's vertical integration.
Read more on TechCrunch
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Post 22: Apple's Voice recognition patent infrigement in China
Apple is going through tough times in China. Its Siri personal assistant technology infringes the patent filed by Shanghai’s Zhizhen Network Technology Co.
One year ago once Apple has launched Siri's support in Cantonese and Mandarin in China, it has promptly been sued by ZhiZhen who produced Xiao i Robot for both iOS and Android. Xiao i Robot uses speech recognition to deliver news, weather, and other updates to users.
“The company will ask Apple to stop manufacturing and selling products using its patent rights, once Apple’s infringement is confirmed,” the company’s lawyer told the AFP. Unsurprisingly, he added that the company doesn’t “exclude the possibility of demanding compensation in the future.”
This aggressive tactics pursued by the Chinese company can hurt Apple's sales in China drastically. Zhizhen, however, is not a troll, but a real company producing voice recognition apps for profit. The differences between Siri and Xiao i Robot can be seen at the following video:
Apple has already been involved in patent lawsuits and has settled down for $ 60 million in the case against Proview and its ownership of Ipad.
Apple clearly is facing a difficult situation in building its market share in China especially after the attack on it by Chinese Media:
Post 21: Mobile Patent Landscape
In its report on Intellectual Property US Patent Office concluded that the entire US economy lies on some form of intellectual property in one way or another because every industry produces some form of it. It has commented in its foreword the following:
The role of mobile devices in our lives has grown exponentially and we can't imagine our lives without them anymore. The demand for mobile devices has increased, and the number of the units manufactured as well. Accordingly, companies strive even further to beat the competition and invent something else more innovative than their competitors. In order to protect their inventions, companies file more and more patents in order to keep their competitive advantage.
The number of mobile related patents has grown significantly over the last decade. The US market saw 390% increase in mobile related patents while European market 173 % increase.
Now every fifth patent is mobile related. This number increased drastically from 5% in 2001.
The leaders in the number of mobile related patents are the companies who have been players for a long time especially in infrastructure and platform space. Two biggest players are Nokia and Samsung.
Conclusion : as we can see from the trends discussed above, mobile is becoming a critical tool to drive technological growth. It is important to analyze the mobile patent landscape and see how the companies are shaping up the ecosystem and in which areas they are focusing their innovation. It is helpful not only for companies in mobile industry but also end users who want to be on edge of the technology and become early adapters. Current trends suggest that in 2014 a quarter of all patents filed will be mobile related. Mobile will keep progressing as the technology engine and the companies that understand the value of intellectual property will keep investing into their IP protection.
“Innovation protected by IP rights is key to creating new jobs and growing exports. Innovation has a positive pervasive effect on the entire economy, and its benefits flow both upstream and downstream to every sector of the U.S. economy. Intellectual property is not just the final product of workers and companies—every job in some way, produces, supplies, consumes or relies on innovation, creativity, and commercial distinctiveness. Protecting our ideas and IP promotes innovative, open, and competitive markets, and helps ensure that the U.S. private sector remains America’s innovation engine.”
The role of mobile devices in our lives has grown exponentially and we can't imagine our lives without them anymore. The demand for mobile devices has increased, and the number of the units manufactured as well. Accordingly, companies strive even further to beat the competition and invent something else more innovative than their competitors. In order to protect their inventions, companies file more and more patents in order to keep their competitive advantage.
The number of mobile related patents has grown significantly over the last decade. The US market saw 390% increase in mobile related patents while European market 173 % increase.
The leaders in the number of mobile related patents are the companies who have been players for a long time especially in infrastructure and platform space. Two biggest players are Nokia and Samsung.
Conclusion : as we can see from the trends discussed above, mobile is becoming a critical tool to drive technological growth. It is important to analyze the mobile patent landscape and see how the companies are shaping up the ecosystem and in which areas they are focusing their innovation. It is helpful not only for companies in mobile industry but also end users who want to be on edge of the technology and become early adapters. Current trends suggest that in 2014 a quarter of all patents filed will be mobile related. Mobile will keep progressing as the technology engine and the companies that understand the value of intellectual property will keep investing into their IP protection.
Read more at IPCloseup
Monday, April 8, 2013
Sunday, April 7, 2013
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