Post #11: 1 Million Patents

China recently hit a huge milestone: 1,000,000 patents.  In 2012 alone they granted 210,000 patents.  What does this mean for China? Basically they are inventing and and innovating -- increasing their competitiveness with other nations and creating jobs at the same time.  The 2012 number is a 26% increase from 2011, a significant increase from the year before.  However, this still doesn't compare to the numbers that America is producing at 247,713 a year*, and which is still a record year.  Overall, we can expect emerging markets to start producing more and more patents and become more competitive as the years carry on.  Eventually China will hit 2 million patents, but only time can tell until that will happen -- I predict by 2017.

Here is the link to the original article: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2013-02/27/content_16260248.htm

*http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/us_stat.htm

Post #10: What is an IPA?

Twitter recently began developing a new patent agreement between its employers that allows them pretty much full control of the patents they file.  Normally in big corporation settings, an employer completely signs off any invention they create to the company, allowing said company to use it anyway they want without the creator's consent.  However, Twitter is realizing the benefit of giving the ownership back to the creator in the company.

IPA stands for Investor Patent Agreement, and within that agreement there are three main points: A promise by the inventor not to sue anyone, unless it is for defensive purposes; a promise to only use the patent as intended for what it was for as directed by the inventor; and lastly, the inventors can hold the company/whoever eventually owns the patent accountable for what they do with it in the future.  The first main point of the agreement is especially important because it prevents patent wars from starting since there is no incentive to sue or keep companies out of the competition.  A lot of what we see today is one company suing another just simply to slow them down in production/R&D/whatever they are doing.  Although this is a good strategy, it also slows down innovation because companies work much slower in producing products, and costs billions of dollars.  The only people who really benefit from this, besides the companies of course, are the lawyers that are paid exuberant fees to fight.  Stopping the patent war is further reinforced with the second point because the patent can only be used for what the inventor intended, anything else and it has to be approved.  So even if it is bought by someone else, lets say a "patent troll," that person can't seek to extract money from other people unless the original inventor says that is OK.

The IPA, besides of course giving more ownership to the patent within the company to the original inventor, also prevents offensive attacks by Non-Practicing Entities.  This seems like a first good step in solving the all-around patent crisis that seems to have been going on these past few years.  Like my previous article, where I discuss how Microsoft is more transparent with its patents, Twitter is also becoming a pioneer in new patent strategies.

Here is the link to the original article: http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/02/twitters-ingenious-solution-to-the-patent-problem-let-inventors-control-the-patents/

Post #9: Transparency: Good or bad? Depends on who you ask.

Apparently, Microsoft has decided that the best way to save money on litigation and to create a more trusting environment surrounding patents is to publish their own patents online.  This is happening as the ever so popular "patent troll" is increasingly suing companies because they keep the patents they purchase secret in order to carry out their goals.  By fostering a transparent environment on patents, it will be more difficult for patent trolls to reign over unsuspecting companies.  It seems that companies are finally starting to step up and figure out what to do with the patent trolls.  Microsoft hopes to lead with this example and demonstrate to other tech companies that they should publish their own patents as well to help prevent frivolous lawsuits.  Hopefully it doesn't end up backfiring and Microsoft somehow ends up destroying their competitive advantages.  It will also be interesting to see if other companies take the lead on this and begin publishing their own patents as well.


Here is the link to the original article: http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2013/02/21/microsoft-to-publish-patent-catalogue-in-move-to-deter-litigation/

Post #8: The King of Patents

In today's performance driven economy, there is nothing better then to file and eventually be rewarded for your patent.  As explained in Uzi Aloush's lecture on 2/25, engineers are faced with the difficult task of always designing new patents and becoming the best in their field, or be left behind.

With this type of mindset, it is no wonder company after company is constantly seeking to acquire and control the most patents possible.  For 2012, that award goes to IBM corp. --  a computer and hardware giant.  In 2012, it was awarded close to 6,500 patents, a huge number demonstrating its constant search for new inventions to improve and advance its company.  Not surprisingly, this is the 20th year in a row that it has won this award and on top of that, the 6,500 patents awarded amounted to more then Apple, Amazon, Hewlett Packard, Symantec, EMC, Intel, Oracle and Accenture combined.

IBM Corp. has been so successful in creating this innovative culture by always encouraging its employees to invent new products and work even harder to see them produced.


Here is the link to the original article: http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/techflash/2013/02/research-in-mass-helps-put-ibm-on-the.html

Post #7: Apple Seeks Innovative New Patents

This past week, Apple was awarded patents for both situational awareness functions on its devices and location-sharing to third-parties from its devices.

Situational awareness interestingly combines your activities with automatic phone responses.  What this means is that if you go into a restaurant, it might switch your phone to silent or if you are on an airplane, it can recognize that and switch it to airplane mode.  However, there are a few critiques of this new patent, considering if certain settings are met and the situational awareness features are turned on when you don't want them to be, that could be a problem.  Maybe you call someone by accident or the device turns your GPS on when you enter a car, but you don't want to waste battery or data.  There are clearly issues that can arise with this new patent, although I'm sure Apple will be able to solve them.  It would be interesting to see this developed because this is actually a really good idea and would make for a much more intuitive phone experience.

The second patent, location sharing to third-parties is supposedly related to the eventual release of the iWatch.  That way, the iWatch doesn't need any GPS tracking devices on it, it can just receive the information from the Iphone.  This could prove to be very useful later on in helping to create much thinner devices and making it easier to transfer data.

Overall, these patents seem to indicate that Apple will be coming out with some new and interesting features for their products in the near future.  We can only wait to see what Apple creates.

Here is the link to the original article:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/26/apple-patents-situational-awareness-and-location-information-sharing-for-mobile-devices/