Technology Review TR35 Young Innovators

Since 1999, the editors of Technology Review have honored the young innovators whose inventions and research were found to be most exciting; today that collection is the TR35, a list of technologists and scientists, all under the age of 35. Their work--spanning medicine, computing, communications, electronics, nanotechnology, and more--is changing our world.

 

 

One on this year's list caught our attention. Conor Madigan, PhD, Cofounder and CEO of Kateeva  a company that, according to a recent article in Technology Review, has devised "a method for depositing the light-emitting organic materials with inkjet printers and a micro-dryer called a T Jet (for thermal jet) along with proprietary inks that effectively will let manufacturers employ Gen 8.5 and larger substrates – which measure more than 6 feet a side – to produce OLEDs."

Before Kateeva, Conor Madigan was a post-doctoral research scientist at MIT and has worked on organic electronic device technology for more than a decade. He is the author of numerous publications on the topic and holds patents in fields spanning physics, chemistry, electrical engineering, materials science, and software engineering. Conor earned a Bachelor’s degree from Princeton and a Ph.D. from MIT. Both degrees are in electrical engineering. His thesis at MIT was "Theory and Simulation of Amorphous Organic Electronic Devices" (pdf).

Technology Review's Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT brings together world-renowned innovators and leaders to discuss the technological innovations destined to better our lives and fuel economic growth.

World's Smallest Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Ashish Bhat, age 26, of Ideaforge, has been recognized as one of the outstanding innovators under the age of 35 on Technology Review's TR35 list for development of the world’s smallest and lightest autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle.

Think of a simple device that can be used for anti-terrorist operations, counter-insurgency in forested areas, hostage situations, border infiltration monitoring, local law enforcement operations, search and rescue operations, disaster management, aerial photography and more! Ashish Bhat, one of the founders of the Mumbai-based ideaForge Technology, has developed the world's smallest and lightest autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), called the Carbon.

 

 

Maybe it just should have been called the Bhat.

The Indian edition of Technology Review created the India TR35 list to acknowledge the outstanding innovators under the age of 35 from India. This list showcases individuals whose superb technical work holds great promise to shape the next decades. The 2010 class of India TR35 winners have all demonstrated either development of new technology or the creative application of existing technologies to solve problems from the shores of India. The TR35 winners are under the age 35 as of October 1, 2010

Read about all these young innovators here.

Jack Nicholson's Hydrogen Car

A car that emits only water vapor may sound like something from the future, but it's here today in the eye-catching design of the FCX Clarity Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle. The FCX Clarity FCEV is already in the hands of select Southern California drivers. Curious about how the FCX Clarity FCEV works?

Vehicles that use hydrogen fuel cell technology instead of gasoline are about the cleanest around because they emit only water vapor into the air. They also use hydrogen from domestic energy sources, reducing our dependence on oil. And driving fuel cell vehicles significantly reduces the amount of carbon dioxide emissions, helping to slow the increase in greenhouse gases.

Another new hydrogen fuel cell vehicle concept is Honda's futuristic FC Sport Concept. It demonstrates a whole new way of thinking about hydrogen, and previews a future where environmental responsibility and performance can co-exist.

But long before Jay Leno was driving a BMW Hydrogen 7, one of Hollywood's coolest celebrities was driving a hydrogen Chevy -- Jack Nicholson, who was recently seen waving the green flag during the 94th running of the Indianapolis 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Back in the day, though, Jack was riding around Hollywood in his "standard Chevy" powered by hydrogen.

"How do you know Jack Nicholson drove a hydrogen car in 1978?" you might ask. Well, someone named Jason tweeted about it on Twitter and linked to this YouTube video.

 

 

Wow that's a blast from the past! Now, find out more about the latest patents and non-patent literature regarding innovations in fuel efficient cars using the advanced search features of IP.com's Intellectual Property Library.

"No one can tell us when we'll run out of oil, but we will. Everyone will tell you we will." --John W. Mendel, Executive Vice President, Honda, Acura Auto Sales in Racing Against Time, one of a series of documentary films in a series Dream the Impossible. One of these films, featuring Danica Patrick, that is particularly relevant for inventors is Failure: The Secret to Success.

Patents & Trademarks on iPhone and iPad

Yes, there's an app for that.

It was inevitable that these popular iPhone smartphones and iPad touchscreen tablets would be used to search patents and trademarks. Patent and trademark apps have already started appearing in the iTunes store, some for free, with names like Apptorney IP, Patent Finder, and Patent Genius,

 

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 Now, an innovative law firm that specializes in the practice of intellectual property law, including patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, computer, franchise and unfair competition law, has launched the latest app for searching United States Patents and Trademarks, Banner & Witcoff’s IP Lawyer.

Banner & Witcoff's IP Lawyer is a free iPhone application providing iPhone-customized full search access to patents and trademarks issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office as well as corresponding assignments.

Banner & Witcoff's IP Lawyer also provides a comprehensive library with up-to-date Patent Local Rules for district courts throughout the country, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Federal Rules of Evidence, the Manual Patent Examination and Procedure, the U.S. Constitution, 37 C.F.R., links to international patent offices, and additional tools and resources.

Apple recently reported strong earnings for its third fiscal quarter of 2010, with strong iPhone, Mac and iPad sales helping revenue exceed analyst expectations. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, "The company in the quarter released the iPhone 4, which CEO Steve Jobs characterized as the most successful product launch in the company's history. Apple also launched the iPad during the third quarter, with shipments totaling 3.27 million units."

Sooner or later, we'll probably see IP.com's Intellectual Property Library and the Prior Art Database available as an app for iPhone and iPad, too. What do you think? Would that be cool, or what?

Blawg Review #276

Every Monday, lawyers get together for Blawg Review and share some of the best law blog posts of the previous week or so.

Colin Samuels, Blawg Review Sherpa Emeritus, describes it best. "Where once we were isolated legal students, practitioners, and academics who could share our thoughts only with those in proximity, blogging and social media have turned us all into a kind of "other memory" for one another. The knowledge, experience, and insight we are able to access here, within our ever-expanding networks of colleagues and friends, colleagues-of-colleagues, friends-of-friends, is nothing short of amazing. By participating, we are able to give and receive and grow beyond ourselves while allowing others to grow as well. Thanks to our tools, these memories need not fade or become inaccessible, but we should always keep in mind that tools do not create — we do."

Blawg Review is often focused on a special theme more important than ourselves as lawyers, individuals, or corporations. A good example is Blawg Review #274 recently, where patent attorney Vincent LoTempio marked the 20th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

We hosted Blawg Review #179 on Dia del Inventor, the equivalent in Argentina of National Inventors Day in the United States, where instead of commemorating Thomas Edison the day celebrates Laszlo Biro, the inventor of the ballpoint pen.

Last year, Tom Colson, the CEO of IP.com and father of three girls, hosted a special presentation of Blawg Review #217 on Father's Day. Today, we're pleased to host Blawg Review #276, the third time this blog carnival for everyone interested in law has been hosted on IP.com's blog, Securing Innovation.

Securing Innovation is not a law blog, or blawg, per se, but is the business blog of IP.com, a company that is familiar to the community of intellectual property lawyers, patent attorneys and in-house counsel of some of the world's most innovative companies. Topics on this blog are usually about Intellectual Property, patents, trademarks, copyright, trade secrets, and innovative technologies -- like this new T-Mobile Samsung Vibrant Android smartphone that comes preloaded with the full length movie Avatar.

 

 

Which brings us to the focus of this Blawg Review; not Intellectual Property but Indigenous Peoples. International Day of the World's Indigenous People.

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Prior Art in the Library of Congress

Business Reference Services is the starting point for conducting research at the Library of Congress in the subject areas of business and economics. On the Library of Congress website, reference specialists in specific subject areas of business assist patrons in formulating search strategies and gaining access to the information and materials contained in the Library's rich collections of business and economics materials.

IP.com`s Intellectual Property Library is in the links of the Library of Congress Business References for Patents. This isn't the only way in which the Library of Congress collaborates with IP.com to record and preserve a permanent record of prior art, assuring that the modern, digital record of prior art is permanently recorded in the traditional print collections of the Library of Congress.

The IP.com Journal is the print and CD counterpart to the IP.com Prior Art Database. The IP.com Journal is published twice per month. It contains all disclosures digitally notarized and made available since the previous publication. It may also contain some disclosures which have been marked to appear in the print journal prior to being made available online. The IP.com Journal is just one of the methods that IP.com employs to ensure that disclosures published to our databases are permanent and forever available. Each edition of the journal is distributed to libraries and law offices around the world .

The IP.com Journal contains a table of contents of included disclosures, printed summary information for each disclosure, an index of keywords, and one or more CD-ROM disks containing each complete disclosure along with its digital notarization record.

Most searchers access Prior Art data from the website or from a periodic data-feed. However, IP.com also distributes physical copies of IP.com Journal to various locations, including the Library of Congress.

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First Patent Granted in the United States

The first patent granted in the United States of America was for an improvement "in the making Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process." The patent was signed by President George Washington, Attorney General Edmund Randolph, and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Here's the story of the first patent, as told by Henry M. Paynter of the University of Texas.

 

The patent grant you see reproduced above was the first one issued by the United States, to Samuel Hopkins* of Pittsford, Vermont in 1790. Two other patents were granted that year: one for a special process of making candles and one for improved flour milling machinery. The Hopkins patent was for an "Improvement, not known before such Discovery, in the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new apparatus and Process", and was granted for a term of fourteen years. The name potash refers to several potassium salts, mild alkalis, which were derived from the ashes of timber or other plants. It was also known in a caustic form when mixed with lime. In reacting with fats or oils, potash produced a soft soap. It was an essential ingredient in the manufacture of glass, alum (salts of aluminum--used chiefly in medicine), and saltpeter (an important ingredient in gun powder). Potash also played an important role in bleaching, mining, metallurgy, and other industrial interests. Its many applications served as an indication of the emerging chemical industry in the nineteenth century. In the summer of 1956, the Vermont Historic Sites Commission erected a marker at the former residence of Samuel Hopkins.* The original patent granted to him still exists in the collections of the Chicago Historical Society.

Source: inventors.about.com

*Note: It now appears that Samuel Hopkins was not the same Samuel Hopkins who was granted the first patent.

According to the USPTO, the first patent for the new millennium was issued on January 4, 2000, to Leonard Siprut from San Diego for a multiple component headgear system. Patent No. 6,009,555 is a sun visor/eye shield for surfers, kayakers, bikers, and athletes in other extreme sports. In contrast, the first patent issued in 1900 was to Louis Allard, of Utah, for an early version of the washing machine.

Props to the first searcher who finds the Allard patent  from early 1900 and posts a link to it in the comments below!

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Google Patents Indexing, Retrieval of Blogs

This week, Google Inc. was assigned a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office USPTO for the invention of a system and method for indexing and retrieval of blogs.

You can find details of this new patent 7765209 in IP.com's Intellectual Property Library, which includes detailed information for this patent, first applied for in 2005 and granted in 2010 for what appears to be the core patent for Google's system and method of indexing blogs, which are now included in the results of a Google search.

The patent is abstracted as follows: "A system may receive a feed associated with a blog. The system may extract information from the feed and the blog and create a hybrid document based on the extracted information. The system may further use the hybrid document to determine a relevance of the blog to a search query."

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Search IBM® Redbooks® in IP.com Library

IBM Redbooks represent a unique source of technical art, so IP.com is especially pleased to bring the advanced searching and more-like-this capabilities of IP.com's Intellectual Property Library to this material, which can now be searched and browsed in this new format.

For example, here's some recent IBM Redbooks publications.

IBM Redbooks publications are developed and published by the IBM International Technical Support Organization (ITSO). The ITSO develops and delivers skills, technical know-how, and materials to IBM technical professionals, Business Partners, clients, and the marketplace in general.

The ITSO works with IBM Divisions and Business Partners in the process of developing IBM Redbooks, Redpapers, Web Docs, workshops, and other materials. The ITSO is part of the ibm.com organization within IBM Sales & Distribution.

The ITSO's value-add information products address product, platform, and solution perspectives. They explore integration, implementation, and operation of realistic client scenarios that include PeopleSoft, Linux, Windows, SAP, Oracle, and others.

IBM Redbooks are the ITSO's core product. They typically provide positioning and value guidance, installation and implementation experiences, typical solution scenarios, and step-by-step "how-to" guidelines. They often include sample code and other support materials that are also available as downloads from this site.

Redbooks are available as hardcopy books, in IBM Redbooks CD-ROM collections, and on the Internet.

IBM Redbooks is on Facebook. You can also follow IBM's Twitter feed for Redbooks @IBMRedbooks and you can follow IP.com on Twitter @ipdotcom, as well.

The addition of IBM Redbooks to the IP.com Intellectual Property Library is an effective extension of the ongoing collaboration between IP.com and IBM to make their non-patent literature and technical disclosures easily accessible to patent examiners and inventors everywhere.

Since 2002, IBM's Technical Disclosure Bulletin and all its technical disclosures since 1958 have been published as part of IP.com's Prior Art Database. IBM technical disclosures (from 1958 through today) are available for a fee through IP.com. Documents can be purchased through the following: IP.com Prior Art Database. As indicated on the IBM website: "They are also kept on file with Patent & Trademark Offices and U.S. Government Depository Libraries. Searching/copying services are NOT provided by any PTO or Government office."

LoTempio Celebrates the ADA

My good friend Vincent LoTempio is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act with an inspiring presentation of Blawg Review #274 he's put together on the LoTempio Law Blog, including a link to a video I shot of  him showing kids how to play catch with one arm. As a baseball player, Vinny is no Jim Abbott but he's a great athlete for his age. Vinny still plays pickup hockey regularly with the younger guys. I kid him he's past his prime.

As a patent lawyer who blogs about intellectual property, Vincent LoTempio is on top of his game. The LoTempio Law Blog is about patents, trademarks and copyright -- and other interesting stuff. I like his blog posts about "what inventors need to know" and enjoy the interesting stuff he writes about prosthetic devices and inspirational stories of courageous people with disabilities.

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Technical Disclosures, Defensive Publications

Defensive Publishing Overview

Patenting is extremely expensive and most companies have more innovative ideas than budgeted patent resources. Who can afford to patent everything? On the other hand, who can afford to let competitors patent technology used in your products and services? Worse yet, how do you know, years in advance, which patentable ideas you will need for your products and services? Defensive publishing is a low cost way to prevent competitors from obtaining patents and protect your freedom to practice.

Technical Disclosures

Patents are incredibly useful tools in that they give the inventor the right to exclude others from making, using or selling the patented invention. However, this exclusive right must be enforced. If someone is using an invention for which you have a patent, you can sue for infringement to reclaim damages, as well as force the offending party to stop. Unless you initiate the infringement proceedings (or the threat of infringement proceedings), there is nothing to make the offending party stop using your innovation. In essence, patents only have power if you are willing to stand up in court to defend them.

The problem is that obtaining patents is not a trivial process. Legal fees, filing fees, maintenance fees, and lost time by your R&D staff can be quite costly. Spending this kind of money on a powerful innovation that can return hundreds or thousands of times the investment is clearly worth it. Yet, only a small portion of the items from a typical invention review qualify as such. More often, the majority of ideas that result from an invention review are good ideas that, for one reason or another, do not end up patented.

Why?

Typically, there are a number of inventions on which you may already have partial patent protection. Inventions that improve upon an existing patented invention are good examples of this. Another reason you may not wish to obtain patent protection on good ideas, is that you don't expect to ever gain back the money that would be spent pursuing the patent. This is highly typical for inventions that improve the operation of some aspect of your business, but is not part of your general business strategy. (A computer chip manufacturer that finds a better way of packaging would be a good example. Packaging sales are not part of the core business, and most likely patents in this area would never be pursued.)

So what happens to the innovation I don't patent?

Typically, nothing. You are free to use your invention without a patent ... until someone else patents the idea. That's when the problem occurs. At this point, they could force you into paying licensing fees, or to stop using the innovation altogether. In essence, forcing you to stop using an idea you had first, but never patented.

If I had the idea first, doesn't that give me the right to use it?

Unfortunately, having the idea first doesn't do anything for you. The only way to prevent another patent from issuing, or defeating one that has already issued, is by being able to prove not only that the idea already existed, but that it was available to the public as well. This is where technical disclosure comes in. Innovation you do not patent is at risk of being patented by others. Publishing that innovation establishes a clear trail of evidence that you had this idea, and made it available to the public. Therefore, it should be considered "general knowledge" by the patent examiners, and not be allowed to be patented. In effect, allowing you to retain your right to use your own innovation, without the hassle and expense of obtaining patent protection.

Here's how technical disclosure works.

BP Patents Blowout Preventer Testing

People of the Gulf, the country, and the world, are holding their breath as BP tests a new sealing cap on the blowout preventer.

The cap installed on the top of the well is basically a second blowout preventer. Charlie Petit at the Knight Science Journalism Tracker blog wonders in disbelief why this kind of gerryrigged oil spill stopper hasn't been on standby before now and hopes that these last two months of engineering lay the groundwork for a new generation of deepwater safety devices.

Perusal of the IP.com Intellectual Property Library discloses that, one week to the day of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion causing a massive oil spill or leak from the Macondo Prospect oil field, BP received a patent for this blowout preventer testing system and method.

 

 

This invention relates to the general subject of production of oil and gas and, in particular, to methods and apparatuses for testing fluid systems.
 

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Current subsea Blow Out Preventer (BOP) testing practice (in U.S. “Oil and Gas Drilling Operation,” Subpart D, 30 C.F.R. Chapter II, current Edition; and generally worldwide) is to view shut-in test pressures on circular chart recorders and wait until a 5-minute period of reasonably stable pressures is obtained (see FIG. 1). Reasonably stable pressures must be greater than or equal to the required test pressure and allow for temperature-related pressure declines. Tests are initiated well in excess of required pressures. A 5-minute period of reasonably stable pressures is required as proof of non-leaking tests since, absent additional analysis, the periods of overtly declining shut-in pressures could be indicative of leaks in the systems. The basic chart recorder used on a majority of drilling rigs today was patented over one hundred years ago (Wittmer, G. X.: “Recording Apparatus for Fluid Meters,” U.S. Pat. No. 716,973).

In the United States under current regulations, subsea BOP tests, recorded on 4-hour 15,000 psi circular charts, are typically ended when pressure decline rates are in the range −4 to −3 psi/min. This is because the pressure trace begins to appear steady once pressure decline rates diminish to the range −4 to −3 psi/min, making this the as-practiced limit of circular chart resolution. Given the subjective nature of visual chart interpretation, tests are sometimes stopped at pressure decline rates as high as −5 psi/min and as low as −2 psi/min. A decline rate of −3 psi/min is representative of a high standard of current testing practice. The pressure at which this occurs is defined as Ps or the “pressure at stabilization.”

Industry trends toward deeper water, synthetic oil-based fluids, and subsurface conditions requiring increasingly higher test pressures all contribute to lengthy delays while waiting for pressures to stabilize during subsea BOP testing. Also, subsea BOP stacks with redundancy of components and use of multiple-diameter drill strings leads to greater numbers of tests that must be conducted.

Coincidentally, at least one of the patent drawings appears to relate specifically to tests the Deepwater Horizon oil rig almost four years before the explosion.

 

 

This Patent Application is related to a pending U.S. patent application filed on Dec. 22, 2004 under Ser. No. 11/025,415 and published as 2005/0269079 on Dec. 8, 2005. The teachings therein are incorporated herein by reference. This patent application claims the priority of a USA Provisional Patent Application filed on Feb. 1, 2007 under Ser. No. 60/887,739 and entitled “Improved Blowout Preventer System.”

Planalytics Weather-based Financial Index

Just days after the Supreme Court of the United States decided Bilski, the USPTO granted a patent (US 7752106 B1 published on 06-Jul-2010) to Planalytics, Inc. for the invention of a system, method, and computer program product for predicting a weather-based financial index value.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates generally to financial indexes, and more specifically, to a weather-based financial index.

2. Related Art

Weather provides risk in a financial marketplace. For example, weather may effect the price of a security, an equity, or a commodity. Several techniques have been introduced in an attempt to provide protection against weather-related risks. For example, weather futures may be traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In another example, over-the-counter derivatives, which are based on the average temperature over a predetermined time with respect to a reference temperature, may be traded as swaps or options. However, such risk management techniques generally do not provide liquidity and have been shunned by the financial markets.

What is needed is a method, system, and/or computer program product that addresses one or more of the aforementioned shortcomings of conventional weather-related risk management techniques.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A weather-based financial index is based at least in part on weather. The index may take into account any of a variety of weather factors, such as temperature, precipitation, humidity, number of sunny or overcast days in a period of time, number of freeze days in a period of time, etc. The weather-based financial index includes one or more financial components, each of which may be described as the price per reference unit of a commodity, an equity instrument, or an income instrument. Weather factor value(s) are combined with component(s) to provide the weather-based financial index. Components and/or weather factor values may be combined with respective weighting factors

The weather-based financial index may be traded on an exchange, such as the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). The value of the index may be calculated based on any period, such as daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, etc. Historical values of the index may be used to predict future values of the index.

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In a recent blog post on IP Watchdog, patent attorney Gene Quinn dissected the Bilski decision, concluding:

A fair reading of the Bilski case is that all 9 Justices said the claims in Bilski were not patentable because they did not represent an invention. The Bilski claims were nothing more than an abstract idea, or a concept. But could you have patented the Bilski process? Yes if there was a “there” there, which there was not unfortunately for Bilski.

Nevertheless, if a client came into your office could you get them a patent on the “innovation” present in Bilski? I think the answer is clearly yes. I said this to a former patent examiner I work with today and he initially laughed. By the end of the conversation I got him to come around to agreeing with me.

I’m not sure anyone could have saved the Bilski application, but if you could have written it yourself with an eye toward the Machine or Transformation test the specification would have been heavy on technology and processes that were tied to the technology. You would have made sure that there were process steps described in the specification and in the claims that could not have been carried out disembodied from the technology. In short, you would have removed the pen and paper argument by making sure that the innovation as described and claimed could not in any way be infringed by pen and paper only. So yes, I could have written an application that would have had patentable claims for Bilski, but it would have looked a lot different. I’m sure others could have done the same. The difference in the Bilski application as it was and the Bilski application as it could be is that it would have defined a concrete invention.

Is this weather-based financial index patent application so written to effectively meet the tests in Bilski? Did the patent examiner in this application follow the guidelines in the recent USPTO memo following Bilski? What do our experienced readers think?

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