Kent Displays Reflex™ LCD Tablet

Kent Displays recently announced forming Improv Electronics, a new business unit focused on development and sales of consumer electronic products. The products will utilize Kent Displays revolutionary Reflex™ no power LCD technology.

The first product sold under the Improv Electronics name, the Boogie Board LCD Writing Tablet, is now available. This product is the first paperless writing tablet to utilize a pressure-sensitive Reflex LCD for the writing surface. While most other LCDs are made on glass, the Reflex LCDs used in Boogie Board tablets are made of impact-resistant, flexible plastic. They are mass produced exclusively in the U.S. on the world's first roll-to-roll line for fabrication of flexible LCDs.

Because all Reflex LCDs are reflective and bi-stable, the Boogie Board tablet requires no power to generate or retain an image, and only a small amount to erase (supplied by a small watch battery, which will execute over 50,000 erase cycles). At a retail price of $29.97 USD, the Boogie Board tablet's cost per erase is 15 times less than the per sheet cost of paper in a comparable steno notepad.

Written and graphic images are created with an included stylus or any other instrument that will apply the desired pressure (even a finger nail). Unlike traditional LCDs that have a poor response to pressure, the Boogie Board's Reflex LCD is highly responsive to variable amounts of pressure. This allows different line thicknesses to be easily created (great for sketching) and provides a writing experience very similar to paper and pencil.

Part of Kent Displays' Push Green™ initiative, the Boogie Board tablet provides a highly-effective vehicle to reduce everyday paper consumption. While most reduction strategies have focused on computer-related activities, an equally significant amount of paper is used for everyday writing tasks such as writing memos, jotting down ideas, making reminders/lists, practicing handwriting/arithmetic (young children), playing games, drawing pictures, and diagramming plays (coaches). The paperless Boogie Board tablet can be used for all these activities, replacing memo/note pads and sticky notes in the home, office, school, car and field. It also replaces chalk, magnetic and dry erase boards. Like all the above writing and drawing mediums, the Boogie Board tablet consumes no electrical energy to produce an image.

OEM versions of the Boogie Board tablet for integration into third party devices (e.g., computer keyboard) will also be sold.

Founded in 1993, Kent Displays, Inc., is a world leader in the research, development and manufacture of Reflex No Power LCDs for unique, sustainable applications including electronic skins, writing tablets, smartcards and eReaders. In October 2008, Kent Displays installed a new roll-to-roll production line at its headquarters in Kent, Ohio, U.S.A. to mass produce Reflex LCDs from rolls of plastic. The line is the first of its kind in the world and produces no waste water/chemicals and less solvent emissions than sheet-based processes. The flexibility, durability and exceptional thinness of our plastic displays, combined with no power image retention and superior optical characteristics, result in a versatile, environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional paper and backlit LCDs – with nearly endless applications!

For more information about Boogie Board LCD Writing Tablets, go to www.myboogieboard.com

Become a Boogie Board fan on Facebook and follower on Twitter.

For more information about Kent Displays or Improv Electronics, go to www.kentdisplays.com

Kent Displays, Inc. has shareholders in common with IP.com, Inc., so we know and like these folks, and we're happy to help spread the news about this innovative application of its patented technology.

We're Thankful for Jeremy Phillips & IPKat

funny pictures of cats with captions
see more Lolcats and funny pictures

So, it's come to this has it? We're now posting pictures of cats with funny captions in an attempt to meet the standards set by Jeremy Phillips for what makes an Intellectual Property blog remarkable these days. Not sure this will help us.

We can't compete with The IPKat on substance, and we're not sure we'll be able to match his inimitable style. But we're trying. Our featured Guest Blogger is non other than Jeremy Phillips himself. Now, if we can just keep up.

As we pushed ourselves away from the Thanksgiving dinner table and got thinking about what to write about the press release we received yesterday from the Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy (SABIP) in the UK, we noticed that Jeremy Phillips had a front row seat at the press conference and has already written extensively, and with authority, here and here at The IPKat blog.

In short, SABIP's chairman Joly Dixon, summarised the plot. We Brits are now going to deepen our knowledge of how IP works within the economy and make up for the fact that we have little hard evidence as to precisely how IP affects its owners, users and the various markets in which it is engaged or exploited.

Here in the former colonies, we aren't surprised that The IPKat scooped us again on the important story of the day, as he so often does. Actually, we're thankful.

Have a great weekend.

Does Your Oversight of IP Measure Up?

From the archives of IP Law & Business Magazine to the front page of the new IPLB.com website, this interesting article from late last year. Here's a snippet:

Failing to follow sound IP management practices can leave directors and officers liable for breach of loyalty and open to claims of corporate waste...

One classic situation in which director and officer liabilities could arise: A corporation has over time accumulated a substantial IP portfolio whether patents, trademarks, trade secrets, or copyright, and has effectively lost track of what it has. It has not considered how best to maintain or strengthen the protections for the IP, let alone how best to exploit it. The problem is not necessarily in (just) failing to take certain steps to protect the IP or to exploit it, but in the failure to be sufficiently informed to competently consider alternatives so that the decision to take action or not can be defended as one that was given due consideration. This is where sound IP management can enhance internal controls and reduce regulatory and litigation risk.

 Read the article here on the new website for IP Law & Business.

The Sequel: Can GM Reinvent Its Brand?

GM needs to cut costs, create stronger brand messages with the consumer, and make better cars. By marketing fewer models under few brands, they should be able to sell more cars than they do now. The plan they need to submit to Congress today is a simple and inevitable one.

Look, here's the plan.

IP.com CEO Speaking at PATINEX 2008

Johnson Kong, Executive Vice President and Head of Asia Pacific for IP.com Inc., is in Korea with Tom Colson, our CEO, who addressed an international group of thought leaders gathering at PATINEX 2008.

IP.com Inc. CEO Tom Colson's presentation was on Advanced Enterprise Management and IP Strategies.

The keynote address for PATINEX 2008 was by KAIST President Nam-Pyo Suh, who spoke on the Strategy of Patent Information Usage for Finding a New Market.

After this conference, Johnson Kong and Tom Colson are continuing on to Beijing and other centers in Asia that are regular stops for executives from IP.com Inc.

Readers can follow at @ipdotcom on Twitter, where we're following other leaders in the technology space, like Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz. Here's how Jonathan Schwartz explains how Twitter helps him run Sun:

"Communication is a key part of leadership—as CEO, I need to engage the market, inside and outside Sun, with whatever technology affords me the greatest possible reach. Through blogs, online news, social networking sites, or Twitter, the Internet has fundamentally changed how we communicate with one another. Today, we have thousands of employees participating, engaging customers and developers across the world, 24 hours a day. And whether it's via a half-hour streaming video or a 140-character Tweet, we need to reach everyone in the forum and format they choose—not what we choose."

We're working on it, but it's still early days in the integration of Twitter feeds into this blog. However, if you add @ipdotcom to those you're following on Twitter now, you'll be sure to hear more about the latest innovations in intellectual property management and IP strategies. We look forward to reading your "tweets" and following you, too, just like we're following Jonathan Schwartz and Guy Kawasaki on Twitter.

Blawg Review #179

We  are pleased to have the opportunity to host Blawg Review #179, the carnival of law blogs, here on Securing Innovation, the business blog of IP.com Inc. Today is a very special day for everyone interested in writings and discoveries that promote the progress of science and useful arts.

September 29th is Día del Inventor in Argentina where they celebrate inventors on the birthday of an individual inventor, much the same as National Inventors Day in the United States is celebrated on Thomas Edison's birthday -- but this particular invention is worthy of worldwide commemoration.

His new invention would sweep the world one day - and so too would his name.

Biro... Laszlo Biro.

No prizes, then, for guessing what his brilliant idea was.

The ballpoint pen is 70 years old this summer and Laszlo was its creator - a man with a vision and a stained shirt front.

He designed it in his garage in Buenos Aires. By the time he died in 1985, a millionaire aged 86, there was one in every pocket on the planet.

"What could be more beautiful than the ballpoint pen," said Eduardo Fernandez, president of the Argentinian Inventors Association, who are planning a celebration in Laszlo's honour on his birthday.

Happy Birthday, Biro.

In France, in 1945, a man named Marcel BICH, who had been the production manager for a French ink manufacturer, bought with his partner Edouard BUFFARD, a factory outside Paris and set up business as the maker of parts for fountain pens and mechanical lead pencils.

While his writing instruments parts business began to grow, the development of the ballpoint was advancing in both Europe and the United States and Marcel BICH saw the enormous potential for this new writing instrument.

After obtaining the patent rights to a ball pen created by Hungarian inventor, Ladislao BIRO, Marcel BICH introduced his own ball pen in December 1950. Touting his product as a reliable pen at an affordable price, he called it « BIC » a shortened, easy-to-remember version of his own name. The famous BIC® CRISTAL® ballpoint pen was born!

In 2002, the BIC® Cristal® ballpoint pen entered the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art of New York (MOMA), at the Department of Architecture and Design.

By 2005 BIC had sold its hundred billionth ballpoint pen.

 Intellectual Property News and Opinion

The American Intellectual Property Law Association will be holding their annual meeting at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC on October 23-25, where the team from IP.com will be available to meet and discuss how the latest enterprise software platform for innovation management,  InnovationQ, helps companies and their counsel to safeguard intellectual property assets and make better decisions about those assets.

Some of the world's largest and most innovative companies trust IP.com for Intellectual Property asset management, defensive publishing, and patent search services. So, we were interested to learn from the story of the invention of the ballpoint pen that Biro had neglected to apply for a patent in the United States for his ballpoint pen invention, or to manage his intellectual property as well as he might today with the management tools now available to inventors around the world via the Internet.

Groklaw reports that IBM has just announced a new corporate policy regarding its "behavior when helping to create open technical standards" and hundreds of comments follow in the ensuing discussion.

There has been a debate among legal scholars about whether patents were seen by the framers of the US Constitution as “property” or, as Thomas Jefferson charged, a monopoly “privilege.”

In a post titled Patents & Financial Meltdown on the Technological Innovation and Intellectual Property blog, the question is asked: "What happens when you give out lots of property rights, but nobody exactly knows what those rights cover? Yes, that might describe software/business-method patents and the result is costly litigation, disputes and a net disincentive for innovation."

The American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property Law has launched Landslide™, a bi-monthly magazine that offers news and analysis on patents, trademarks, copyrights and related topics. Written by and for an audience of intellectual property lawyers, the magazine will cover this rapidly evolving legal specialization through an emphasis that includes business, technology, the arts, legislation and international developments.

“Increasingly complex, intellectual property law touches nearly every aspect of business, trade and commerce. This magazine will acquaint lawyers with both a wide and narrow scope on this emerging body of law, presenting articles written by some of the best minds in intellectual property,” said Joe Potenza, chair of the ABA-IPL’s Content Advisory Board. “We believe Landslide will be a force in the IP world.”

The first new magazine introduced by ABA Publishing in nearly seven years, Landslide is dedicated to sharing IP knowledge and experience acquired on the frontlines of legal practice, business, the arts and science, exploring national and international legal arenas.

Virtual Law Cover Story by Benjamin Duranske and Sean Kane in New IP Magazine “Landslide”

Patent databases continue to proliferate on the internet. On the Patent Librarian's Notebook, there's a comparison of free patent databases.

In a blog post titled USPTO/EPO clogs up the prosecution highway with red tape, David Pearce at IPKat notes that the EPO has just announced that the Patent Prosecution Highway (their capitals) is due to begin on 29 September. This scheme will allow patent applications that have been examined and allowed in either the USPTO or the EPO to be fast-tracked in the other office. The programme will run for a trial period of 1 year, after which the offices will assess whether it is worth being fully implemented.

Out-Law.com, from the international law firm Pinsent Masons, reports that the European Patent Office (EPO) was hit last week by a strike by staff who were demanding not better pay and conditions but the freedom to help create better quality patents. Joff Wild at IAM Magazine asks, "Where is the evidence to support EPO examiner union's claims?"

Duncan Bucknell's IP ThinkTank Gobal Week in Review is a comprehensive selection of top intellectual property news breaking in the blogosphere and on the internet each week, with the added value of a Pharma & BioTech Review this week.

IP Watchdog notes that Everyday Edisons is recruiting at Inventors Expo.

Patents

After the invention of the ballpoint pen that came to be known in many parts of the world by his surname, Biro kept tinkering. He reportedly recorded 32 inventions, including a washing machine device and an automatic transmission for cars that was bought by the German subsidiary of General Motors. The transmission invention might have secured Biro a wealthy life, but GM never used the patent.

Such was not the case with American inventor Robert Kearns, whose patent case of a lifetime against Ford and Chrysler is now the subject of a major motion picture, Flash of Genius, that opens in theaters this week.

The movie, Flash of Genius, is previewed on the Patent Baristas law blog by patent attorney Stephen Albainy-Jenei, who gives it two thumbs up based on subject matter alone:

Billed as educational while also inspiring and entertaining, the early reviews have been positive. The story is based on the true story of college professor and part-time inventor Robert Kearns’s (Greg Kinnear) long battle with the U.S. automobile industry and his fight to receive recognition for his invention. Kearns took on a battle that nobody thought he could win.

Kearns invented and patented the intermittent windshield wiper mechanism for use in light rain or mist and tried to license it to the big automakers. They all rejected his idea and then some went ahead and put intermittent wipers in their cars beginning in 1969. In 1967, he received the first of more than 30 patents for his wipers. He sued Ford in 1978 and Chrysler in 1982 for patent infringement.

Flash of Genius

Click the link on the movie poster above to watch the trailer. Hopefully, we'll get to read more reviews of this movie by other patent attorneys aspiring to be the next Siskel, Ebert & Roeper.

In this Friday IP Roundup at Patent Baristas, Albainy-Jenei notes:

Just a Patent Examiner has a rebuttal to the argument that patent reform is needed to prevent applicants from “wearing down” the Examiners. The theory is that by taking advantage of (or abusing) the unlimited continuations available to applicants, applicants can wring an undeserved allowance from an examiner simply by refusing to abandon the application. According to JAPE, this is wrong. Every time an applicant files an RCE (or a straight continuation), the examiner receives a count for the express abandonment, and another count for the first action after RCE. It also makes the Examiner’s job easier: “Speaking for myself, examining a continuation really does give me a serious head start.”

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit clarified the law of design patents. Rebecca Hanovice at Sheppard Mullin's Intellectual Property Law Blog says, " In view of the Egyptian Goddess decision, patentees should be aware that infringers may attempt to rely on similar prior art designs to narrow the focus of the ordinary observer test to distinctions in the designs that might otherwise escape notice."

Jeremy Telman at the ContractsProf Blog notes that some fruit now comes with an end-user license agreement to protect the intellectual property.

They Invented What? Banana protective device.

Gene Quinn at Patent Fools pens Trolling: A Massive Redistribution of the Wealth.

Trade Secrets

In the U.S. we have civil causes of action under federal law for infringement of patents, copyrights and trademarks. Alas, we do not have a federal civil cause of action for trade secret misappropriation! But we need one badly! according to Jorda on Trade Secrets: the interface between patents and trade secrets.

Trade Secrets Derive From "Equitable Principles" Rather Than Property or Contract Rights, according to a recent case before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals cited by Jason Jarvis on the Trading Secrets blog of the Seyfarth Shaw law firm.

Judge awards $57 million in secrets theft but recovery of damages awarded is very unlikely. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Along with a recent post from the Annals of Chinese Economic Espionage, Womble Carlyle's Trade Secret blog has an interesting post about a former Intel employee who's been accused of misappropriating Intel trade secrets by downloading to his Intel- a host of confidential Intel documents, including 13 "top secret" company files containing highly sensitive design plans for future processor chips.

But what really got me up off my massage chair in the middle of the Bills vs.Rams football game of the week was news of a new Womble Carlysle Furniture Law Blog.This blog will focus on legal issues affecting the furniture industry with a particular emphasis on intellectual property issues.

Trademarks

Ballpoint pens are still widely referred to as a biro in many English-speaking countries, including the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. The term "biro" in colloquial British English is used generically to mean any ball point pen. Although the word is a registered trademark, it has become a genericised trademark. The company's intellectual property department keeps a close eye on the media and will often write to publications who use its trade name without a capital letter or as a generic term for ballpoint pens, in order to preserve its trademark, according to this article about Laszlo Biro in Wikipedia.

BIC Logo

Did you ever wonder where the BIC® logo comes from?

Green Patent Blog requests reconsideration of trademark application, argues "acquired distinctiveness" of its own blog name. It's no Likelihood of Confusion®.

Marty Schwimmer at The Trademark Blog has officially offered to file an application for TROUBLED ASSET RELIEF PROGRAM and catchy TARP logo, on behalf of the US Government, attorney fees waived.

Copyright

U.S. lawmakers approved the creation of a cabinet-level position of copyright czar as part of sweeping intellectual property enforcement legislation that sailed through the Senate on Friday. Ron Coleman at Likelihood of Confusion® asks, "...what can we do to at least try to get them to hire Bill Patry for the first copyright autocrat?"

In a post titled Sabine Dresses, Susan Scafidi at Counterfeit Chic tells incredible stories of identical twin sisters, bridezilla, and stolen wedding dress designs.

Walter Olson at Overlawyered picks up on a story from Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing about parody, nastygrams, and George Lucas of Star Wars, and ponders, "If only we could all resolve threatening letters from lawyers as neatly as the editors at MAD magazine were once able to do."

Cyber Law

Eric Menhart of CyberLaw PC discusses Political Domain Name Infringement.

As this election year heats up candidates in all types of political races are trying to reach likely voters at their doors, on their telephones and on the Internet. In this race for voters you might guess that a candidate’s domain name plays an important role in sharing his or her message with likely voters. What if a candidate’s domain name is already taken by a third party? What if a candidate’s name has already been taken by their opponent? Many of today’s candidates, finally recognizing the importance of a strong Internet presence in races for political office, are facing the reality of this intellectual property concern.

Brett Trout, author of Cyber Law: A Legal Arsenal for Online Business, discusses Internet fraud. So what is the most prevalent form of Internet fraud. Well, you might be surprised to learn that online auction fraud accounts for 44.9 percent of Internet fraud complaints referred to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). This is more than twice the number of complaints received for the next highest category, check fraud (19 percent).

Postscript

By the way, here's an interesting article He Invented The Ballpoint Pen from Investor's Business Daily that's perhaps the best story about the invention of the ballpoint pen by Laszlo Biro that we found during the preparation of this presentation.

Reinventing the most popular ballpoint

'din-ink' by andrea cingoli + paolo emilio bellisario + cristian cellini + francesca fontana, 2007
shortlisted entry of the designboom dining in 2015 competition, a set of biccaps, including a fork-cap, a knife-cap and a spoon-cap, that replaces the normal bic cap during lunch time

Blawg Review has information about next week's host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues. Of particular interest to everyone interested in Intellectual Property law and policy might be the November 10th presentation of Blawg Review #185 by Global Intellectual Property Strategist Duncan Bucknell at his indispensible IP Think Tank weblog.

Oh, one more thing...

This is simply birolliant - the incredible 10ft 'photographs' drawn with a ballpoint pen. They may look like pin-sharp photographs - but these amazing pictures are actually drawings created with the humble ballpoint pen. The stunning pictures, measuring up to 10ft high, were drawn by a rising star of the art world, Juan Francisco Casas.

 

Continue Reading...

Make Barbeque Not War

Love the name of this beer, and it's got a great intellectual property backstory.
Collaboration Not Litigation Ale
Salvation. The name of two intricate Belgian-style ales, created by us -- Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing and Adam Avery of Avery Brewing. After becoming friends a few years ago, we realized that we both had a Salvation in our line-ups. Was it going to be a problem? Should one of us relinquish the rights? "Hell no!" we said. In fact, it was quickly decided that we should blend the brews to catch the best qualities of each and create an even more complex libation. In April 2004, in top-secret meeting at Russian River Brewing (well actually it was packed in the pub, and many were looking over our shoulders wondering what the hell was going on), we came up with the perfect blend of the two Salvations. Natalie, Vinnie's much more significant other, exclaimed, "We should call this Collaboration, not Litigation Ale!" -- Perfect!
Have a peaceful, safe weekend and a thoughtful Memorial Day.

AG Mukasey Says IP Theft Fosters Terrorism

You can't make this stuff up.

SAN JOSE, California -- Attorney General Michael Mukasey talked tough on intellectual property crime, telling Silicon Valley executives here Friday that the theft of their inventions poses a threat to the nation's "health and safety" and fosters terrorism.

"Every new technology we create can be abused -- whether it's a common identity thief looking for a new way to steal your bank account information, or an international terrorist looking to advance a murderous plot," the United States' top law enforcement official said here at TheTech Museum of Innovation.

...

Mukasey said U.S. anti-counterfeiting authorities are coordinating with the European Union, Asia, Canada, and a host of other countries he termed "hacker havens" like China and Romania.

"FBI agents teamed up with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in an initiative targeting the distribution of counterfeit Cisco computer networking equipment manufactured in China," he said. "So far we've had more than 400 seizures of counterfeit hardware and labels with an estimated retail value of more than $76 million -- and the investigation is still ongoing."

He said the DOJ has trained and provided technical assistance to thousands of foreign prosecutors, investigators and judges in more than a hundred countries, and urged Congress to adopt legislation "that would criminalize attempted copyright infringement, and add important investigative tools such as granting courts the authority to issue wiretap orders in criminal counterfeiting and piracy investigations."
And in a move designed to show that it is doing its part in the global war on terrorism, China announced today a crackdown on counterfeit designer handbags coming across the border from Tibet. OK, we made that last part up. April Fool's!