Securing Innovation

Top 5: Unexpected Places to Find Prior Art

blog@ip.com (IP) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 12:14:43 -0500

"Although Google, Google Patents and the USPTO’s electronic databases are commonly declared favorite research tools by patent researchers throughout the world, an important niche of knowledge is imperative not to forget: the world of non-digitized information. This week, the Top 5 Unexpected Places to Find Prior Art have been gathered from the best and brightest AOP Study Submissions – from non-digitized favorites like old manuals, to the interesting world of looking for prior art in non-related industries." Great article by Article One Partners at the link above

For Mobile Apps, It's 1996 All Over Again

blog@ip.com (IP) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 12:03:23 -0500

"When most people talk about the dot-com boom and bust they talk about the money that was made and lost in the process. What they don’t talk about so much is the innovation that created completely new and world changing technologies. From my perspective the money is interesting but the real conversation needs to be about the rate at which a new technology is adopted, the speed with which new companies are gaining market share and the disruptions that are happening as new technologies and companies supplant the prior generation’s most popular products," writes Ben Keighran, CEO & Co-Founder of Chomp, a search engine for mobile apps.

Chris Dixon in Business Insider

blog@ip.com (IP) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 10:35:21 -0500

Predicting the future of the Internet is easy: anything it hasn’t yet dramatically transformed, it will. People, companies, investors and even countries can’t stop this transformation. The only choice you have is whether you join the side of innovation and progress or you don’t.

MIT and the art of innovation

blog@ip.com (IP) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:45:07 -0500

MIT calculates that its living alumni have founded 25,800 companies that currently provide 3.3m jobs for people around the world. These firms have combined annual revenues of some $2.2 trillion.

George Will on Innovation

blog@ip.com (IP) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 01:25:05 -0500

George Will, conservative icon, wrote an Op-Ed piece in The Washington Post last week extolling the virtues (and the necessities) of innovation and government support for it ("Rev the scientific engine"). Kevin Noonan at Patent Docs reviews the piece in a blog post at the link in the blue headline above.

What Makes for a Compelling Corporate Blog?

blog@ip.com (IP) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 14:58:55 -0500

eMarketer estimates that, even with the hype around newer social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, nearly two in five US companies will maintain a public-facing blog this year for marketing purposes. This usage is on the rise as firms will increasingly realize the value of the blogosphere to further a variety of corporate functions, such as communications, lead generation, customer service and brand marketing.

The GOOD 100: Eco-patent Commons

blog@ip.com (IP) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:42:55 -0500

IBM, Nokia, Sony, and Pitney Bowes teamed up with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development to create the Eco-Patent Commons, an organized effort to make freely available patents that "reduce waste, pollution, global warming, and energy demands." The Commons allows global businesses to share environmental innovations, turning the patent-long the emblem of all that is the opposite of sharing-into a vehicle for collective innovation.

Facebook Community Pages: What Your Business Needs to Know

blog@ip.com (IP) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:36:16 -0500

Facebook’s new community pages have created a lot of confusion for businesses. Many companies have been surprised (and many angry) to find their brands showing up in community pages that are fully outside of their control.

What Social Signals Do Google & Bing Really Count?

blog@ip.com (IP) — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 10:39:40 -0500

Both Google and Bing have added many social search features over the past year. There’s also been talk about using “social signals” to help rank regular search results. For more information, read Danny Sullivan's blog post on Search Engine Land at the blue link above.

Amazon Poised to Make a Major Strategic Investment in LivingSocial to Counter Groupoogle (or Goopon?) Threat

blog@ip.com (IP) — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 10:09:54 -0500

With the red-hot acquisition dance between Google and Groupon sucking up all the attention, it’s easy once again to ignore the No. 2 player in the fast-growing social buying space–LivingSocial. Read Kara Swisher's article in Boomtown, a columns in the Wall Street Journal's Digital Network. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference.

IPCom Wins Victory in German Court over Patent Dispute With Nokia

blog@ip.com (IP) — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 09:29:54 -0500

As noted in the link above, according to a report from Reuters, the court ruled that IPCom’s amended patent, which protects technology that connect phones to networks, was valid. [Readers of IP.com's blog, Securing Innovation, will recall that, since the commencement of this patent dispute years ago, we have made it clear that IP.com is in no way related to IPCom GmbH KG, a company in Germany that is involved in patent litigation reportedly involving 17 billions of Euros in claims. [For the latest news about IPCom GmbH, including our clarification to avoid confusion with IP.com, just search Google for IPCom GmbH.]

A Note to Readers of the New York Times: The Decision to Publish Diplomatic Documents Made Available Through Wikileaks

blog@ip.com (IP) — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 09:16:18 -0500

The articles published today and in coming days are based on thousands of United States embassy cables, the daily reports from the field intended for the eyes of senior policy makers in Washington...As daunting as it is to publish such material over official objections, it would be presumptuous to conclude that Americans have no right to know what is being done in their name.

Fortune 500 Nearly Doubles Use of Twitter

blog@ip.com (IP) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 16:01:52 -0500

America’s biggest corporations have dramatically increased their participation in Twitter, according to “The Fortune 500 and Social Media,” a yearly report from the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

'Balloon boy' dad launches new invention -- via YouTube

blog@ip.com (IP) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:20:58 -0500

Infamous “balloon boy” hoaxer Richard Heene is at it again, hitting America right where it itches. The determined dad is trying to raise scratch for his wife and three sons by hawking his own “Bear Scratch” itching post in a YouTube commercial that makes him come across as an even more excitable version of late, leather-lunged pitchman Billy Mays.

Documents in Danger of being Lost from National Archives

blog@ip.com (IP) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 13:18:18 -0500

The National Archives is home to some of the nation’s most prized historical documents. But a new audit by the Government Accountability Office has found that it’s not doing a good job of keeping track of them. The audit was prompted in part by the loss of the Wright Brothers’ original patent for the flying machine. It was last seen in 1980 after being passed around multiple Archives offices, the Patents and Trademarks Office and the National Air and Space Museum. Maps for the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also checked out by military representatives in 1962, and haven't been seen since.

How Trademark Law Has Turned From A Consumer Protection Law, Into A Weapon To Hinder Competition

blog@ip.com (IP) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 12:21:16 -0500

"Patent and copyright law come from the "progress clause" of the Constitution, and are there to create incentives for "promoting the progress." Trademark law, on the other hand, falls under the "commerce clause" of the Constitution and is really about protecting consumers from confusion and harm (such as believing a product is from one reputable source, when it's really from someone else). Unfortunately, after some lawyers successfully lumped them all together as "intellectual property law," there's been an ongoing effort to treat trademark law more and more like copyright law -- and that's a problem." Read the blog post on Techdirt at the link in the headline above.

There is No Prior Art for My Invention

blog@ip.com (IP) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:43:07 -0500

"While there are many reasons for not finding prior art, just because you do not find prior art does not mean that there is no prior art that needs to be considered. In fact, it would be extremely rare (if not completely impossible) for there to be an invention that does not have any relevant prior art. Said another way, unless you have invented something on the level of an Einstein-type invention there is prior art. Even the greatest American inventor, Thomas Edison, faced prior art for the vast majority of his inventions," writes Gene Quinn at IP Watchdog in a blog post you can read at the link in the headline above.

Creating Scholarly Communities and Fostering Innovation

blog@ip.com (IP) — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 09:16:01 -0500

Gregg Gordon is one of the founders, the President and acting CEO of the Social Science Research Network . The concept behind this for-profit company is to provide an efficient means to distribute scholarly research; SSNR is funded by Greg Gordon and a small group of scholars. Their motto - Tomorrow’s Research Today, drives what we do every day. Read the entire post at the blue link in the headline above.

Oops! That Facebook Location Patent Forgot To Mention Crowley's Earlier Dodgeball Patent

blog@ip.com (IP) — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 21:04:06 -0500

TechCrunch reports that earlier this week, Facebook was granted a broad patent on mobile location-based social networks. It seems to cover everything from members of a social network sharing their location with each other through their mobile phones to manual checkins. In other words, it sounds like Facebook just patented Foursquare’s main product. Read the post on TechCrunch at the link in the headline above.

Patent Searches: A Great Opportunity to Focus on What is Unique

blog@ip.com (IP) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:59:47 -0500

"Not only does a patent search allow for focus to be placed on what is different and most likely patentable, but if knock-out prior art is found then the expensive a patent application has been saved," writes Patent Attorney Gene Quinn on the IP Watchdog blog. Click on the link in the headline above to read more of what Gene has to say about patent searching.

Two Is the Magic Number -- a new science of creativity

blog@ip.com (IP) — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 12:25:26 -0500

"What makes creative relationships work? How do two people—who may be perfectly capable and talented on their own—explode into innovation, discovery, and brilliance when working together?" This article in Slate, at the link in the headline above, introduces a series on creative pairs.

General Global Week in Review 13 September 2010 from IP Think Tank

blog@ip.com (IP) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:58:22 -0500

Here is Think IP Strategy’s weekly selection of top intellectual property news breaking in the blogosphere and internet. Highlights this week included: Greater transparency: Introducing the USPTO Data Visualization Center and the Patents Dashboard. Click on the link in the headline above for more links to some of the best intellectual property blog posts and news stories from the past week.

Licensing Executives Society Annual Meeting in Chicago: Sept. 26-29

blog@ip.com (IP) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:51:01 -0500

The LES is expecting over one thousand of the world’s leading intellectual property (IP), licensing and business development professionals a the upcoming Licensing Executives Society (USA & Canada), Inc., Annual Meeting at the Chicago Sheraton Hotel & Towers September 26-29. Peter Zura, who will be attending, has the details on his blog at the link in the headline above.

David Kappos on Job Creation and Innovation

blog@ip.com (IP) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 22:36:30 -0500

Technological innovation is responsible for three-fourths of our nation’s post-World War II economic growth rate, Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office David Kappos told attendees at a Center for American Progress.

Which is more valuable: trade secrets or patents?

blog@ip.com (IP) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:55:36 -0500

This month’s issue of the American Bar Association’s Landslide magazine includes a thought-provoking article about this topic. In the article, R. Mark Halligan points out that patents have limited lifespans, are costly to enforce, and are subject to ever-shifting legal standards of patentability. The article asks: can trade secret protection be a better choice for many inventions?