Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks, Trade Secrets

One of the main topics Efrat Kasznik discussed in lecture was IP Marketplace Overview. In this main topic, I will be discussing the differences between Trademarks, Copyrights, Patents, and Trade Secrets and the impacts of each.

Patents: Something we should all know from class is essentially a license for a finite pre-determined amount of time that gives someone the sole right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention. For example, if I have the patent for the bicycle and you are producing bicycles without my permission, I can take you to court and stop the continuation of your actions.

Copyrights: The exclusive legal right, given to an originator to publish, print, perform, film, record, and authorize others to do the same. For example, all copies of off-air recordings for a tv show must include the copyright notice on the broadcast program.

Trademark: A symbol, word, or words legally registered or established by use as representing a company or product. This could be the Nike logo.

Trade Secrets: A secret device or technique used by a company in manufacturing its products. An easily understandable example of this would be the Coca-Cola formula, which no one knows.

IP Value/ Xerox Case Study

Dr. Kasznik different IP strategies and that IP strategy can determine a product’s success, market share, and profitability.  Her slide states that case studies demonstrate that a failure to address IP issues can result in a loss of market share, margin erosion, and reduced market competitiveness. One case study I found quite interesting and surprising regards parc. Parc is a Xerox company that is known for using the GUI, or graphical user interface first, however they did not patent it. They used it in 1979 and the Xerox management did not believe it would be valuable at that time in the small PC market. This resulted in a potential loss of royalty revenues from Mac and Windows sales that estimated around half a billion dollars. From this incident we learn that although something might seem useless or obsolete at the time could become powerful or very useful in the future. Dr. Kasznik reminds us that failure to patent results of innovative research can lead to large financial and strategic losses.

This is an illustration of the parc gui below: 

I felt that this was useful because many aspiring Berkeley students have probably contemplated participating in a start-up, but many of them do not know that IP strategy could help keep them afloat.

Patent Changes and Impact

A catalyst to the change in the US Patent System includes changes to the AIA or the America Invents Act. Dr. Kasznik highlights one of the main changes, which states that the US moves from First to Invent to a First (inventor) to File system. This alteration, which became effective March 16, 2013, caught the United States up with the rest of the world.

As these changes in legislation have come about, the statistics regarding patent filing and lawsuits have changed quite drastically. There have been over 6,000 Patent lawsuits filed in 2013, which is a sharp increase from 2010 when only 2,714 patent lawsuits were filed. However, patent litigation has recently started to decline as of 2014 with approximately 5000 cases. While patent litigation is decreasing the number of NPE litigation cases has increased greatly since 2010. In 2010 there were only around 632 cases files as opposed to the 3466 cases as of 2013.

Many of these litigation cases were on startups with less than $100 million in revenue and allows for defendants in Patent Troll lawsuits to make under $10 million per year.

Patents for Smartphones

Dr. Kasznik informed us that there are approximately 250,000 active patents going into smartphones. This is around 1/6^th of all the active patents today. An article from techdirt states that this smartphone industry is less than 1% of the US GDP, but somehow contains 1/6^th of all of America’s active patents.

The significance of these numbers is that there appears to be a so-called bubble or boom around the smartphone industry. As so many patents are emerging, people are innovating more and most people use possibly building more technology for an industry that today. As much innovation as there is, there is a lot of conflict and copying that seems to be going on in the smartphone industry. In fact, there is an entire Wikipedia page on “Smartphone patent wars” where one can find the infamous Samsung vs. Apple lawsuit.

I have posted another link to smartphone patent wars that goes into logistics and analysis of the smartphone patent pool and litigations.

Link to Techdirt:

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20121017/10480520734/there-are-250000-active-patents-that-impact-smartphones-representing-one-six-active-patents-today.shtml

Johanna Blakely TedTalk

Johanna Blakley speaks about Intellectual Property in the Fashion Industry. Fashion, as we learned in class, is a utilitarian object and therefore cannot be patented.  She begins with an anecdote of how someone can go into a store and find an article of clothing from decades ago that can be used in the current fashion sense. She says this can also be described as fashion genius. Fashion is not simply about selling old products, it's about selling specific products from an older era during a new era. Finding that fit is left to the fashionistas of the world, and that's where the uniqueness or novelty comes. 

In the fashion industry this is not illegal. There is trademark protection, but no copyright or patent infringement. 

She argues that because there is no copyright laws fashion designers have been an "open and creative ecology for production". In other countries there is protection for the fashion industry, however she states the laws are not very affective. For example Japan has a very high novelty standard whereas the European Union has quite low novelty standards. She states either ways this is does not prevent copying designed and recycling of ideas. 

There are also other industries that don’t have copyright laws such as the food industry, automobile design, furniture, magic tricks, databases, and even open source software. 

I found it interesting that some fields thrive on the concept of sharing and reusing and without that ability they would probably fail. 

Kirby Ferguson Ted Talk

Kirby Ferguson’s Ted Talk titled "Embrace the Remix" encourages us to properly define what creativity is. He claims that creativity does not have to be about coming up with something completely new to the world, but rather something that copies something from the past, transforms it, and combines it (possibly with something of the present). I found this interesting as this is exactly what we learned in regards to patents. As Professor Lavian informed us, it's very difficult to invent something entirely new, most patents are improvements on something existing. 

He compares this to Apple’s growth when it was just a startup. If they would be able to withstand the patent lawsuits from larger companies like Xerox who probably created things like icon folders and scroll bars before them, then they wouldn't have been able to become successful then.

He ties in a concept of Loss Aversion, which he describes as people having no problem copying other people, but are not fond of it when others copy them. However, this is a problem because everyone copies everyone in this era. As an example he uses Bob Dylan's songs. He says that almost 2/3 of the melodies used in Bob Dylan’s songs were borrowed. 

This Ted Talk was one of my favorite because Kirby reminds us that progress comes about through the foundation that has previously been built and we should therefore accept it rather than shame or deny it for using the foundation. 

Gooseberry!

This blogpost is in reference to Drew Crutis' battle with patents and how you should not let yourself get schemed by them. He fought a patent troll by the name of Gooseberry. He explains how patent trolls have very vague patents and weaponize their lack of specificity to sue people and gain money.

Gooseberry apparently had the patent on e-mailing news releases. Curtis' company Fark deals with news releases and was sued along with other bigger companies like Yahoo. When he asked thee bigger companies to team up they simply decided to settle rather than go to court. 

Drew Curtis decided to go to court because he knew that he did not infringe on any patents and therefore should not have to pay a patent troll.  

He says that if you can, don’t fight the patent, rather fight the infringement. He advises to make it clear at the very beginning that you either have no money or are willing to spend it only in court fighting the troll. He advises this because the patent trolls most of the times use court as a threat and probably would not want to settle in court themselves as they could lose.  

They are paid on contingency so you should tell them you will annoy them until they stop. He says they cause more economic damage than terrorists and so you shouldn’t negotiate with them! I liked this blogpost a lot because Drew Curtis stuck to his beliefs in doing what is right rather than what is easy. 

Ellen t' Hoen's Ted Talk

Ellen t’ Hoen’s Ted Talk begins with the Wright Brothers’ first successful flight in 1903. They took out many patents for the different parts and methods required to build the airplane. 

This led to conflict with the government as they wanted airplanes for military use and patent law. The government made those patent holders make the patents public to enable the production of airplanes. 

This led to great progress for the aviation industry. She speaks about a similar problem in the medical industry with regards to AIDS treatment. The patents on treatment for AIDS were held by a number of western pharmaceuticals, which were not available to many other regions. India did not believe in medical patents and so they made a cheaper copy and distributed it to the developing nations. This cheaper medicine meant more people could afford it, less people dying, and scientific experiments showed less people spreading it onwards. Ellen claims then that we have the tools to stop this epidemic. 

All countries are required to provide patents for pharmaceuticals that lasts about 20 years. The rules have changed so India can no longer do that. The medicine patent relies on the willingness of pharmaceutical companies to license their patents whereas the airplane holders did not have an option. Maybe the government should consider intervening again if it could possibly help save lives. I thought it was interesting how this is an example of how the patent system can also function as a business.

Collar apparatus for snake walking

The title of this invention is Collar apparatus enabling secure handling of a snake by tether.

This invention is essentially a dog leash, except for a snake. The collar has an adjustable elongated section that mostly wraps the neck and body area of the snake.

The claims consist of how this collar with multiple components secures the snake. The claim also includes a concertina movement-neutralization device for reducing concertina movement of a snake through the collar apparatus and a system for enabling collaring to allow walking of a snake.

Quite a few patents are cited and referenced in this one such as pet collar, animal leash, and sports glove.

Life Expectancy Timepiece: U.S. 5031161

This is essentially a watch that approximates the time remaining in a user’s life. A chip monitors the passage of time and the processors stores data of the number of years, months, days, hours, and seconds remaining until the approximate death of the user. The claim includes a time monitoring apparatus that also displays digits of an individuals’ life span. The claim includes resettable memory, monitoring passage of time, and multiple photos for the watch.

The only other patents referenced include a device indicating the longevity of a battery, mobile event-module, and a device that established and generates used adaptive withdrawal schedule.

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