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NASA to Auction Patents

March 31, 2012 By

NASA has developed many technologies that have made their way to ordinary usage. But now NASA is auctioning off — rather that giving away for free — some of its patented technology.

As reported in the media, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is partnering with ICAP Ocean Tomo LLC of Chicago to sell portfolios. The portfolion includes 12 patents for technologies including software, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

ICAP Ocean Tomo has scheduled the auction for next Thursday. For additional information, see the company’s website.

Anti-Software Patent Rhetoric Heats Up After Yahoo v. Facebook

March 14, 2012 By

Yahoo! is suing Facebook for patent infringement.

Now, the predictable, sophomoric fear-mongering stuff is coming out again. For example, Andy Baio, whose name is on eight Yahoo! patents, opines:

“…Software patents should be abolished, plain and simple. Software is already covered by copyright, making patent protection unnecessary.

Ask any programmer — developing software is as creative and unique as writing poetry…”

Yes, Andy, software is “covered” by copyright… but it is incredibly easy to design around a copyright for a computer program.

And, just why should there be an exception in the patent law for software?

Cannot software inventions be innovative?

Then why not patent protection for them?

It is always difficult to try to quantify the quality of a company’s patent portfolio, but each year the IEEE Spectrum publishes their Patent Power Scorecard, which is a compilation of innovation scores of companies by industry category.

IEEE Spectrum uses a modeling system for determining “quality” based on variables such as “Pipeline Growth”, “Pipeline Impact”, “Pipeline Generality”, and “Pipeline Originality”. Without going into detail, these metrics are based on such things as how many other patents in the same field cite the patent, and the variety of technologies that build on the technology disclosed in the patent Companies with technology leadership will tend to have patents which others cite and build upon.

So the #1 company in the category of “Communication / Internet Services” is (drum roll) Yahoo!

‘World’s Youngest Inventor’ of 100 Patents Killed in Syria

March 8, 2012 By

Besides Steve Jobs, who was of Syrian extraction, one of the most notable Syrian inventor was Issa Abboud, 27, who was the recipient of a WIPO Gold Medal Award for “the world’s youngest inventor”, and who was issued over 100 patents. To put this in perspective, since the formation of the Syrian Patent Office in 1946, there have only been about 5,700 Syrian patents issued, and Mr. Abbound was issued about 5% of them. Unfortunately, it has been reported that Mr. Abboud was shot dead in his car by criminal armed gangs at al-Nozha neighborhood in Homs on Sunday.

Trademark Dilution

February 29, 2012 By

An interesting trademark case was recently decided by the Federal Circuit.

In Coach Services v. Triumph Learning, Coach, Inc., the maker of luxury leather items, most notably leather bags, sued Triumph Learning, a provider of test preparation services under the Dilution Revision Act of 2006, for trademark dilution.

To make out a case for trademark infringement, the plaintiff must show that usage of the defendant’s mark would cause a likelihood of confusion for consumers. However, there is another cause of action available to some mark holders that does not require a showing of likelihood of confusion — one based on trademark dilution, the notion that the infringing mark blurs or tarnishes the plaintiff’s mark.

But one must show that the mark being diluted is “famous”.

In this case, the Federal Circuit threw the law suit out on the ground that “Coach” was not sufficiently “famous”.

While many people have heard of Coach-brand bags, many of us who are not fashion-conscious have not.

What are some examples of marks which may be famous?

Perhaps “Coca Cola”, “Tylonol”, “Microsoft”, “Chrysler”– all of which have acquired nearly universal brand awareness.

‘Linsanity’ Trademark Filed

February 22, 2012 By

Basketball sensation Jeremy Lin has spawned several words: Linderella, Linsensation, and Linsanity. In fact, there is even a web site that randomly generates new Lin-related words, “The Jeremy Lin Word Generator”. Here is a sample of a few words it generated:

Linstitution (Lin + Institution)

Linpeccable (Lin + Impeccable)

Goblin (Lin + Goblin)

Linvent (Lin + Invent)

Fun aside, it seems that there is money to be made in the Linsensation. At least three people, including Jeremy Lin himself, have applied for a trademark for “Linsanity” (perhaps the most widely used Lin-associated word.

Of the three applicants, Lin applied last.However, it may be difficult for the others to assert ownership over this
trademark. That said, one of the applicants, Andrew Slayton, has reportedly owned and operated the “Linsanity.com” web site since 2010.

So Slayton may have a good legal argument to trademark the name since he has been using it in commerce for a few years.

It should be interesting to see how this plays out.

Walmart Launches “Get on the Shelf Contest”

January 31, 2012 By

It has always been difficult for inventors to get their products on store shelves. The decision of what to put on a store’s shelf was typically made by the store buyer who often went with the major brands.
However, Walmart has recently launched the “Get on the Shelf Contest” that allows anyone to submit video online pitching his or her invention. The three products receiving the  most votes will be sold on Walmart.com, and the grand prize winner will get shelf space in select Walmart stores.
The contest ends on February 22. Additional information can be found here.

Attorney Docket Number SIRIP003

January 20, 2012 By

Can you guess what Apple’s patent application 2012/0016678 (published yesterday) covers?
Hint #1:
The abstract of application reads as follows:
An intelligent automated assistant system engages with the user in an integrated, conversational manner using natural language dialog, and invokes external services when appropriate to obtain information or perform various actions. The system can be implemented using any of a number of different platforms, such as the web, email, smartphone, and the like, or any combination thereof. In one embodiment, the system is based on sets of interrelated domains and tasks, and employs additional functionally powered by external services with which the system can interact.
Hint #2:
The application claims the benefit of a provisional application with “attorney docket number SIRIP003P“.
If you guessed that this application relates to Siri, Apple’s intelligent software assistant and navigator for the iOS operating system, you are right!
For an interesting discussion of this application, see Apple introduces us to Siri, the Killer Patent in the Patently Apple blog.
And, presumably, the attorney docket number of the non-provisional is SIRIP003 (without the “P”).

USPTO to Open Detroit Satellite Office

January 17, 2012 By

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has announced that it will finally open its Detroit satellite office. The office will house about 100 patent examiners in the former Parke-Davis Lab. (Perhaps more interestingly, the building was formerly the headquarters of Stroh’s Brewery.)  Plans for a Detroit satellite office were announced in December 2010 but put on hold because of budget constraints.

The Patent Office has plans for at least two more satellite offices.  But where?

So far, efforts have been made for Austin, Texas and California.

Public comments on the location of the next two satellite offices can be made by end of this month to satelliteoffices@uspto.gov.

Wikipedia to Close Down — for 24 Hours

January 16, 2012 By

Founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales has announce via Twitter that the web site will be shut down for 24 hours this Wednesday in protest of proposed legislation known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

In his “tweet”, Wales wrote:

“Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday! #sopa”

On Wednesday, instead of being able to access Wikipedia, users will see instructions on how to reach members of Congress to protest the proposed legislation.

As currently written, the SOPA bill would allow copyright holders to seek court orders against websites that facilitate copyright infringement.

Opponents of the bill claim that SOPA chills free speech.

Microsoft’s “Avoid Ghetto” Patent

January 7, 2012 By

Microsoft has been issued a highly controversial patent that allows one to create a pedestrian-based route that avoids traveling through an “unsafe neighborhood”. Dubbed the “Avoid Ghetto Patent”, a “generation component…can analyze the information and construct a direction set that allows the user to take paths that take him to his home in a quickest amount of time while keeping the user relatively safe (e.g., taking the user through neighborhoods with violent crime statistics below a certain threshold).”
The system can employ an “artificial intelligence component” to draw “inferences” or “capture logical relationships such as theorem provers or more heuristic rule-based expert systems.” So if the “artifical intelligence component” determines that a potential pedestrian path might cross into an area having certain demographics, presumately the software would advise avoiding this area.
One can see how “inferences” might be drawn between the ethnicity or race of persons in an area and the area being considered “unsafe”.
So the question is: Why would Microsoft want the bad PR from such a controversial patent?
What were they thinking?
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