Honestly, when I enrolled in this course I was slightly terrified. Both 'patent' and 'engineering' are two things I knew absolutely nothing about and when you put them both into one title I thought I was completely screwed. Before I attend the first class I anticipated intense engineering projects that would just go right over my head and I thought I was going to be completely lost. Thank god, I was very wrong with preconception. The moment Professor Lavian started lecturing I realized that patent engineering was in fact extremely interesting and relevant (and only slightly scary). I've gained so much knowledge over the course of this semester and it made me realize that having a basic understanding of patent claims, failures, litigation, infringement, obviousness and abstractness is essential to be successful in business.
Also, the idea of a two-hour lecture was also quite daunting but each class would actually fly by. The way the class was taught kept me constantly engaged. I honestly never knew how interesting of a topic patents were until I came to this class. Patent trolls, smartphone patent wars, the importance of patents to unicorn companies, silly patents, everything we learned in the class is extremely relevant to us and our day to day lives. I never knew just how important and valuable (literally some are worth millions of dollars as you can see in infringement cases) to so many companies in so many different fields.
As an Environmental Economics and Policy major I can see this knowledge I've obtained being utilized in my future careers. Alternative energy and "green" technologies are both fields that are constantly expanding with new things being invented every day and to ensure their success they must be patented, and now that I know about them I can hopefully help in the process of obtaining one.
In this day in age social media is a quintessential part of our daily life. Yes, its kind of become overbearing with everyone's nose stuck to their iPhone screens perusing every social media platform: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Whatsgoodly, Pinterest, Vine, Youtube and Tumblr/Blogger, on and endless mind-numbing cycle. But, its just a fact, so like they say "if you can't beat them, join them." So utilizing social media as a learning tool is a really great technique to integrate a usually mindless activity into one that can actually benefit our lives in some way. However, the internet isn't all bad, actually its quite essential to our day to day functionality. Like I wrote in our 'Top 10 Inventions Post,' "The whole world literally at our fingertips, any question you have can be answered in a matter of seconds. With the use of smartphones we’ve made ourselves more efficient and accessible. Our entire globe is connected over this non-physical entity and that is insane to me. We get and send information instantly and everyone knows what’s going on in the world, which is unfortunately very important in the state of our world today. Knowledge can be obtained faster than ever thought imaginable."
The way this class employed social media platforms has made the homework really fun and was a great learning tool. Mixing our everyday routines with knowledge is a great idea. It's like how Facebook has news sections and Twitter is used for constant updates on world events and crisis'. But instead of current news, we used it to educate people on patent cases and patent information in general. By using these platforms it made the homework seem less intimidating, especially the idea of the tweets. Plus, having to keep the youtube videos to 2-3 minutes really taught me a great skill of the picking and choosing what I believed to be the most important information of a case or idea that I trying to write about. Being able to keep things concise yet still incredibly educational is a great skill to have, especially for me, as someone who rambles a lot. Overall, I thought this practice was extremely fun and made IEOR190G really stand out in a positive way for me!
In 2012, Yahoo sued Facebook (two of the biggest tech companies in the industry) for infringing on at least 10 of their patents which have to do with advertising, privacy, customization, messaging and social networking that both of the companies are involved in. A main message of their statement was the fact that these infringements were at the core of Facebook's ever growing market share, and they wanted their rightly pay for it. A Facebook spokesmen replied with a statement expressing their sadness of Yahoo's pettiness, "we're disappointed that Yahoo, a longtime business partner of Facebook and a company that has substantially benefited from its association with Facebook, has decided to resort to litigation." And from that, many had Yahoo labeled at a "Patent Troll."
But right after that they fired back with huge counterclaims against Yahoo for allegedly infringing on at least 10 of Facebook's patents, which revolved around photo-sharing and content personalization. So the two multibillion dollar companies found the themselves at a standoff. They both knew that this could get insanely messy and decided to settle on a peace treaty. Thankfully for both parties, no money changed hands and instead, the companies announced what they called a "strategic alliance, which includes a new advertising partnership, expanded distribution arrangements and a patent cross-license."
In 2012, Tomita Technologies International, Inc sued Nintendo under the idea that Nintendo had infringed upon one of the 80 patents that the company has acquired. The function in question was Nintendo's use of a specific 3D technologies in their 3DS hand-held video game system. The patent is entitled "Stereoscopic image picking up and display system based upon optical axes cross-point information," in short, this allows the user to see 3D images on their hand-held device without the need for 3D glasses. But another issue that Tomita had with this infringement is the fact that they believed that Nintendo was well aware that they were using the technology and ideas knowing very well that they were Tomita's property, and continued to do so after the accusations were made. Plus, the founder of Tomita, Seijiro Tomita, presented this idea to Nintendo prior to them plagiarizing it.
In the end, Tomita came out on top and Nintendo was forced to pay $30.2 million in damages and on top of that, they must pay Tomita 1.82% of the sales made through the distribution of their 3DS devices.
The case is still continuing however, because Nintendo is trying to fight back against these accusations. It's not about the money, seeing as Nintendo is a multi billion dollar company, they want to prove that they are not the type company that steals ideas from others. But this case is a perfect example of a small company (Tomita) protecting their intellectual and physical rights and not just a company trying to patent troll.
On Monday, February 22, the popular (and relatively new) navigation app Waze and subsequently, its owner Google, were sued in Delaware federal court by the Israeli-based Makor Issues and Rights Limited. Makor sued Waze and Google on the grounds that Waze is infringing on two of Makor's patents:
1) 6,480,783: Real time vehicle guidance and forecasting system under traffic jam conditions
2) 6,615,130: Real time vehicle guidance and traffic forecasting system
Makor claims to have owned these patents since the early 2000s so they knew that Waze and Google's developers were well aware of their claims. However, these patents regarding traffic monitoring technology which enables drivers to avoid traffic jams, are the pinnacle features of behind Waze's success. This is the exact reason I use Waze when driving because it gives you a constant up-to-date traffic guide that takes into account issues happing in that exact moment which helps you avoid traffic and accidents on your route. Its constantly updating and altering your fastest and most efficient route.
Since the case is pretty much brand new the exact details aren't entirely outlined yet. But what we do know is that Makor's hopefull outcome includes "an unspecified amount of damages, payment of attorney’s fees, and a judgment that Google and Waze have infringed Makor’s intellectual property."
This case will be really interesting to follow as time goes on since we know Google is no amateur in the patent litigation world and the fact that Makor is based in Israel will add an extra factor. Plus, unlike other patent cases we've studied, Makor is not a patent troll company so fighting for your own intellectual property may change the dynamic quite a bit.
In 1996, William T. Graham, had sued the John Deere Co. for patent infringement.This case was a turning point for the idea of "obviousness" in terms of patent ideas in that it forced the US Supreme Court to clarify the "nonobviousness" requirement set forth in 35 U.S.C. § 103.
The invention in question and being discussed by Graham and John Deere (an “American corporation that manufactures agricultural, construction, and forestry machinery, diesel engines, drivetrains used in heavy equipment, and lawn care equipment”) was a combination of whats considered 'old mechanical elements.' It was "a device designed to absorb shock from the shanks of chisel plows as they plow through rocky soil and thus to prevent damage to the plow." Graham took it upon himself to solve this problem, he decided to attach the plow shanks to spring clamps, this allows them to flex freely. In 1950 he applied for a patent for this clamp and was granted one, U.S. Patent 2,493,811. Shortly thereafter, he made some improvements to the clamp design by placing the hinge plate beneath the plow shank rather than above it, in order to minimize the outward motion of the shank away from the plate. He applied for a patent on this improvement, which was granted in 1953 as U.S. Patent 2,627,798 (referred to by the court as the '798 patent). This is the patent that William was suing John Deere for. However, the Deere company believed that the '798 patent should not be worthy of a patent at all due to the lack of novelty or invention in the new design. Under the description of an "obvious" patent, John Deere asserted that "because of anticipation, because of a prior use more than one year prior to the date of the application for such patent, and further because the subject matter of the patent would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art due to the status of the prior art" that the patent should be deemed void. In the end, the verdict in the case went to John Deere. The court saw and believed what Mr. Graham considered to be an obvious patent and said the infringement was invalid.
From there, this case is where the whole section 103 came into play in the patent world. Section 103 discuses how to determine what is vs. what isn't obvious. Here are a few of the outlines we have now in secition 103:
“(1) Determination of the scope and content of the prior art
(2) Identification of any differences between the prior art and the claims at issue
(3) Determination of the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art, that warrants the award of a patent.
(4) Review of any relevant secondary considerations, such as commercial success, long felt but unresolved needs and failure of others”
The next Unicorn that I'll be discussing is Dropbox. Dropbox is a
file hosting service that offers "cloud storage, file synchronization,
personal cloud, and client software." It was founded by MIT alums, Drew
Houston and Arash Ferdowsi in 2007. Their software allows users to create a
special folder on their computers, which Dropbox then synchronizes so that it
appears to be the same folder (with the same contents) regardless of which
device is used to view it. So no matter if they’re on their phone app, their
computer, someone else's computer, they can access all of the files they need
instantly. I for one use this software a lot for photo sharing with friends or
as a form of an external hardrive for documents I can't lose.
As of now, Dropbox is valued at $10billion
with an IP patent portfolio list longer than my resume. Their most notable
patent is US 8825597 B1, Network folder synchronization. This patent details
how multiple clients can share and synchronize folders and their contents
across a network and have it be the most up-to-date version of that file too.
This aspect truly makes Dropbox what it is and is the core reasoning behind its
booming popularity. On top of that one, they have patents about “shared content
item commenting,” “system and method for group participation in a digital media
presentation,” “peer-to-peer synchronization,” (displayed above) and many many more. Plus their
client base is even longer; they provide client software for the OS
systems Linux, OS X, and Windows NT. And on smartphones such as Android, BlackBerry
OS, iOS, and Windows Phone.
Dropbox definitely has some major competitors in this field
however. Companies such as Google with googledrive as well as smaller ones such
as 4share and AeroFS are providing the exact same service so it’s hard to
differentiate. However, Dropbox is still going strong and has an edge with
their patents.
In this day in age social media is a quintessential part of our daily life. Yes, its kind of become overbearing with everyone's nose stuck to their iPhone screens perusing every social media platform: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Whatsgoodly, Pinterest, Vine, Youtube and Tumblr/Blogger, on and endless mind-numbing cycle. But, its just a fact, so like they say "if you can't beat them, join them." So utilizing social media as a learning tool is a really great technique to integrate a usually mindless activity into one that can actually benefit our lives in some way. However, the internet isn't all bad, actually its quite essential to our day to day functionality. Like I wrote in our 'Top 10 Inventions Post,' "The whole world literally at our fingertips, any question you have can be answered in a matter of seconds. With the use of smartphones we’ve made ourselves more efficient and accessible. Our entire globe is connected over this non-physical entity and that is insane to me. We get and send information instantly and everyone knows what’s going on in the world, which is unfortunately very important in the state of our world today. Knowledge can be obtained faster than ever thought imaginable."
In 2012, Tomita Technologies International, Inc sued Nintendo under the idea that Nintendo had infringed upon one of the 80 patents that the company has acquired. The function in question was Nintendo's use of a specific 3D technologies in their 3DS hand-held video game system. The patent is entitled "Stereoscopic image picking up and display system based upon optical axes cross-point information," in short, this allows the user to see 3D images on their hand-held device without the need for 3D glasses. But another issue that Tomita had with this infringement is the fact that they believed that Nintendo was well aware that they were using the technology and ideas knowing very well that they were Tomita's property, and continued to do so after the accusations were made. Plus, the founder of Tomita, Seijiro Tomita, presented this idea to Nintendo prior to them plagiarizing it.
The case is still continuing however, because Nintendo is trying to fight back against these accusations. It's not about the money, seeing as Nintendo is a multi billion dollar company, they want to prove that they are not the type company that steals ideas from others. But this case is a perfect example of a small company (Tomita) protecting their intellectual and physical rights and not just a company trying to patent troll.
The invention in question and being discussed by Graham and John Deere (an “American corporation that manufactures agricultural, construction, and forestry machinery, diesel engines, drivetrains used in heavy equipment, and lawn care equipment”) was a combination of whats considered 'old mechanical elements.' It was "a device designed to absorb shock from the shanks of chisel plows as they plow through rocky soil and thus to prevent damage to the plow." Graham took it upon himself to solve this problem, he decided to attach the plow shanks to spring clamps, this allows them to flex freely. In 1950 he applied for a patent for this clamp and was granted one, U.S. Patent 2,493,811. Shortly thereafter, he made some improvements to the clamp design by placing the hinge plate beneath the plow shank rather than above it, in order to minimize the outward motion of the shank away from the plate. He applied for a patent on this improvement, which was granted in 1953 as U.S. Patent 2,627,798 (referred to by the court as the '798 patent). This is the patent that William was suing John Deere for. However, the Deere company believed that the '798 patent should not be worthy of a patent at all due to the lack of novelty or invention in the new design. Under the description of an "obvious" patent, John Deere asserted that "because of anticipation, because of a prior use more than one year prior to the date of the application for such patent, and further because the subject matter of the patent would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art due to the status of the prior art" that the patent should be deemed void. In the end, the verdict in the case went to John Deere. The court saw and believed what Mr. Graham considered to be an obvious patent and said the infringement was invalid.
As of now, Dropbox is valued at $10billion
with an IP patent portfolio list longer than my resume. Their most notable
patent is US 8825597 B1, Network folder synchronization. This patent details
how multiple clients can share and synchronize folders and their contents
across a network and have it be the most up-to-date version of that file too.
This aspect truly makes Dropbox what it is and is the core reasoning behind its
booming popularity. On top of that one, they have patents about “shared content
item commenting,” “system and method for group participation in a digital media
presentation,” “peer-to-peer synchronization,” (displayed above) and many many more. Plus their
client base is even longer; they provide client software for the OS
systems Linux, OS X, and Windows NT. And on smartphones such as Android, BlackBerry
OS, iOS, and Windows Phone. 