Foxconn vs. Japanese Manufacturers

Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturing giant, has sued three major Japanese corporations over patent infringement. These Japanese corporations are major players in the market for producing electronics as well as many other consumer goods and include Japanese manufacturing giants Mitsubishi, Toshiba, and Funai Corp.

This case is of note because Foxconn is the world's largest manufacturer of electronics and is responsible for many of the most used electronic consumer devices on the market, including those made by Apple, Sony, and Nokia. Though there are not yet many details out, this case may have something to do with the battle between Apple and Samsung over the smartphone patent market.

This is indicative of the new innovations that are happening in the high technology sector, with specific regards to consumer electronics. This is an extremely competitive market and new inventions keep coming out every few years. This sort of case really does force us to ask the question: should something be changed about the patent industry so that we don't see a new patent infringement case every other day?

I believe that the USPTO needs to seriously revisit the intellectual property laws that surround how patents are granted to the technology industry. The fact that these companies keep suing each other is indicative of the fact that competition is happening, not that intellectual property violation is happening. When different companies invent similar products to the benefit of the consumer, that is something our system should strive to encourage, not discourage. Furthermore, the smartphone industry has produced so many products that are very similar in many ways (appearance, design), but have many different features. By encouraging companies to learn from their competitors and produce an even better product with cooler features, we would be helping to advance the smartphone market, rather than hold it back.

This is a serious flaw with the intellectual property system that must be examined and rectified by the USPTO.

Sources:
http://online.wsj.com/articles/taiwans-foxconn-sues-japanese-companies-over-patent-claims-1403697706
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Foxconn-sues-Toshiba-Mitsubishi-over-patent-violation/articleshow/37194301.cms

Alice v CLS Ruling

The Supreme Court issued a massive ruling last week in the case of CLS v. Alice regarding software patents. In a previous post, I discussed the importance of this case because it would determine whether software patents should be allowed at all. This has been an extremely controversial issue, with many opposers claiming that a software-implemented solution of an already existing invention should not be given patent protection since it is not novel or original.

In the case, Alice Corp held a patent for a financial solution which had been implemented in a software mechanism. The financial solution, however, was a commonly known one which had no unique novelty except for the fact that it was being done on a computer, whereas before it had been done on paper. So, they sued over this patent and CLS claimed that the patent should be invalidated on the basis that it has no uniqueness and that any person holding ordinary skill in the art would be able to come up with a similar solution.

The Supreme Court's ruling had two major pillars, which will have a major impact on the way that software patents are granted in the future. First, they determined that abstract ideas cannot be patented. This was relevant because the ideas patented by Alice Corp were abstract theories about how to implement a financial solution. Second, they ruled that the mere implementation of an idea in a software-based mechanism is insufficient.

This was a hugely important ruling because it will redefine the way in which software solutions are patented and protected. In the future, I expect that it will be much more difficult to get a software patent but I believe this is a good thing for a few main reasons. First, it will increase the competitiveness of the market and allow many more people to implement software solutions. This is a really great thing because more people will be able to innovate in the field of software without the worry of infringing on patents. Second, it will remove the ability of people to make patents based on pre-existing solutions, which should drive people towards new inventing.

Sources:
http://www.vox.com/2014/6/26/5841192/why-last-weeks-ruling-was-bad-news-for-software-patents
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/alice-corporation-pty-ltd-v-cls-bank-international/

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"Redskins" name protected no more

In a very strange and interesting move, the US Patent and Trademark Office canceled the trademark held by the Washington Redskins professional football team over the controversial mascot held by this organization.

This team name has longed been criticized by the Native American community for being offensive to their community. In this vein, the USPTO decided that this offensive title should not be licensed to the football team in its effort to convince them to change their team name. There has been a great deal of pressure from the American public to drop this controversial name, as it is clearly offensive to Native Americans. However, Redskins owner Dan Snyder has held firm on this, claiming that the Redskins team name is completely dissociated from Native Americans. This is definitely not true, though, since their mascot is a caricature of a Native American and since many fans and supporters come to games dressed in mockeries of traditional Native headdresses and garbs.

This is extremely interesting and relevant to the field of patents because it establishes patents as a tool to implement social change. Since patents and trademarks are necessary for licensing products, it brings up the question of whether morally questionable products should be allowed to be protected under United States intellectual property laws. Patents have the ability to influence society in the positive direction by making sure that only inventions that benefit the world can be licensed, and not inventions that offend people or cause harm to people. However, there is a negative side to this, in that we must trust the judgment of the courts in determining what is moral and immoral in terms of inventions.

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/18/news/companies/patent-office-redskins/

What is Tesla's real motive?

As I wrote about a few days ago, Tesla recently opened up all of its patents to the market, stating that it wanted its competitors to use them to move the field of electric car technology forward. This sounds extremely noble and altruistic, but is it possible Tesla has some other motives? In Elon Musk's words Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.” This, however, begs the question, what exactly does "in good faith" mean?

I believe Tesla has other motives for wanting to open up their patents. Namely, it is in Tesla's best interest to see as many electric cars on the market as possible, because more electric cars means wider adoption and implementation of the super-chargers that Tesla believes are necessary for their vehicles to become popular around the country. One big hurdle currently facing Tesla is that there are not that many charging stations located around the country, which is a serious detriment to anyone looking to drive their Tesla farther than a few hundred miles from home. With other, larger companies getting in on the electric car market, Elon Musk hopes they will help him in the building of these super-chargers, thereby making electric cars far more widespread.

There is an additional component to this. Tesla is currently by far the leader in terms of electric car battery technology. I believe that Tesla is confident that they will maintain this lead, as they have already established themselves as a company that makes an extremely high quality product. Therefore, they don't see a significant threat to sharing their technology with other companies because they already have a huge head start, both in brand-recognition in the EV market as well as in quality of product.

Sure, all of these things may have positive impacts on global climate pollution and on reduction of green house gases, but ultimately, Tesla, like all other corporations in a capitalist market, has to take care of its bottom line first. It is an extremely admirable move because they have found a way to maximize their profits while benefitting the world as a whole. I can't wait until Tesla releases an affordable vehicle that I believe will dominate US markets and return the United States to the top spot in international automobile production.

Source: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-12/why-elon-musk-just-opened-teslas-patents-to-his-biggest-rivals

Patents as a metric to record innovation

Researchers at the University of Oxford have used complicated data mining algorithms to investigate the nature of innovation. In order to do this, they utilized the record of patents held by the USPTO.

This is important because it establishes patents as a mechanism for recording history, through inventions and discoveries which have advanced society forward. Since most, if not all, of the major inventions in American history have been protected under the patent system, this is an effective way of measuring technological progress, from the lightbulb all the way up to the smartphone.

The US Patent Office uses an intricate system to record patents, wherein patents are stored by a number that specifies if and how each invention uses prior technologies. Thereby, the researchers were able to gain an understanding of the flow of technology from one to another, leading to more and more new innovations. They were interesting in studying "to what extent invention is the refinement of existing combinations of technologies and to what extent it is the result of new combinations of technologies" (Tech Review). 

Their findings were extremely intriguing. They determined that whereas 40 percent of inventions were on the basis of already existing combinations of technology, an entire 60 percent of new inventions are based on new combinations of technology. This is hugely important because it indicates to us that most of inventions that are happening are still on the basis of ingenuity and creativity. The patent process has recorded this creativity and gives us the ability to study how inventors were coming up with new, brilliant ideas.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/528436/data-mining-200-years-of-patent-office-records-to-reveal-the-nature-of-invention/

Facebook in court for potential patent violation

A case was recently brought forth by Mr. Joannes Van Der Meer, a Dutch computer programmer, who alleged that Facebook infringed on his patents, when he attempted to launch a social network site known as Surfbook over 10 years ago. Facebook, on the other hand, has defended themselves by saying that the patents granted to Van Der Meer were obvious and therefore, should be invalidated.

One tricky complication with regards to this case is that though the patents were granted in 2001 and 2002, a full year before the launch of Facebook, Mr. Van Der Meer passed away in 2004. As such, Facebook is being sued not by Van Der Meer himself, but a company known as Rembrandt Social Media. Rembrandt, incidentally, is actually a company that specializes in suing on behalf of patent holders and has thus been accused of being a patent troll.

As a company with a well-known history of intellectual property violation lawsuits, Facebook has been very successful at fighting these cases. The most well-known example, dramatized in the movie The Social Network, is the story of how Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder, supposedly stole the idea from the Winklevoss twins during his time at Harvard. In the time that Facebook has been around, it has had to defend against several similar lawsuits and has succeeded in settling all but one outside of court. In that one case, Facebook was victorious in front of a jury.

Rembrandt is making the argument that several of Facebook's key features, including its "like" button were directly copied from Van Der Meer's Surfbook. On the other hand, Facebook has said that many of these were obvious ideas, and as such, they should not have been patentable in the first place. One thing that will certainly help Facebook will be the hindsight bias that will inevitably influence the jurors. By seeing how rapidly the space of online social media and social networking has evolved, it may be hard to deny that such innovations as Facebook would not have inevitably come into being, even without Van Der Meer's Surfbook.

It will be extremely interesting to see the outcome of this case, as it may have large monetary repercussions for the social networking giant, Facebook.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/trial-underway-patent-case-facebook-24093943

Tesla opens up their patents to the market

In an unprecedented move, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced that he will be opening up all of Tesla's patents for others to use to replicate the technology.

Writing on Tesla's official website, Musk revealed that he no longer believes that patents are serving the purpose for which they were made. Today, instead of incentivizing innovation, they are merely hurting competition which is making it harder for the market to move forward. The electric car industry is a great example of this, as many car manufacturers have barely, if at all, ventured into this field. Tesla is far ahead of any of the competition in terms of their technology, and is as such, the only car manufacturer to have made a really successful electric car (with a few exceptions).

Musk makes another important point. Electric cars need to be an important part of the future, if something is to be done about the global climate crisis. Oil and gas powered vehicles are fundamentally problematic for the environment, but until the large car manufacturers -- GM, Toyota, Ford, Honda, etc -- make significant steps to transform their fleets into battery-powered vehicles, we will not see a significant reduction in carbon emissions. By opening up his technologies to the entire world, Mr. Musk has made a statement that saving the environment is more important to him and to his company than making money off the competitive advantage that Tesla's patents afford them.

I hope that other inventors will take this as an example of how to create innovation. Mr. Musk's open-mindedness and care for the entire world is something that all inventors need to have -- because ultimately, creating new products should be about helping the world, not about making money. I believe the patent approval process has become all about making more money, not what it should be about, and this move is indicative that Elon Musk feels that way too.

Source: http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you