Posts Tagged: "medical device"

The Fatal Attraction of Medical Device ‘Right to Repair’

The contentious issues surrounding Right to Repair are getting super-heated as the U.S. Copyright Office concludes its triennial rulemaking review of exemptions to section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Exemptions granted would be in force for three years beginning October 2024.  When is an exemption not an exemption? When it’s an exemption from common sense.

Using Anonymous Third-Party Submissions to Advance Your Business Goals

A decent patent strategy starts with protecting your current commercial product.  A better patent strategy builds on this by not only considering what is, but what could be.  To provide real value, consider the actions of others and invest time studying the patent landscape and gathering business intelligence from competitors’ filings.  Additionally, instead of passively observing such filings, a company should also consider being more active by filing one or more third-party submissions (often termed preissuance submissions) in their competitor’s pending applications.  These third-party submissions are a terrific defensive tool to slow down or impede your competitors’ patent ambitions.

Intellectual Property Without Borders: How IP Protection for Low-Cost Medical Devices Improves Global Health

Because the production costs of these medical devices and pharmaceuticals are so high, millions of people around the world are unable to obtain necessary healthcare. For example, as of 2014, close to seventy percent of all cardiac pacemaker sales occurred in the United States and Europe, while several countries in Africa and Asia have absolutely no access to pacemakers. In order to respond to this problem, research scientists have begun developing low-cost medical technologies and using intellectual property rights to give people in developing countries access to adequate healthcare.

Swiss researchers make breakthrough in medical microrobot technology

ETHZ, one of the Swiss universities involved in the recent microbot breakthrough, received a patent in 2013 for a related technology. U.S. Patent No. 8405256, entitled Wireless Resonant Magnetic Actuation for Untethered Microrobots, claims a wireless resonant micro-actuator having at least two magnetic bodies connected to each other with a resilient member to form a spring-mass system, a magnetic field generator which creates a magnetic force to wirelessly power the spring-mass system and a converter which converts oscillatory motion of the two magnetic bodies into useful motion for the untethered microrobot. This innovation addresses issues in propulsion systems for microrobots which are incapable of creating effective propulsion for an untethered microrobot.

Abbott Labs acquires large Alere patent portfolio in $5.8 billion deal, increasing diagnostic lineup

Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) of Chicago, IL, is poised to surge ahead in the global point-of-care medical diagnostics industry by acquiring Alere Inc. (NYSE:ALR) of Waltham, MA, in a $5.8 billion deal which values Alere at $56 per share. According a recent statement made by Abbott CEO Miles White to investors, the move will push the company’s annual diagnostic sales up to $7 billion. The acquisition is simply the latest major move in the medical device industry, a sector which saw more than 1,000 deals pending or completed last year for a net worth of $58.9 billion, according to statistics published by Bloomberg Business.