Posts Tagged: "3M"

This week in Other Barks & Bites: Huawei is in hot water with both the U.S. and UK governments, while Qualcomm has just completed a new patent licensing deal with Huawei; IBM tops a new global list for most artificial intelligence-related patent applications filed; Apple files another appeal of a major patent infringement damages award handed to VirnetX in the Eastern District of Texas; and see how the biggest IP players are doing Wall Street.

This year, the National Inventors Hall of Fame will be inducting a new class which includes the inventor of a dental composite material which was revolutionary for its high durability and wear resistance compared to other filling materials at that time. This Friday, May 4th, marks the 14th anniversary of the issue of one of the dental filling material patents held by Dr. Sumita Mitra, a former 3M chemical engineer responsible for the development of Filtek dental restorative material. With this patent anniversary upon us, we return again to our Evolution of Technology series to take a long view at the history of dental implants and the impact of Mitra’s contributions to this field of research.

One interesting aspect of IFI CLAIMS’ most recent annual patent analysis is a list of eight areas of technology that have seen the fastest growing increases in patent applications between 2013 and 2017. To do this, IFI computed the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of patent applications for all Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) codes over the course of the study period to see which CPC codes were receiving the greatest number of patent applications. According to IFI’s analysis, the greatest growth in patent applications were for E-cigarettes and other technologies under the CPC code A24F for smokers’ requisites.

On September 21st, Saint Paul, MN-based technology and materials company 3M (NYSE:MMM) filed a lawsuit alleging patent and trademark infringement committed by Shanghai, China-based Thunder Finish. The lawsuit targets Thunder Finish’s marketing of paint preparation products developed by 3M which are meant to simplify the use and cleanup of liquid paint spray guns. The suit is filed in the Western District of Wisconsin.

During 2014, 3M received 517 patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, putting it in 80th place among companies petitioning the USPTO for patents that year. The company has received 143 U.S. patents in the past three months, according to Innography’s patent portfolio analysis tools. The text cluster provided here details widespread R&D in optical film, electrical cable, abrasive particles and curable compositions.