Posts Tagged: "cloud"

How Intellectual Property Informs the Investment in a Private Equity Transaction

Technology and intellectual property (IP) have become vital components to virtually every business in all industries as they often drive the value and efficiencies of a business and enable companies to monetize their products and services. In order to capitalize on this trend, private equity (PE) investors are making significant investments in companies focused on developing and commercializing IP. In 2017, a record number of PE deals were IP and technology focused, ranging from consumer-facing companies with valuations driven by trademark portfolios and brand awareness, to cloud platform and biotech companies with significant patent portfolios and research and development efforts. According to analysts of PE deal-trends, this wave of IP-centric PE transactions has continued and will continue to grow during 2018.

Effective data management and governance for social media and cloud collaboration platforms

While there are a lot of irreplaceable benefits to leveraging social media and cloud collaboration platforms for business, there are also risks that, if not managed properly, leave organizations vulnerable to business and legal risk… According to Osterman, sometimes takes a significant event to drive decision makers to action in the context of good information governance. For instance, a lawsuit in which an organization is not able to adequately respond to an eDiscovery order, or a regulator’s request for information that cannot be properly satisfied, will often move information governance from the back burner to a properly funded and executed initiative.

Finjan files patent infringement suit against Bitdefender as part of campaign to protect online security IP

Finjan asserts four patents in the case and alleges that Bitdefender’s marketing of antivirus, cloud and sandboxing technologies infringes upon the patents-in-suit. The case has been filed in the Northern District of California… Finjan’s suit against Bitdefender alleges that Bitdefender was presented with written notice of the alleged infringement of Finjan’s patents as early as February 2015. In October 2015, Finjan alleged that it discussed the ‘844, ‘154 and ‘494 patents with Bitdefender and how those patents read on technology practiced by Bitdefender. Despite numerous in-person and telephone meetings, Finjan alleges that that Bitdefender has continued to engage in willful and deliberate infringement of Finjan’s IP.

New Microsoft patent program aims to give Azure cloud developers security from patent lawsuits

The springing license does offer at least some protection in the future against patent aggregators looking to monetize IP assets, but it wouldn’t stop any party, including an actual patent troll, from sending a demand letter asserting rights to a patent outside of the Azure IP Advantage portfolio. But, how those in the program can be use one of Microsoft’s patents to defend against a patent troll seems rather questionable. By definition a patent gives the owner the right to do nothing other than exclude. So even if you have lawfully acquired rights through the owner you’ve acquired no affirmative rights, just a promise from the owner that they won’t exclude you from what it is that you are doing. Therefore, you cannot defend a patent litigation against a patent troll or any patent owner by pointing to a patent you have rights to use because that isn’t how a patent works.

What Do Cloud Robotics Mean for Driverless Cars?

When you think of autonomous cars or driverless vehicles, you probably don’t associate them with cloud computing and data analytics. However, that’s exactly the technology that makes autonomy possible, at least when it comes to modern mechanics… A vehicle that has to wait for commands from a cloud system is especially vulnerable.

IBM achieves record number of U.S. patents in 2016, 24th straight year of patent dominance

In 1992, Bill Clinton was elected President of the United States. Hurricane Andrew bore down on the American Southeast, causing billions in damage after wreaking destruction from Florida to Louisiana. Johnny Carson retired from The Tonight Show. The Buffalo Bills were in the Super Bowl. Los Angeles saw a string of deadly riots related to the LAPD’s televised beating of Rodney King. And 1992 was the last year during which a company other than American information technology firm IBM (NYSE:IBM) could claim that it had earned the greatest number of U.S. patents… With over 8,000 patents IBM stands supreme in the US patent world, earning the most US patents in 2016 and claiming the top spot for the 24th year in a row.

Fitfully unveils cloud-based virtual fitting service for online shoe sales

Fitfully has filed at least one patent application which has been published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as W.O. Patent Application No. 2016051416, titled System and Method of 3D Modeling and Virtual Fitting of 3D Objects. It discloses a method of virtual fitting a foot with a shoe by obtaining 3D model data associated with a foot, obtaining data of a second 3D model associated with a shoe and aligning point clouds derived from the 3D models of the foot and shoe.

Sling TV unveils cloud DVR tech giving Americans more reasons to ‘cut the cord’

On Thursday, December 15th, Dish Network (NASDAQ:DISH) subsidiary and over-the-top (OTT) television delivery service Sling TV unveiled a new cloud-based digital video recording (DVR) technology. Customers using Sling to access live television programming can store up to 100 hours of content including full-length movies, single episodes and entire television series. Automatic deletion of oldest-watched content and simultaneous recording options are also included with the service. Sling’s cloud DVR service appears to only be available to customers accessing Sling through Roku devices in this first rollout of the program and the DVR service only works with certain channels.

2d Cir. affirms S.D.N.Y. decision in Barnes & Noble copyright case, cloud-based services questions

In early October, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (2d Cir.) handed down a decision, which almost answered important questions about how cloud-based access to content can affect copyright holders. At issue in the case, Cheryl Smith v. Barnesandnoble.com, LLC, was Barnes & Noble’s activities in providing samples of a text through the cloud to consumers after a licensing agreement on that piece of text was terminated.

Conversational Commerce: How Technology Raises the Bar for Customer Interaction

Now with smartphones always-on and within reach 24/7, the way businesses need to communicate information to customers is through their mobile devices. And statistics show that the preferred method for reaching customers by their phones is via text message. For example, 70 percent of customers say texts are a good way to get their attention, and 90 percent of customers will open a text message within three minutes of receiving it, according to mobilesquared, an industry analysis firm.

Data: It Is Lurking Everywhere, Especially in the Shadows

ShadowIT involves workers’ use of unsanctioned products and applications to perform the work of the business enterprise. In other words, ShadowIT occurs when employees use their personal emails and applications, such as a cloud-based storage system, instead of company-approved solutions. According to a recent survey, about one-third of IT use is considered ShadowIT. Whether responding to a subpoena in a wage and hour dispute, attempting to safeguard previous corporate secrets, or analyzing the extent of a data breach, a company’s failure to understand the scope and location of ShadowIT data could be problematic. Companies should have policies in place regarding employees’ (and other workers’) use of unapproved applications, but there should also be an understanding that a policy is not a panacea.

IBM hits torrid patent pace in Q1 2016, invents cloud management and automotive tech

2016 has gotten off to a strong start for the company as the patent portfolio analysis tools at Innography are showing us that IBM has already earned 1,927 U.S. patents through the first three months of this year. Not surprisingly, much of IBM’s patent activities have been focused on computing devices, data sets, computing environment, storage devices and data structures. Natural language technologies are another area where IBM has pursued recent innovative advances. Likewise, we note a trio of patents recently issued to IBM in automotive and related sectors, starting with the crash damage mitigation technology, technologies for communicating information between vehicles, and enhanced methods of traffic routing involving stoplight timing.

IBM receives most U.S. patents for 23rd consecutive year

IBM once again has topped the list of annual U.S. patent recipients, receiving 7,355 patents in 2015. This is the 23rd consecutive year IBM has received more U.S. patents than any other entity in the world. More than 8,500 IBMers residing in 50 states and territories and 46 countries are responsible for IBM’s 2015 patent tally. IBM inventors who reside outside the U.S. contributed to more than 36 percent of the company’s 2015 patents.

BoA innovations cover security for financial transactions, wearable payment devices, cryptocurrency

Many of the patents we noticed in our recent survey of BofA technologies are related to enhanced security methods for financial transactions, such as the innovation protected by U.S. Patent No. 9218596, entitled Method and Apparatus for Providing Real Time Mutable Credit Card Information. It discloses a smartcard apparatus having a microprocessor chip, a button, a dynamic transaction authorization number and a Bluetooth low energy device (BLE) that works to transmit an instruction to a smartphone for a request for a dynamic transaction authorization number when the button is depressed and receive the number from the smartphone; the smartcard further has a battery and a dynamic magnetic strip comprising a digital representation of the dynamic authorization number. This technology is designed to enhance security measures in smartcards having magnetic strips without requiring a banking institution to issue new cards. Enhanced security for banking transactions taking place on cloud infrastructures is featured within U.S. Patent No. 9184918, entitled Trusted Hardware for Attesting to Authenticity in a Cloud Environment. I

Texas Instruments maintains pace of innovation, focusing on signals and semiconductor devices

Texas Instruments has earned 825 U.S. patents through most of 2015, putting it on pace to perhaps slightly eclipse its 2014 totals. As the text cluster posted here shows our readers, much of TI’s recent R&D has focused on control signals, input signals and semiconductor devices… Short-range, low-power body area networks developed for medical purposes were featured by a pair of patent applications filed recently by Texas Instruments, including the innovation described within U.S. Patent Application No. 20150349839, entitled Ultra Wideband Modulation for Body Area Networks. It would protect a symbol modulation system having a symbol mapper configured to determine a time within a predetermined symbol transmission interval at which a transmission representative of the symbol will occur and then generate a single guard interval within the symbol transmission interval and positioned to terminate the symbol transmission interval. This body area network innovation establishes a physical layer which allows a receiver to identify and correct received data errors caused by channel issues. Physical layers in body area networks are also improved by the innovation discussed within U.S. Patent Application No. 20150350387, which is titled PHY Layer Options for Body Area Network (BAN) Devices. It claims a physical (PHY) layer method that involves performing body area network operations in a limited multipath environment using M-ary pre-shared keys (PSK), differential M-ary PSK or rotated differential M-ary PSK, and then transmitting BAN packets at a constant symbol rate. The use of physical layers to support BAN networking enables smarter medical devices, such as digital bandages that can measure and wirelessly transmit vital signs or pacemakers which can be fine-tuned after implantation.