Posts Tagged: "IoT"

Standard Essential Patents and Legal Risks Across Industries

The next industrial revolution will not only impact the smartphone and computer world but will spread to many more industrial verticals. Automotive, manufacturing, energy, health care, and MedTech are among the industries most likely to be impacted by connectivity, as they have high-value equipment that is constantly networked and needs to handle massive amounts of data. Standards such as 5G or Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) will connect industrial machinery and robots allowing for remote control, monitoring, and repair, as well as industrial automation. From smart grids to drone control, energy and utility, companies will rely on standards to handle massive data. Connectivity standards will be used by hospitals and medical equipment manufacturers to provide data to a variety of tablets and fixed machines, as well as to enable remote surgery. Enhanced monitoring and automation are likely to assist industries as diverse as agriculture and finance. Online shops will increasingly turn to virtual reality experiences. 5G based tracking will emerge in the logistic sector. Edge computing and low latency of 5G and the improved compression of the versatile video coding (VVC) standard will be used in the gaming business, as well as in general augmented and virtual reality applications. As transportation operators rely on connectivity standards to connect smart city infrastructure, media companies will boost mobile streaming speeds and quality. Over the next few years, when advanced cellular, wireless and video standards replace existing protocols, these developments will occur swiftly.

Patent Trends Study Part Two: IoT Industry

In yesterday’s article, we introduced our patent-trends study (performed in a collaboration between Kilpatrick Townsend and GreyB Services) and provided high-level data across industries. Today’s article pertains to the Internet of Things (IoT) industry. With the prevalence of WiFi, cellular modems and devices configured for short-range connections, IoT systems are becoming all the more ubiquitous and exciting. No matter how powerful and sophisticated a single device is, its efficiency and usefulness will very often remain capped if it cannot “talk” to other devices. Only through these communications can the device gain a more comprehensive view (e.g., corresponding to where users are, what computations or controls may be helpful, what computations or actions other devices are already performing or coordinating). Thus, we can begin to start thinking about specifications (e.g., efficiency, speed, memory, accuracy) of a device and instead think about specifications of a system. This presents a large number of important use cases.

Patent Trends Study Part One: Twelve-Industry Overview

This is the first in a thirteen-part series of articles authored by Kilpatrick Townsend that IPWatchdog will be publishing over the coming weeks. The series will examine industry-specific patent trends across 12 key patent-intensive industries. Companies are frequently faced with high- and low-level decisions concerning patenting. What should an annual patent budget be and/or how many new applications should be filed each year? Which technologies should be emphasized in the portfolio? For a given innovation, should a patent application even be filed? These questions are frequently evaluated by looking at internal factors, such as recent enterprise-wide profitability, executive sentiments towards patenting, and/or the perceived importance of individual projects. However, the effect of a patent is to exclude others from a given innovation space. If no other entity was or would be interested in making, using, selling, or importing a patented invention, one could argue that the patent was valueless. Conversely, if many others are actively developing technology within a space, a patent portfolio in that area may be particularly valuable. Thus, patenting decisions should factor in the degree to which others have interest in a given technology is trending-up or -down. Patenting data can serve as one indicator for this type of interest. However, it is difficult to collect patenting data at an industry level. While the patent office assigns an art unit and a class to each patent application, using one or more art units and/or classes as a proxy for an industry is both under- and over-inclusive. For example, a patent application related to an Internet of Things (IoT) industry may also relate to traffic lights, such that, even if there were art units specifically and only associated with either IoT or traffic lights (which there is not), statistics would be inaccurate: statistics pertaining only to an IoT art unit would not account for data corresponding to applications and assigned to the hypothetical traffic-light art unit, while statistics pertaining to both art units would be based on non-IoT applications assigned to the latter art unit.

Qualcomm, Google, Verizon and Industry Reps Gather for Women’s High-Tech Coalition Women of Wireless Dialogue

On February 13, global policymakers and technology company representatives gathered in Washington, D.C. at Google’s offices for the Women’s High-Tech Coalition (WHTC) Third Annual “Women of Wireless” dialogue. The speakers represented companies including Google, Verizon, and Qualcomm, as well as major industry organizations such as the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) and the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), and discussed the various infrastructure, policy, and privacy challenges facing the industry in the race to 5G-implementation. With a record number of women elected to the 116th Session of the U.S. Congress and recent White House Executive Orders on technology issues— including this month’s “Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence (AI),” an expected executive order on 5G technology, and likely Congressional briefings and hearings focused on wireless innovation—the WHTC is an integral network of stakeholders to discuss these issues and to develop opportunities for strategic partnerships and shared initiatives.

Managing Trademark Clutter in a Busy IoT World

The default position of brands has often been to protect as many marks as possible, driving other applicants out and helping establish a well-known and profitable identity. When names can make or break a brand, a significant number of trademarks are created purely for protection. However, these protective practices lead to a systemic problem. When new entrants to a market are faced with trademark clutter, their only choice is to adopt equally aggressive application strategies. This behavior leads to more clutter and further reduces the available pool of marks for the next generation of applicants.