Posts Tagged: "Steve Brachmann"

Justice Ginsburg Visits the University at Buffalo on My First Day of Law School

A little more than two years ago, I made the decision to go to law school. Many factors went into this decision but suffice it to say that my work with IPWatchdog and encouragement from both Gene and Renee Quinn played a major role in choosing this course. This spring, I was accepted into the University at Buffalo School of Law and, with the second week of classes about to begin, I find myself very busy with the job of cramming basic concepts in torts, contracts and civil procedure into my brain. Monday, August 26 was to be the first day of classes at UB Law, but the day’s courses were cancelled for a momentous occasion. That day, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg visited the campus to give a talk at UB’s Center for the Arts and receive a State University of New York (SUNY) honorary degree. The event came a mere three days after the Supreme Court announced that Justice Ginsburg had just finished a three-week course of radiation therapy to treat a tumor. The Supreme Court Justice, however, gave very little indication that she had just undergone major medical treatment, handling both her address and a one-hour lecture with UB Law students with great aplomb. The day’s events did not include any information on intellectual property but it did offer various insights on Justice Ginsburg’s career and the upcoming Supreme Court term.

Looking Back on Five Years With IPWatchdog

Somewhere near the end of 2011, I responded to an ad that was left on Craigslist. A website called IPWatchdog.com was looking for a writer to contribute content on Apple’s patenting activities… Over the past five years, I’ve learned a lot about what it means to be an inventor in today’s patent system. I’ve learned that, unless you have the deep wallets to create advocacy groups which beat the drums for further patent reforms in service to the efficient infringer lobby, you tend to get railroaded by the system… In short, I’ve learned that the United States of today is not the same country where the famed garage inventor can become a business success thanks to hard work and ingenuity. Today, the true beneficiaries of innovation seem to be those well-entrenched interests who can copy without great fear of reprisal, leaving the actual inventors without any true ability to commercialize and profit from their intellectual property.

Intel Patents: A Diverse Story of Software Innovation

We start our profile of Intel’s recently developed technologies with a look at our featured patent application, which discusses a novel system for managing access to a vehicle among multiple drivers. This access management system would also be able to delegate responsibilities, such as gas refueling and scheduled maintenance, as well as enable emergency access to trusted parties. Other patent applications which we noticed today discussed enhanced security measures for private data as well as home media systems for accessing segmented television content. The Intel Corporation is a major recipient of patents issued by the USPTO, and in recent weeks it has secured many interesting additions to its patent portfolio. A couple of patents relate to improved systems of thermal management in mobile electronic devices. Our interest was also piqued by one patent protecting a system of monitoring care patients residing in independent living situations.

Sony Seeks Patent on Gifting Functions for an Online Marketplace

We’re taking a really close look at one intriguing patent application published recently by the USPTO that enables a production studio and consumers to earn money off of content sales. In this system, purchasers of digital content can register to sell the content to others, supporting a company’s marketing and enabling those users to earn some money. Other patent applications that pique our interest include improved stereoscopic 3D glasses for use in conjunction with normal eyewear, as well as a more secure system of digital rights management for online media streams. We’ve also pulled up a number of issued patents that have specifically given Sony the rights to a number of improvements in entertainment systems. One patent protects a headphone appliance that reduces unnatural sounds during telephone calls. Another patent protects a system of quickening the startup time for television sets. Sony has also received a patent to protect a method of reducing light leakage and flickering in movie projector sets for theaters.

Qualcomm: Diversified Innovation and Aggressive Patenting Leads to Success

Innovation has not been occurring at Qualcomm simply for the sake of innovation. Since 2010, Qualcomm’s quarterly sales have increased each year by 31 percent. On the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, Qualcomm is the third-fastest growing large technology company in America as of 2013. Other Qualcomm operations involve the medical industry, for which they’re developing a wireless monitoring system for children with asthma, and video gaming, as many in the industry believe Qualcomm and Amazon are working together to build a console.