By now you are probably aware that on March 19, 2013, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued U.S. Patent No. 8,401,009 to Twitter, and more specifically to Jack Dorsey and Christopher Isaac Stone. The Twitter patent is titled: Device Independent Message Distribution Platform. In other words, Twitter was awarded a patent on “Tweeting”!
Now those of you who know me and have read my posts in the past, know that I am not a patent attorney myself (although I am married to one who is rather well known). Rather, I am a social media strategist — sometimes called The Social Media Diva™ — who uses Twitter and other social media platforms to assist my clients in their online marketing strategies. Quite frequently we will feature posts that analyze the technologies of an issued patent from the IP attorney perspective. We thought it would be fun for me to analyze this patent from a non-attorney standpoint as it pertains to social media platforms as a whole.
For the patent professionals who are reading you may find it interesting to see the complete file history for the Twitter patent.
For decades, the Nielsen Rating has measured audience size for television programming. Since 2006, Twitter allowed users to provide real-time comments, or tweets, on just about anything they wish. Twitter users often use Twitter to discuss television shows as they are being aired. Because of this, Nielsen and Twitter and joining their powerful forces to create the Nielsen Twitter TV Rating.
Starting in the fall of 2013, the Nielsen Twitter TV Rating will chart the conversations that take place on Twitter about television shows. It will measure the total audience for each show’s social activity. According to a representative at Nielsen, this new rating system will provide the “precise size of the audience and effect of social TV to TV programming.”
Nielsen, is a global company that measures television and other media forms such as online, mobile and trade shows. They have a strong presence in about 100 countries and have headquarters in New York and the Netherlands.
Whether you are just getting your feet wet in the wild world of inventions and patents, or you already have your business up and running, social media can help expand your business. Everywhere you look, there are Facebook “Like” buttons, LinkedIn “Share” buttons and Twitter “Tweet” buttons. Even Google has entered the social sharing game with Google+ allowing you to “+1” content. Social media can help catapult your business into overdrive – if you know how to use it effectively.
Here are some tips to using social media to expand business.
1. Choose which social platforms you want to use
There are many social networks out there – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, the list seems to be constantly growing. You want to channel your hard work into a select amount of platforms, and make sure that they are the right ones for your business. But with so many choices, how can you be sure which is right for you? Well that depends on what your goal is. Twitter is very up-to-the-minute, a place that provides short blurbs about news, insights and just about anything else. Facebook will allow you to post pictures, talk about events and what’s new with your business. LinkedIn caters to the professional crowd and will allow you to highlight your business credentials, but there is a social side to it that is beneficial for businesses.
Twitter users are no doubt familiar with the familiar “#FF” followed by a number of names. ”#FF” stands for “Follow Friday.” On Fridays many Twitter users will suggest who others should follow by tweeting with the hashtag #FF. This can be a great way to find interesting feeds to follow that you might otherwise never have known about.
Last Friday I wrote about a handful of U.S. government Twitter accounts that relate to innovation and various intellectual property issues. Today I give you 10 great Twitter accounts to follow if you are interested in staying up on intellectual property around the world, with a heavy emphasis on Europe and Australia because those are the primary jurisdictions that speak English.
Of course, you can follow me on Twitter @ipwatchdog.
If you are a user of Twitter you have probably seen more than a few tweets, always on Friday’s, using “#FF” followed by a number of names. ”#FF” stands for “Follow Friday.” On Fridays many Twitter users will suggest who others should follow by tweeting with the hashtag #FF.
For me Twitter is about news and information. It is one of the ways that I keep my finger on the pulse of what is happening, so I put a premium on those who convey information, but don’t like following people who tweet constantly all day every day.
Periodically I will take a moment to provide a list of those who I think you might find it useful to follow. Today’s “follow Friday” recommendations focus on those in the U.S. government who tweet about innovation and intellectual property, with a focus on those who are lesser-known, at least based on the number of Twitter followers.
Of course, you can follow me on Twitter @ipwatchdog.
If you are a user of Twitter you have probably seen more than a few tweets, always on Friday’s, using “#FF” followed by a number of names. ”#FF” stands for “Follow Friday.” On Fridays many Twitter users will suggest who others should follow by tweeting with the hashtag #FF. If this doesn’t make any sense to you — no worries.
For me Twitter is about news and information. It is one of the ways that I keep my finger on the pulse of what is happening, so I put a premium on those who convey information. I also typically prefer those who are not “machine like” Tweeting dozens of things over a short period of time. Let me know about what YOU believe is worth my time. If I wanted a disk dump I would just go to Google News.
Those with Twitter accounts who are looking for some good folks to follow look no further. Likely everyone in the industry is already familiar with folks like Professor Dennis Crouch of PatentlyO, who tweets @patentlyo, so I tried to focus (for the most part) on some lesser known tweeters. Below are some of my favorites on Twitter; people who in my humble opinion are excellent to follow. You may also want to check my previous recommendations. See Follow Friday: IP Tweeters on Twitter.
Earlier today on the Twitter blog the company announced that later this year it will implement what they are calling the “Innovators Patent Agreement,” which they claim will ensure that patents are only used for defensive purposes. Without any evidence Twitter claims that software patents impede innovation. Those familiar with the anti-patent software community well know that their claims that patents impede innovation are always without any evidence. All of the objective evidence points directly to the opposite conclusion, but anti-patent forces can’t be troubled with facts and reality. But that isn’t the worst part! Twitter seems to be attempting to mislead patentees into donating patent rights that can at Twitter’s discretion be used offensively if Twitter feels threatened.
Before moving forward to address the Twitter Patent Scheme, allow me to dispense with the nonsense that patents of any kind impede innovation. For those who do concern themselves with facts and reality I invite you to read:
In a rare social media court case, Yahoo recently sued Facebook for 10 patent infringements. Less than two months after Facebook filed to become publicly traded, Yahoo now claims that many of the features that have allowed Facebook to accrue 850 million users, such as the News Feed, infringe on proprietary Yahoo technology. It is unclear how much money Yahoo is seeking in the lawsuit, but one thing is for certain: if this case moves forward it could be one of the biggest spectacles in the history of patent andintellectual property law. Let’s look at the salient features of the case:
The meat of the litigation revolves around patents. For decades patents have been a significant part of intellectual property law, but in recent years they have proven problematic in the development of new software and the technological innovations. Patents will now be at the heart of a cold war between two of the biggest tech companies in the world. Yahoo, which owns about 1,000 patents, is suing Facebook over 10 patent infringements ranging from Internet advertising methods and privacy controls. One of the patents is described as “optimum placement of advertisements on a webpage.” Yahoo had warned Facebook that they would sue if the social network did not agree to license the patents in question, saying that multiple other major companies had complied. Yahoo was true to their word, and called Facebook’s bluff.
On Sunday March 25 and Monday March 26, 2012, I attended the Second Annual Women’s Entrepreneurship Symposium (WES) in Shreveport, LA. The event was hosted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office(USPTO) in Honor of Women’s History Month and was put together in collaboration with U.S. Senator Mary L. Landrieu(D-LA) and the city of Shreveport, Louisiana. WES was held at the Shreveport Convention Center and focused primarily on women entrepreneurs, innovation and the importance of intellectual property to business. I was honored to accept an invitation to present at this year’s event on social media and the importance of developing and leveraging online business relationships.
The program featured Senator Landrieu, who is chair of the Senate’s Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurshipas the symposium’s keynote speaker as well as the Mayor of Shreveport, Mayor Cedric B Glover who gave the welcoming remarks on day 1 of the event. The program additionally included the Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Teresa (Terry) Stanek Rea, Director of Inventor Education, Outreach and Recognition (USPTO) Elizabeth Dougherty, Director of Research and Policy at the National Women’s Business Council (NWBC) Julia Kurnik as well as successful entrepreneurs and other experts in the field of intellectual property law and small business.
Having a brand is not just for big corporations and well-known products. Big businesses, small businesses, law firms, entrepreneurs and anyone else wanting to make a name for themselves can do so by building a brand. The way you portray your business, your products and yourself; in other words your image, is your brand.
Thanks to social media everyone has the ability to connect with like-minded individuals all over the world. But if you want to exploit social media you need to have an effective strategy. It does not take an enormous amount of time each day. In fact with only 15 minutes per day, you can really make quite an impact. Like everything you hope to succeed with in life, it does take planning and forethought.
Here are suggestions on how you might be able to use social media to develop your brand, monitor quality, engage customers, expand upon ideas and connect with others within your industry.
There’s only one thing more disheartening to an online retailer than knowing that a lot of customers are going to abandon their shopping carts before completing a purchase. And that’s the discovery that a whopping three out of four of them will actually turn around and leave the website rather than endure the hassle of registering a new account.
A new technology called “social login,” however, can alleviate both problems. Offered by multiple vendors (including Facebook) or custom built in-house, social login allows website visitors to log in using their Facebook, Twitter, or other social media identity and avoid registration and password hassles entirely.
This is no small matter. A friend of mine was in a Cost Plus World Market retail location recently and spotted a coffee table he liked. A salesman noted that if he signed up for their online World Explorer rewards program, he could get the table for 25 percent off. So he tried signing up via his iPhone while in the store, but found it too frustrating to awkwardly thumb-type all his personal data — let alone create a unique 10 digit reward program ID — on the iPhone’s tiny virtual keyboard. So he left the store without completing the purchase.
When I speak at events, one of the most common questions I get from professionals is, “What is the purpose of Twitter.” Those of us who use Twitter know what the purpose of Twitter is and how to use it though. But for many, the concept of micro-blogging is still quite a mystery. Once you understand what to tweet, how to tweet and how much to tweet, you are quickly able to make excellent connections, increase your website statistics and search engine ranking, find some of your best brand advocates, and benefit quickly and efficiently from word of mouth marketing. In fact, next to YouTube, micro-blogging on Twitter is one of the quickest ways for information about you, your brand, your business, your products and your services to go viral.
Before one can feel comfortable on Twitter, they must first understand the purpose of Twitter, realize the potential of Twitter and learn how they can use Twitter to meet their overall marketing objectives. Following, I will discuss and demystify 5 of the top myths about Twitter use for business and give you pointers on how you can get the most out of your Twitter account.
It seems that no matter where you go these days, the likelihood is high that you will see a “Free Wi-Fi” sticker on the front door of the establishment. Whether you are going for coffee, meeting a colleague for lunch, stopping at a rest stop or waiting for an airplane, you can pretty much bet that you will be able to check your email and surf the web while you are there. But providing customers with free Internet access is just the beginning. Some of the world’s most well known brands are aggressively using social media as a marketing tool.
Many of the largest and most recognizable restaurant brands are starting to realize the power and potential of social media, not only for the use of their clientele but also in getting their message out in new and innovative ways. They have begun to realize that building larger online communities equates to higher numbers of restaurant sales. For this reason, media outlet Nation’s Restaurant News teamed up with an analytics and digital branding firm, DigitalCoCo to create the Restaurant Social Media Index (RSMI) highlighting the industry’s Top 100 each quarter.
Those of you who follow IPWatchdog, know that my passion is Brand Development, Brand Building, and Online Marketing using social media. I try to educate our readers on how they can use social media for their businesses regardless of size. However, I decided to take a different approach and compare the social media campaigns of Apple, Inc, Coca Cola, Nike and Dell Computers. Let’s take a look at how these four industry giants use social media today and how you can incorporate similar tactics into your social media strategies.
If you are a user of Twitter you have probably seen more than a few tweets using “#FF” followed by a number of names. #FF stands for “Follow Friday.” On Fridays many Twitter users will suggest who others should follow by tweeting with the hashtag #FF. If this is gobbledygook to you where have you been? Twitter is a great way to stay up to day with news and information from the sources that you like the most. You need to get on the Twitter bandwagon and give it a try!
For me Twitter is about news and information. It is the way daily keep my finger on the pulse of what is happening, so I put a premium on those who convey information. Of course, you can follow me @ipwatchdogand Renee @ipwatchdog_too.
Below are some of my favorites, who in my humble opinion are excellent people to follow on Twitter.
How to Write a Patent Application is a must own for patent attorneys, patent agents and law students alike. A crucial hands-on resource that walks you through every aspect of preparing and filing a patent application, from working with an inventor to patent searches, preparing the patent application, drafting claims and more. The treatise is continuously updated to address relevant Federal Circuit and Supreme Court decision impacting patent drafting.
Typically blog roll links are not helpful to a website's rank. To give some additional "link love" to those we think you might be interested in reading we have moved our blog roll and links to a dedicated page. Go to IPWatchdog Blog Roll & Links.
By now you are probably aware that on March 19, 2013, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued U.S. Patent No. 8,401,009 to Twitter, and more specifically to Jack Dorsey and Christopher Isaac Stone. The Twitter patent is titled: Device Independent Message Distribution Platform. In other words, Twitter was awarded a patent on “Tweeting”!
For decades, the 
Whether you are just getting your feet wet in the wild world of inventions and patents, or you already have your business up and running, social media can help expand your business. Everywhere you look, there are Facebook “Like” buttons, LinkedIn “Share” buttons and Twitter “Tweet” buttons. Even Google has entered the social sharing game with Google+ allowing you to “+1” content. Social media can help catapult your business into overdrive – if you know how to use it effectively.
Twitter users are no doubt familiar with the familiar “#FF” followed by a number of names. ”#FF” stands for “Follow Friday.” On Fridays many Twitter users will suggest who others should follow by tweeting with the hashtag #FF. This can be a great way to find interesting feeds to follow that you might otherwise never have known about.
Earlier today on the Twitter blog 
In a rare social media court case, Yahoo recently sued Facebook for 10 patent infringements. Less than two months after Facebook filed to become publicly traded, Yahoo now claims that many of the features that have allowed Facebook to accrue 850 million users, such as the News Feed, infringe on proprietary Yahoo technology. It is unclear how much money Yahoo is seeking in the lawsuit, but one thing is for certain: if this case moves forward it could be one of the biggest spectacles in the history of patent and 
When I speak at events, one of the most common questions I get from professionals is, “What is the purpose of Twitter.” Those of us who use 
It seems that no matter where you go these days, the likelihood is high that you will see a “Free Wi-Fi” sticker on the front door of the establishment. Whether you are going for coffee, meeting a colleague for lunch, stopping at a rest stop or waiting for an airplane, you can pretty much bet that you will be able to check your email and surf the web while you are there. But providing customers with free Internet access is just the beginning. Some of the world’s most well known brands are aggressively using social media as a marketing tool.
