Posts Tagged: "autonomous vehicles"

In the annals of U.S. innovators, there are many infamous disputes between technology companies from Shockley and Fairchild in semiconductors to Microsoft and Apple in operating systems to today’s high-profile lawsuit of Waymo vs. Uber in driverless car technology. What initially started as a trade secrets litigation has mushroomed into a high stakes game involving patent infringement, unfair competition, private arbitration, unlawful termination and the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. It’s a virtual Gordian Knot of legal entanglements.

The licensing agreement, which covers patents directed at connected car technologies, is the latest partnership between these two companies seeking to increase entertainment and autonomous tech platforms within vehicles.,, In recent months, Microsoft has been ramping up licensing programs seeking to encourage the use of its patented technologies by auto manufacturers. At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the company announced the Microsoft Connected Car Platform, a development platform for connected car technologies using the Azure cloud.

Waymo’s suit includes counts of infringement for each of the four patents asserted in the case. The suit also includes counts for violations of the Defend Trade Secrets Act and state claims for violations of the California Uniform Trade Secret Act. Waymo is seeking preliminary and permanent injunctions, damages for patent infringement including trebled damages for infringement of the ‘922, ‘464 and ‘273 patents and punitive damages among other forms of relief.

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.

Dearborn, MI-based automaker Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) recently issued a press release, which heralded the 1,442 patents granted to the company by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office during 2016, a total which Ford says is the most among any automaker filing for U.S. patents that year. That total marks the largest number of U.S. patents awarded to Ford in any one calendar year, a 25 percent increase over 2015 which was itself a record year for Ford patent application filings. Globally, Ford received 3,200 patents grants during 2016.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming for your job. But is it coming for the job of your photographer or inventor? The driver-less cars, automated factories, and automated laboratories of today may give way to AI capable of thinking, writing, creating or even diagnosing disease. So it certainly seems feasible that AI is coming for the jobs of creators like photographers and inventors, although we may be many years away from true “general AI” capable of human-like intelligence. Nevertheless, automation is taking over many tasks once relegated to humans — like running laboratory experiments or being a lawyer.

Recently, we took a closer look at four of the largest trending stories playing out in the world of intellectual property and patents during 2016. Today we turn to the world of technology to see what trends have been developing in the technology sector over the past year. From an ever-widening scope of business activities being pursued by Silicon Valley’s largest firms to growing government authority over one sector of Internet services, there have been plenty of interesting stories playing out on the stage of America’s tech sector.

The Obama administration is hoping to add some clarity to the regulatory picture by unveiling a new set of guidelines in a 100-page federal automated vehicles policy document. The guidance requires autonomous vehicle developers to provide a safety assessment to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) discussing 15 areas of safety evaluation. The guidelines, which have been issued through the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), identify 11 areas of safety evaluation related to cross-cutting technologies that apply to all automation functions on a vehicle.

To get a better idea of the scope of the autonomous robot market, intellectual property analysis firm Innography recently released a trends report focusing on the autonomous robot technology sector. The report takes an in-depth look at use cases for autonomous technologies, the top companies filing patent applications in the field as well as the countries which are seeing the greatest number of such patent applications being filed… Perhaps one of the more unexpected findings in Innography’s autonomous robot patent report is the fact that China has leapt ahead as the top jurisdiction for receiving patent applications in this sector.

According to the patent application filed by Walmart, the system will utilize a series of docking stations, sensors, motors and cameras to offer consumers the ability to “hail” a shopping cart using an app on their smartphones, much like they would a taxi or Uber and that upon completion of use, the system will somehow be able to recognize abandoned carts within the store or in the parking lot and will be able to manually return itself to a docking station for use by another consumer.

The privacy implications of the driverless car are significant. The data that such a vehicle could collect and the potential uses of that data could be extraordinarily intrusive. Driverless cars could provide both historic and real-time, continuous geolocation data. Companies could utilize this data to determine not only your current location and destination but also every place that you have been. This data could lead to commercially valuable, but extremely sensitive and intimate information about individuals being discovered. Advertisers may be able to discern the purchasing patterns of individuals by tracking what stores they frequent. Insurers may be able to determine what the lifestyle of individuals is like by following their daily activities (e.g., constant trips to the gym) and dining habits (e.g., persistent trips to fast food restaurants).

Elon Musk’s updated master plan reeks of overconfidence. He envisions entire fleets of autonomous Tesla vehicles while missing recent sales targets by thousands of units. He wants to pump massive amounts of money into R&D for autonomous technologies and new types of vehicles, but the company is having trouble with bleeding warranty costs which are double the amount seen at Ford or GM. The lack of timeline details in the master plan was not well received by financial analysts and Tesla stock was down by 3 percent in the days after the announcement.

The patent landscape for self-driving vehicles is also quickly expanding. As of 2013, patent applications related to this technology hit 2,500 per year. That rate is expected to increase. A lot of attention has been paid to the entry of major tech firms, including Google, thanks in part to eyebrow-raising technologies like their patent for an adhesive material for a car’s hood that is designed to “catch” a pedestrian who is inadvertently struck by an autonomous vehicle. But tech companies should expect plenty of competition. Despite reports that Silicon Valley tech giants are entering the autonomous vehicle race and risk upsetting the traditional market, a study from Thomson Reuters Intellectual Property and Science indicates that long-time automakers have taken the lead in autonomous vehicle development in terms of patents and patent applications.

Eagle Harbor Holdings (EHH) had amassed the second-largest portfolio of patents related to self-driving and autonomous cars, only trailing high tech developer Google in that field. Eagle Harbor was formed in 2010 by the father-son engineering team of Dan and Joe Preston. Their work in the field extends at least as far back as 1997, when they formed the vehicle tech development firm which became known as Airbiquity. EHH is now looking for prospective buyers for a portfolio with 74 total assets, including 42 patents issued and 17 patent families.

Alphabet’s smart home technologies extend beyond thermostats as is evidenced by the hazard detection device that would be protected by U.S. Patent Application No. 20160078751, entitled Smart-Home Hazard Detector Providing Sensor-Based Device Positioning Guidance. This invention is designed for the creation of more intelligent hazard detection networks for smoke, carbon monoxide and other hazards by providing a guide for placing a hazard monitoring device in the best possible location. Greater control over home HVAC systems to improve comfort in individual rooms is described within U.S. Patent Application No. 20160091220, which is titled Wireless Zone Control via Mechanically Adjustable Airflow Elements…