Posts Tagged: "environment"

2018 HoF Inductee Jacqueline Quinn Invents EZVI Environmental Remediation Technology to Cleanup Groundwater Contaminants

Clean sources of groundwater are incredibly important to the general population of the United States. More than 50 percent of the U.S. population relies on groundwater sources for their drinking water according to The Groundwater Foundation. These groundwater sources are susceptible to contamination from various sources including chemical storage tanks, uncontrolled hazardous waste sites, residential and commercial septic systems, road…

Follow the Money: Is the U.S. patent system fostering investment and risk taking?

PTAB proceedings have radically changed the time to money for patent owners asserting U.S. patents against infringers. Additionally, the value of U.S. patents has dropped substantially since its peak in the 2012… Like many others, I applaud Director Iancu’s stated focus on the PTAB process and his concern about whether the U.S. patent system is fostering innovation investment and risk taking, especially for inventors, universities, and small to medium enterprises.

Patent-Ineligibility of Medical Diagnostics, Life Sciences Discoveries Arrests U.S. Progress

In a research project funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), evidence emerged that a higher expression of the GIRK1 protein in malignant tissue samples was linked to higher relapse and mortality rates in breast cancer patients who have gone through surgery. The novel use of the GIRK1 protein as a biomarker could have a great impact on breast cancer diagnostics and treatments and further research could yield more discovery on the interdependence of GIRK1 with other important biological pathways critical to cancer management… Unfortunately, discovery of GIRK1 as a biomarker for breast cancer diagnostics would run into 35 U.S.C. § 101, the basic threshold statute for determining patentability of subject matter, under the Supreme Court’s March 2012 ruling in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. In that case, the Court held that processes involving correlations between blood test results and patient health is not patent-eligible subject matter because the process incorporates laws of nature. This would seemingly render any processes involving the application of GIRK1 as a biomarker for breast cancer prognoses unpatentable as well as the expression of GIRK1 occurs naturally.

China streamlines patent examination for Internet, big data patent applications

On July 28th, 2017, China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) announced a new set of regulations which are intended to streamline the examination of patent applications in certain burgeoning fields of technology. The new policy, which comes in response to “the central government’s call for an improved business environment, streamlined procedures for administrative approval, and the booming market,” will allow for the examination of both utility model and industrial design patent applications; SIPO guidelines issued as recently as five years ago only covered a single patent application designation, invention patents.

Florida algal blooms put focus on phosphorus depletion and ultrasonic wave tech

Algal blooms are caused when algae living in seas or freshwater grow uncontrollably because of the presence of nutrients like phosphorus or nitrogen; high temperatures and the underwater penetration of light also play roles in the process. Public health costs, however, are dwarfed by the price tag which algal blooms can put on industries requiring clean water, such as seafood, tourism and restaurants. Every year, harmful algal blooms (HABs), the toxic variety currently seen in Florida, cost about $82 million in lost economic output according to statistics published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Last year, algal blooms on the West Coast caused beaches in Washington State to close, preventing razor clamming at an estimated economic cost of $9 million over one month.