Posts Tagged: "Internet of Things"

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.

Given the complexity of many technologies, the rapidly changing nature of global markets, and the legal complexities in establishing worldwide licensing programs, it should come as no surprise that IP licensing offers benefits. When this work succeeds, everyone benefits – from innovators and IP owners to the general population as companies around the world gain greater access to new and improved technologies. To avoid missing out on the tremendous rewards and benefits of innovation, we must take full advantage of R&D’s potential in the complex and fast-paced markets of today that offer up opportunities to aggregate and license technologies in new sectors, geographical areas and markets.

Cybercrime seemed to be in the news daily in 2016. From the hack of the Democratic National Committee email accounts to the massive data breaches suffered by large technology companies, a major restaurant chain, and numerous government agencies, the news seemed inundated by a steady stream of high profile cybercrime. What is in store for 2017? Given the proliferation of electronic devices and data in our society, we can reasonably expect cases of cybercrime to continue to increase in number and complexity in the new year.

On January 4, 2017 Linksys announced it had teamed up with Rivet Networks and effectively brought the Killer Mode technology directly into a router that is needed to prioritize algorithms coming from the computer to the network. But the networking technologies seen in the Linksys WRT32x router demonstrate only one aspect of Belkin International’s developments in this sector. Belkin is the parent company ob Linksys, and its technologies enable better network management for devices including gaming PCs or mobile devices, as can be seen by U.S. Patent No. 9497196 titled IOT Device Environment Detection, Identification and Caching. This patent describes a process in which network devices can determine the status of other devices, such as mobile phones, and continuously update that status through a network.

The recent earnings release from Intel also indicates that the company is increasing its investment in research and development. Intel reported that R&D expenditures were $12.7 billion over the course of 2016 and $3.3 billion during the fourth quarter. This was up from the company’s $12.1 billion investment in R&D during 2015 as well as $3.1 billion invested during 2015’s fourth quarter. Intel spent more on R&D than it did on marketing, general and administrative (MG&A), where the company spent $8.4 billion during 2016 and $2.2 billion during the recent quarter. Intel’s full year guidance for 2017 indicates that the company expects to spend a total of $20.5 billion on both R&D and MG&A this year.

In creating a privacy and security plan, IOT companies should be mindful of regulatory enforcement for failure to fully comply with their own advertised practices. For example, companies should honor representations made to consumers regarding privacy and security practices, or risk regulatory scrutiny. If not, the FTC may bring an enforcement action, which it did against IOT company, TRENDnet, Inc. According to the FTC, TRENDnet failed to implement reasonable security practices, monitor security vulnerability reports from third parties, test and review potential security vulnerabilities, and implement reasonable guidance for its employees, and thus was in violation of Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45(a). The case settled, and the terms of the settlement prohibited TRENDnet from misrepresenting its privacy and security practices and required it to establish a comprehensive security risk program.

The IoT presents a challenge to IP practitioners to adapt existing IP protection strategies by developing new approaches better suited to the rapidly changing, connected-yet-disconnected network of innovations forming the IoT. By opening communications and application programming interfaces (APIs) to more and more collaborator-yet-competitor devices, innovators (i.e., clients) must carefully guard their IP while at the same time facilitating interoperability and security among connected devices. Below, we present the adaptation of some existing strategies as well as thoughts on new strategies for IP protection in the interoperable world of the IoT.

Join Gene Quinn (IPWatchdog.com), Ray Millien (Chief IP Counsel for GE Oil & Gas) and Julia Elvidge (President of Chipworks) on Thursday, December 1, 2016, for an panel discussion on the Internet of Things, what it is, what it means for the future of innovation, and what legal issues will be confronting clients (and lawyers) in this 4th Industrial Revolution.

The promise of the Internet of Things is the ability to perform analytics on data collected from the smart objects connected to the IoT in order to lead to new knowledge and provide insights to owners, users and servicers of the objects. Thus, simply put, the “digital transformation” being experienced by several industries involves companies shifting away from selling only hardware (e.g., household appliances, jet engines, locomotives, turbines, compressors, motors, etc.), to selling solutions — a suite of hardware equipped with sensors and wireless communications generating valuable data, coupled with analytics software solutions that enable users to monitor, control, diagnose and generally operate such hardware more e ciently (e.g., via remote diagnostics and scheduling preventative maintenance).

Softbank’s acquisition of ARM Holdings is widely known and several blogs and articles have tried to explain the business background of the huge deal. Just following the BREXIT vote, one of the best-known (worldwide) United Kingdom-based high tech companies is leaving the for seemingly greener pastures. Despite the new owners’ assurances to leave the headquarters in the United Kingdom and promises to double the number of employees in five years, speculation persists. And, though much has been reported about the business deal, little has been said about how the acquisition changed Softbank’s IP portfolio.

Customers, myself included, are used to the customer-centric technologies experienced in other ‘digitized’ sectors like publishing or music – these have had to adapt to the digital revolution early. Customers now want that experience replicated in the FS sector. Banks, for example, are beginning to take notice, investing significant amounts of money in IT upgrades: Australia’s Commonwealth Bank invested over AUD $1.1 billion in an end-to-end IT transformation project to replace its aging core banking system and Barclays has been promoting customer-centric technologies like the mobile payments app PingIt for many years.

The fitness wearables market is driving millions of shipments per year in silicon and devices. By 2019, IDC predicts that the worldwide wearables market will grow to around 155.7 million units. In addition to driving revenues — the fitness wearables market alone is projected to reach nearly $30 billion US dollars in 2016 as noted. The patent licensing landscape for this market is on the verge of explosive growth, especially since many of the patents used in IoT technology are nearly 20 years old.

There are challenges that must be overcome through innovation before 5G becomes commercially feasible. Device-to-device communications, which allow mobile device owners to communicate directly without a base station, face challenges of inter-cell interference caused by many small cells operating in an area, as well as difficulties in device discovery. Software defined cellular networks, which are directly programmable without hardware changes, offer simplified network design and dynamic configuration capabilities, but global standards and network infrastructure application are still lacking. To address these and other issues, the White House recently announced a $400 million initiative for advanced wireless research, which will be spearheaded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

One of the companies which has positioned itself strongly in the industrial Internet sector is American conglomerate General Electric (NYSE:GE) of Fairfield, CT. This company has been melding the massive industrial machinery it manufactures, such as wind turbines and aircraft engines, with sensor networks and computer software platforms which allow the company to better ensure the operational efficacy of its equipment. A 2015 study of the industrial Internet’s impacts on corporations produced by GE and strategy firm Accenture indicates that big data analytics were within the top three priorities for 80 to 90 percent of corporate executives across eight industry sectors; the aviation, wind and power generation industries each eclipsed 90 percent in this regard.

With the advent of enhancements in audio-video technology, Virtual-Reality (VR) has taken the world by storm. While VR has been enjoying most of the limelight, another similar technology – Augmented Reality (AR) is catching up fast. The patent landscape of VR is dominated by Sony followed by IBM, Samsung and Microsoft when it comes to total number of patented inventions. Microsoft is the leader in AR when it comes to the number of inventions filed as patents. It has 602 issued patents and published applications distributed among 151 inventions. Microsoft is followed by Samsung, Sony, LG and Qualcomm.