Posts Tagged: "National Aeronautics and Space Administration"

NASA recently launched a new version of its Home & City website featuring a redesigned, interactive interface designed to give users a sense of the scope of technologies originally developed by NASA which they encounter in their lives, sometimes on a daily basis. According to Derek Wang, NASA’s public outreach manager for the Space Technology Mission Directorate, the approximately 130 technologies included in the Home & City website is less than one percent of the thousands of technologies which NASA has developed and then spun-off to commercial partners.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently announced the agency’s remotely-piloted Ikhana unmanned aircraft successfully completed its first flight within the National Airspace System (NAS) without the use of safety chase aircraft. This accomplishment is an important step towards the incorporation of unmanned aircraft within the NAS for various applications including the monitoring of forest fires, search and rescue operations and even general aviation.

A joint hearing of the House Subcommittee on Strategic Forces and the House Subcommittee on Space was recently convened to discuss the responsibilities of various U.S. government agencies on space situational awareness (SSA) and space traffic management (STM) efforts. The hearing occurred just days after the administration of President Donald J. Trump issued Space Policy Directive-3 (SPD-3) to set a new national space policy to address issues related to both SSA and STM including tracking the existence of space debris, encourage commercial activities in space and improve the national security of the United States in a world where foreign powers are increasing their presence in space.

President Donald Trump signed a new space policy directive for human expansion across the solar system, a directive which hearkens at least slightly back to Horace Greeley’s “Go West, young man.” Increased human expansion in space will produce innovations that can improve human life on Earth to the benefit of U.S. consumers, provided our nation’s struggling IP regime can be righted for the proper commercialization of such inventions.

For the last 20 years, manufacturers have used 3D printing to build prototypes, but it was only recently that this industrial technology entered the mainstream.  The 3D printing of products can enable faster time-to-market, save money, mitigate risk and allow manufacturers to customize a component to suit customer needs. 3D printing can produce individual, specifically tailored parts on demand. Boeing printed an entire plane cabin in 2013 and Ford can manufacture vehicle parts in four days that would have taken four months using traditional methods.

In late August, news reports indicated that the Orion spacecraft being developed for NASA’s manned mission to Mars was powered up for the first time at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The successful powering of the Orion craft, including computer components, is a small yet important step along the path towards NASA’s eventual development of the Space Launch System…

The highest federal court in the United States declines to hear an appeal from tech giants on applying common sense to patent validity challenge proceedings. A group of pharmaceutical giants duke it out in a patent battle over a topical ointment for treating acne. The capital’s district court hears arguments in a case about compulsory copyright licenses. Also, President Trump signs a bill authorizing billions in funding for the nation’s space agency.

Another covered business method review is overturned by the Federal Circuit because the Patent Trial and Appeal Board instituted a CBM on a patent that was not a CBM patent. China leads the world not only in stealing digital images protected by copyright but also in terms of trademark applications filed. The Catholic Church starts to take action in protecting its own intellectual property. Also, Alphabet’s self-driving car subsidiary files a lawsuit including patent and trade secret claims against ride sharing giant Uber.

Multiple members of the hearing’s witness panel attested to the problems created when agency plans change during a change of administration, a problem which Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Stafford, a NASA astronaut during the Gemini and Apollo programs and a member of NASA’s International Space Station Advisory Committee, said has been detrimental to the space program. “We have in recent years seen all too clearly the consequences of a failure to carry out long-term objectives,” Stafford said, referring to NASA’s activities under the Obama Administration as “eight years of lost opportunities… NASA’s present does not do justice to its past.” During questioning, Stafford recommended reestablishing the National Space Council (NSC), which had shown effectiveness in the past in ensuring that multi-year NASA missions which span administrations, such as the Apollo mission to the moon, reach their goal. Stafford also noted that if the federal government had stuck to previous plans to reach Mars, such as were discussed as part of the Space Exploration Initiative carried on under the administration of George H. W. Bush, humans could have reached Mars as early as 2016.

According to the USPTO, the fee increases are designed to better cover the costs of the USPTO’s main patent operations as well as PTAB operations and administrative services. This would be the first major change in fees pursued by the USPTO under their authority to set fees since March 2013; that fee-setting authority is allowed under terms of the America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011… “The fee increase will exacerbate an already existing issue in determining which of these new invention disclosures should be patented,” NASA’s comment reads. “We understand the basis for the upward fee adjustments, but as a Federal Agency subjected to the Congressional Appropriations process, NASA wishes to point out the dichotomy of one Federal Agency’s ability to generate fees at the expense of others.” The direct impact that the fee increases will have on NASA’s patenting activities creates tension with NASA’s federal statutory mandates on technology transfer.

The NASA Transition Authorization Act would require NASA to develop propulsion technologies intended to reduce travel time to Mars, as well as develop a strategic framework for human space flight to Mars, and would also require NASA to develop a transition plan that would enable greater participation in the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA released 56 formerly-patented technologies to the public domain so that they can be used by commercial enterprises prior to their expiration. Patents released by NASA into the public domain were selected based on the low likelihood that the patents would be licensed by private enterprise because of low demand for resulting products. Other patents cover technologies that require further development before products are market-ready.

Since 1972, NASA has sent a series of eight spacecraft to this fifth planet in our solar system, including Cassini and Galileo. This 4th of July, NASA engineers and scientists are hoping for the successful arrival of Juno, the latest spacecraft to visit this massive planetary body. When it arrives at Jupiter, Juno will fire up its main engine for 35 minutes to enter an elliptical orbit around the planet. Juno’s mission will see it orbit Jupiter at least 37 times at a distance of 5,000 km (3,100 mi) from the top of Jupiter’s cloud atmosphere, the closest any craft has come to this planet.

This year, May 18th will mark the 36th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens, an active stratovolcano situated in Washington State’s Skamania County and part of the Cascade Range of mountains. The upcoming anniversary looks like it’s shaping up to be a special one for this major volcano, which is no longer dormant. A recent weekly update on seismic activity measured at the Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO), produced by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), reports a “continued pattern of slightly elevated seismicity” at Mount St. Helens. This seismic activity has been going on for about two months. More than 130 earthquakes ranging in depth from 1.2 miles to 4 miles have been detected in the region since March 13th by the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN). Most of the earthquakes measure a magnitude of 0.5 or less but their frequency has been stunning, with as many as 40 earthquakes per week, which has led scientists to believe that the volcano may be recharging even if it won’t erupt any day soon.