Posts Tagged: "research"

The development of UAS vehicles for delivering packages or passengers could go a long way in alleviating issues of congestion occurring along the nation’s roadways. Aviation subcommittee ranking member Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA) spoke to these possibilities, citing a recent industry scorecard which found that U.S. drivers spent 40 hours each year stuck in traffic during peak hours, leading to an economic loss of $300 billion in lost productivity. Larsen noted that there were currently more than 50 passenger drone concepts in development and was the first of a series of Representatives attending the hearing to note that such technologies would make the science fiction world of The Jetsons a distinct reality.

Failure is success if we learn. So why shouldn’t failure qualify as a trade secret? Competitors would love to avoid making the effort and taking the risk… Negative information is most commonly put at risk not by theft of the records of R&D, but by departing employees who are familiar with how a particular technical solution was created or optimized. Eager to help their new colleagues, a recent arrival may wince at a suggested development path and blurt out a warning not to go there. Even very general pointers about an engineering direction to try or to avoid can help a competitor reduce risk and shorten development time. That is why hiring someone who has worked on a similar project for a competitor can lead to trouble.

Interestingly enough, the world of deep sea exploration actually owes a great deal of gratitude to a major American cereal company for providing a major advance in submersible vehicle technology. Sunday, September 24th, marked the 54th anniversary of the issue of patent covering an underseas vehicle technology issued to Harold Froehlich, then an engineer at General Mills. This May, Froehlich was included among the inductees of the National Inventors Hall of Fame’s 2017 class for his work in developing the deep sea human occupied vehicle Alvin.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced legislation requiring every agency and non-profit entity to include a “reasonable pricing” provision based on King’s formula for any life science invention made with government support. Apparently the colossal failure of a similar requirement forced on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the 1990’s which led to the collapse of industry partnerships without any reduction in drug prices is either unknown, or made no impression on Sen. Sanders. Or perhaps like his trust in socialism, he thinks that what failed in the past will somehow work by some weird magic if trotted out again.

In 1992, Bill Clinton was elected President of the United States. Hurricane Andrew bore down on the American Southeast, causing billions in damage after wreaking destruction from Florida to Louisiana. Johnny Carson retired from The Tonight Show. The Buffalo Bills were in the Super Bowl. Los Angeles saw a string of deadly riots related to the LAPD’s televised beating of Rodney King. And 1992 was the last year during which a company other than American information technology firm IBM (NYSE:IBM) could claim that it had earned the greatest number of U.S. patents… With over 8,000 patents IBM stands supreme in the US patent world, earning the most US patents in 2016 and claiming the top spot for the 24th year in a row.

Earlier today, by a vote of 94 to 5, the United States Senate overwhelmingly passed the 21st Century Cures Act. Having passed in the House, the Cures Act now goes off to the White House for the President’s signature, where it will receive a warm reception. “I’ll sign it as soon as it reaches my desk, because like a lot of you I’ve lost people I’ve loved deeply to cancer,” President Obama said in his weekly address on December 3, 2016, as he called upon Congress to act swiftly to pass the legislation and send it to the White House.

Earlier this week the National Cancer Institute (NCI), which is part of the National Institutes of Health, announced a Blue Ribbon Panel of scientific experts, cancer leaders, and patient advocates that will work to inform the scientific direction and goals for Vice President Joe Biden’s National Cancer Moonshot Initiative. “Thanks to advances in science, we are now in a historically unique position to make profound improvements in the way we treat, detect, and prevent cancer,” said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. He is correct, and here is why.

Superconductivity, and especially room temperature superconductivity, has been a holy grail of sorts, which the scientific community has sought for decades. Superconductors are materials which are capable of conducting electricity for an indefinite period of time without exhibiting resistance. This lack of resistance could revolutionize electricity transmission through a grid’s power lines, where as much as 10 percent to 15…

In mid-January, reports were issued that researchers at both the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) were able to engineer antibodies which showed effectiveness in neutralizing the two deadliest strains of Ebola. It is effective against Zaire Ebola, the one causing the most recent outbreak, and Sudan Ebola, the next most-pathogenic strain of the disease after Zaire.

To hear Ars Technica say it is ”a terrible idea” to devote increased funding in order to eradicate cancer is astonishing on many levels. As part of the reason why he believes increased funding for cancer research is a terrible idea he explains that great strides have been made with respect to treatments and cures, which is true. Of course, it is also true that people are dying and they are dying horrible deaths. With the victories and advances that have been made over the last generation it is no longer fanciful to dream of a day when cancer can become eradicated. So why is it a terrible idea to devote more resources on a so-called cancer moonshot to attempt to once and for all put an end to this scourge? For anyone to call President Obama’s cancer moonshot a terrible idea is nothing short of cruel, and is frankly incredibly stupid.

Only someone who is completely indifferent to the truth, and who has intentionally put on blinders so they don’t see the truth, could ever say that the public does not benefit from federally funded research. It is sad that this even needs to be pointed out, but critics of the patent system and federal research funding can take intellectual dishonesty to bizarre heights. In other words, they are not beyond making outright false statements, which all too frequently go unchecked. Equally ridiculous is the argument that the federal government built every technology that is the result of some funded scientific breakthrough. The fact that the government invested in basic science doesn’t mean that all follow-on innovation that utilizes the discoveries was built and paid for by the government. Such an argument is completely disingenuous.

Earlier today U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) introduced legislation to encourage and increase the use of crowdsourcing and citizen science within the federal government. The purpose of the legislation is to advance and accelerate scientific research, literacy, and diplomacy. There are not a lot of specifics in the bill, but the bill would authorize the head of each Federal agency to “utilize crowdsourcing and citizen science approaches to conduct activities designed to advance the mission of the respective Federal agency or the joint mission of Federal agencies, as applicable.”

While Chinese President Xi is cracking down on political dissidents and solidifying his power over the army, the country has begun a huge push for innovation. While it’s easy for us to look askance at that proposition, we may be about to launch an equally quixotic experiment of our own: seeing if American innovation can survive the undermining of our patent system.

While there has been much written in the past months on efforts to change the U.S. patent system, there has been little focus on the vital role that the current patent system plays in supporting universities in conducting basic research and development (R&D). This university-driven R&D is a critical force in driving innovation, inventions and often startups that create jobs and promote American competitiveness.