"Those who do not learn..."

There is an old saying from the 15th century philosopher Santayana, "those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it."  Here is a case in point, Polaroid has filed a patent infringement suit against wearable-camera maker GoPro headquartered in San Matro, CA, as indicated: http://fox40.com/2015/11/03/polaroid-suit-claims-gopro-copied-camera-model/.  The suit alleges that GoPro Hero4 Session illegally copies the design of C & A Marketing's (exclusive maker of Polaroid branded cameras)  Polaroid Cube Camera.  At issue is the design, not any functionality, for which C & A was granted a patent in May.  GoPro said it is still waiting for a patent it filed for last year.  (Patent applications generally take 20-24 months from filing to issue or rejection, so, GoPro will likely have to wait some time for a decision.)

To travel back in time, Polaroid's instant camera, which developed a photo in 60 seconds, captivated America when it was first introduced late in 1948.  It seems arcane today when the iphone gives you a selfie on the spot, but back then it was revolutionary.  A roll of Kodak film sent to the company in Rochester, NY for development  took two weeks to process.

Polaroid initially filed suit against Kodak in 1976 when Polaroid alleged that it had suffered losses approaching $4 billion because Kodak had infringed its patents.  Polaroid sought $12 billion in damages  A long, protracted legal battle followed.  Finally, in October of 1990, a Boston court awarded $909 million to Polaroid which was seen by Wall Street analysts as a negative for the winner as it was well below their foretasted award of $2.5 billion.

But, Polaroid won.  It took alot out of the company but it refused to abandon its Intellectual Property.  There's a good chance history will repeat itself with GoPro.

Google and NASA Have A New Quantum Computer

Google and NASA Have A New Quantum Computer:

Quantum Computing. Changes the way you look at doing computing. Running HOT but keeping it cool. If you wanted to compare this joint venture computing effort by NASA, Google, and USRA (Universities Space Research Association) to traditional computing, you might not be overly impressed. But you probably should be. Maybe.

It will be interesting to see if this is the way forward in computing vs other possible methods.

Hitting the brick wall on Moore's Law of computing. Double ever 18 months and half the price has been running hard into the physical limits of silicon chips: approximately 12 manometers. Intel has a lot going on at 14nm in 3D computing.

In 2015, Intel fell short on its historic Tick-Tock trend: one year for the hardware upgrade, the next year for the software. Repeat. But now Intel is taking much longer for their cycle. The cadence seems to be permanently slowing. The clock is running slower, even if the computing is running really fast. Exponential growth is not possible to maintain, at least indefinitely. See 2015 connundrum on the chip/computer rollout discussions here.

Interesting times we have going on in the computing world.:-)

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Uber disruptive innovation

Uber Meets Its Match in France http://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-meets-its-match-in-france-1442592333
It seeing how the company has been able to introduce disruptive innovation, into existing and monopolistic type markets. They jump start into the market so that they have a large presence of drivers and customers before the regulators can catch up with them. Of course the services are much better than the existing taxis. Very interesting how disruptive innovation good the interview so quickly into large markets. Doubly interesting is how there's very little barrier to entry and the company über can do so well and be so big.
This is über competition and innovation at its best!

Studio must consider fair use before taking down video, court rules - Fortune

Studio must consider fair use before taking down video, court rules - Fortune:

This is a big win for those people who would like to use copyrighted materials in any way they want.

Simply wind up your baby to copyrighted muzak and press <record>.


Of course it probably does no great publicity to Prince to have law suits against babies at play with his music.


The unanimous vote to allow the mom to use the prince music centers around fair use.

Here's the key quote from this article:

Fair use, as the court made clear, is an independent right that permits people to use copyrighted material in certain situations such as parody or news reporting. Under the law, there is a four-part test for fair use but, for practical purposes, the deciding factors are usually whether the new work is transformative and if it will impact the market for the original work.

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States Act Forcibly to Halt or Limit Patent Trolls

The patent troll condition -as identified- is a relatively new phenomenon/hot spot in the IP world, perhaps one or two decades old.  To be sure, there were isolated cases of troll-like behavior as far back as the 1970s, but nothing like the scope, intensity and frequency of the past several years.  Today's trolls not only find dormant patents also but buy up unused portfolios from companies not concerned with their IP or in need of cash and assert them against other companies.  It has been profitable because many companies would rather pay than play (hardball) because they don't want the publicity or the potential arbitration/litigation costs.

Large companies with massive patent portfolios have complained and campaigned for years to Congress asking for legislation to curb patent trolls.  There has been considerable activity but no results on Capital Hill.  By default, then, this has become a state issue and many have enacted various means to de-claw would be trolls as this article in the Wall Street Journal describes,  http://www.wsj.com/articles/states-move-to-do-it-yourself-patent-reform-1441321066.  As more and more states are encouraged to follow the leaders, it will be interesting to see how Capital Hill reacts, if at all.  From a corporate patent house perspective, either one or both will be an improvement over the present condition.

Google has gotten more fast-track patents than any other company.

Google has gotten more fast-track patents than any other company - The Washington Post:

Google has gotten 875 fast track patents (about $3.5 million dollars extra in patenting fees $4k extra per app), that is 14% of all such rapid track patent processing in the USA. Prioritized examination.

The plan from Google's perspective is to get the patents as quickly as possible. (You don't really own a patent until issued; you can't really enforce/assert it until you own it.)

This is as of 2013, so it would be interesting to find more recent stats.

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The Refractive Thinker® Radio Show: Trademark, Patents, and Perpetual Innovation 07/07 by Cheryl Kulikowski Lentz | Entrepreneur Podcasts

The Refractive Thinker® Radio Show: Trademark, Patents, and Perpetual Innovation 07/07 by Cheryl Kulikowski Lentz | Entrepreneur Podcasts:
(30 minute broadcast on BlogTalkRadio.)
This is an interview with Dr. Elmer Hall about Intellectual Property and the types of information included in the Patent Primer 3.0.

Hall talks about the basic processes that entrepreneurs can take to capitalize on Intellectual Property (IP). This interview is an excellent overview of that the approaches that creators and inventors should consider in bringing IP protection to their creative efforts.

The books (and eBooks) in the Perpetual Innovation(tm) series are:

Hall, E. B. & Hinkelman, R. M. (2013). Perpetual Innovation™: A guide to strategic
planning, patent commercialization and enduring competitive advantage, Version
2.0. Morrisville, NC: LuLu Press. ISBN: 978-1-304-11687-1  Retrieved from: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/SBPlan

Hall, E. B. & Hinkelman, R. M. (2015). Perpetual Innovation™: Patent primer 3.0:
Patents, the great equalizer of our time! An overview of intellectual property
for inventors and entrepreneurs. Morrisville, NC: LuLu Press. ISBN: 978-1-329-17833-5  Retrieved from: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/SBPlan

Hall, E. B. & Hinkelman, R. M. (2015). Perpetual Innovation™: Patent primer 3.0e:
Patents, the great equalizer of our time! An overview of intellectual property
with patenting cost estimates for inventors and entrepreneurs.  [Amazon Kindle eBook].  ASIN: B010ISU7ZG  Retrieved from: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010ISU7ZG   

Hall, E. B. & Hinkelman, R. M. (2015). Perpetual Innovation™: Innovator’s  primer 3.0: The basics on intellectual property protection for the creator and inventor.  Morrisville, NC: LuLu Press.  ISBN: 978-1-329-23954-8  Retrieved from: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/SBPlan  

Hall, E. B. & Hinkelman, R. M. (2015). Perpetual Innovation™: Innovator’s  primer 3.0e: The basics on intellectual property protection for the creator and inventor.   [Amazon Kindle eBook].  ASIN: B0115BG35I  Retrieved from: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0115BG35I   

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