Week 8 - Patent Trolls

Hi everyone! We know about "trolls" on the Internet as millennials, but I never realized this term would have real world implications to patents! These patent trolls have many official names,  patent holding company (PHC), patent assertion entity (PAE), and non-practicing entity (NPE). However, the essence of what they do is to sue anyone or any company that has infringed upon patents they hold in order to gain money from licensing fees. These NPE's do not even produce products/services that incorporate the patent, but simply "hold them" in order to sue other company's for their money.

I feel that the practices of these trolls are extremely anti-business and discourage innovation, as it constantly keeps entrepreneurs and other innovating companies on their feet worried if they will be sued by these patent trolls. They need to deal not just with the lost time of dealing with the patent litigation, but also with the MONEY to pay for attorneys to deal with these NPE's in court.

Check out my video below for more info!

Thanks,
Payal

Week 8 - Patent Infringement

Hi everyone! Great to be posting on here again all the way from the East Coast where I am right now :) We had an amazing guest speaker come give his thoughts in class, and that really gave a good world perspective on everything we have been learning about so far! This week's topics are extremely interesting - patent infringement and the "patent trolls" that often go along with them. 

In this blog, I want to discuss what patent infringement means, according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office:

What is patent infringement?

Patent infringement is the act of making, using, selling, or offering to sell a patented invention, or importing into the United States a product covered by a claim of a patent without the permission of the patent owner. Further, you may be considered to infringe a patent if you import items into the United States that are made by a patented method, unless the item is materially changed by subsequent processes or becomes a trivial and nonessential component of another product. A person “infringes” a patent by practicing each element of a patent claim with respect to one of these acts.  Further, actively encouraging others to infringe patents, or supplying or importing components of a patented invention, and related acts can also give rise to liability in certain cases.

What I thought was most interesting about patent infringement is that is completely REGIONAL - who would have thought? This means that all the intellectual property filed in the United States cannot be enforceable in any other region. This is quite scary for any inventor, as they need to ensure they go through the patent filing process in numerous countries so that they do not have to worry about patent infringement occurring halfway across the world! Check out my video below for my further thoughts on patent infringement.

Thanks,

Payal

Week 7 - Obviousness & My Thoughts

Hi everyone! It's been quite a week delving into the world of patent searches! I wanted to give my own thoughts and advice after reading through material online and watching a few tutorials on the best practices to start your own personal search online.

Your first step is to conduct a prior art search, as I mentioned before in the previous blog posts. This is the basic first step because you need to see what other patents have been filed, and just to get a better sense of what is happening in the realm of patents for the specific industry/topic you are focusing on.

The biggest takeaway to starting your search is that the regular "search bar" on whatever search engine you are on (Google, Bing, etc.) will NOT give you the results you need. You must go to a patent tailored search engine (Espacenet, Google Patents) and then go from there!

Please find below a great tutorial for you on a good patent search & my own thoughts on this topic:

Week 7 - Obviousness & Patent Search

Hi everyone! Now that I have defined what exactly prior art is, and the definition of a prior art search, I really want to delve into how you should conduct a patent search. 

I have found a lot of great tutorials on how to conduct a patent search, but found this step-by-step tutorial as the best way to go about this. One of the best ways to conduct a search is to go through Espacenet.com - this website is dedicated to helping find patents online for anyone.

Looking through this tutorial and the website for Espacenet.com, I realized that it is more tailored to those who are active participants in filing patents, as I found that the design of the website was meant for a more advanced search experience.

But have no fear - Google also has a great search for patent discovery as well for the "regular" people too.... Simply type in www.google.com/patents and you will be able to discover pictures, official documents, and more in your patent discovery search!

Best,
Payal

Week 7 - Obviousness Youtube Search

Hi everyone! Obviousness is a huge theme for this week's lectures. I never realized how many helpful resources online exist for regular people not educated in patent law to understand what the terminology and jargon is in this field. 

In order to begin a patent search, it is extremely necessary to understand what prior art means. The prior art means "any information available to the public that can be found in a printed publication format" according to the IP Video group. Now prior art can be found in books, magazines, and on the Internet through various media sources. 

So... what is a prior art search?!

Conducting a prior art search means that you are looking through all these publications to find your invention, and to see any patents or inventions that have been filed that are similar in nature to it. 

Thanks,
Payal 

Week 7 - Obviousness Personal Search

Hi everyone! Great to be posting on my blog again after a week's hiatus. This week's blog posts and Youtube videos will surround the topic of "obviousness." This one term is extremely significant to the patent world, and really requires. 

In order to understand the patents, we need to realize what the exact specifications are for a patent to be true. Please find below the five key metrics that must be true for a patent to be established below:

1. Subject matter requirement
2. Written description
3. Utility
4. Novelty
5. Non-obviousness

Obviousness is a huge part of these metrics. For a patent to be true, it must be "non-obvious" or that a regular person (like myself) would not have been able to have come up with the idea of this patent and its applications. The reason why this is so important is so that patents are not granted to "obvious" inventions, and to encourage innovation for things that have not been made yet. 

Thanks,

Payal

Week 5 - Patent Personal Viewpoint

This post will be going over my own personal perspective on the patents that I discussed in my previous post. I want to make sure that I outline a solid definition of anticipation and obviousness before I go into my own viewpoints on the patents before.

Anticipation: this means that the patent itself should be a novel concept, and should be a completely new concept.

Obviousness: a patent is only allowed to be approved if it is "non-obvious" or trivial, according to our professor's lecture slides. There must be significant differences between the filed patent, and what is already been issued for the patent to be approved. 

After looking over all these patents, I was completely shocked to find that there was so much innovation in something that seems so trivial as a coffee sleeve holder. I had never put thought into the process that went behind the structure that keeps my drinks warm and insulates them! The innovation and technology behind this simple item was so complex, and really made me look at other "trivial" products once more. 

I really liked the hot and cold cup sleeve the best from all the patents. It satisfied a huge problem that faces coffee shops and other beverage retailers everywhere that want to have a product that can be used for both hot and cold beverages. The fact that cold beverages "sweat" is a huge problem, and a reason why I personally never use the other types of sleeves used for hot beverages when I get a cold beverage. The multi-functional nature of the product is perfect!

The temperature gauging sleeve was great too because it gives the consumer an indication for how hot their drink is - a huge problem for those who do not wish to get burned by their hot cups of coffee in the morning! It adds the protection of insulation with a huge added feature of informing the consumer of what is best for them.

It's been great knowing the progression of the "coffee cup sleeve," and I look forward to seeing where the next wave of innovation takes these products. I will definitely be keeping up with the new patents being filed in this realm because I use these products on a daily basis.

Further Analysis (3-unit student):

In regards to the patents, I definitely think each of them fulfill the anticipation segment, as each was very novel and had entirely new features that the previous patent did not. From adding on features for environmental benefits to the new mechanism that gave consumers knowledge of the temperature of their drinks, each of the patents offered a novel approach to the regular "sleeve." For the obviousness, all the patents were extremely non-obvious to a regular consumer like myself. I am no expert in sleeves or the engineering/design of a coffee cup sleeve, and saw all the items as non-obvious. This was helpful to see that it really took an expert in the field to describe the differences between the patents.

Thanks,
Payal