Assignment 10- Part 4
Ridiculous patents

This patent is the "Neck wrap/brace for holding items and belt article holder for same"
US 6929164 B1

This patent is for a storage device that is both worn around the neck and the waist. The basic idea is that a utility belt should not simply be limited to the waist and is thus also for the neck. One of the features of the neck part are a cellphone holder directly next to the users ear so that the phone can be used in a hands manner. The neck device also has compartments that are suggested to be used for holding a water bottle, cigarettes, pencils, etc. As far as I can tell the waist part is not really any different in design or function from any other utility patents.

This is a ridiculous patent because they literally just took a fanny pack and put it on a persons neck. It is also extremely obvious. Everyone who has ever used a fanny pack could think of putting it around their neck. They simply wouldn't because it would be quite uncomfortable and would look utterly ridiculous. I truly doubt that this patent ever went into production, I believe it is much more likely that this was made so that they could use this as a patent troll for another better hands free invention that somehow rests around the neck. Overall this is a completely insane patent and it is mind boggling that the patent was granted.

Assignment 10- Post 3
Bad Inventions
This for " headgear combined with a fan electronic communication device and binoculars"
US 6115846A


This patent is for a device that is essentially a hat with binoculars, a fan, and headset. The basic use of this if for sports fans who are far away at their event and can use the binoculars to see the event. The fan is used for temperature control. The headset is to either listen to music or even make calls through the headset connected to an external phone.

This device is used by putting batteries into it and placing it on ones head. The binoculars have the ability to swivel from a position directly in front of the user's eyes to being above the visor horizontal to the visor and facing backwards. This is so that they don't need to be in the way if the wearer is close enough that they do not need them. The fan can be turned on and off as can the headset device.

This is a ridiculous patent because I just can not see anyone ever using such a device. On top of that I would contend that this is quite obvious. Anyone in the simple manufacturing of hats or electronics knows that you can put a headset, fan, and binoculars onto a helmet. They don't do it because it is stupid, but this is an excellent example of an obvious patent in my opinion.

Assignment 10- part 2
Ridiculous patent 2
This patent is "Device for the quick and easy use of a small size cellular telephone"
US 6796467 B2



The basic idea behind this patent is to have a contraption connected on one end to the wrist/lower forearm of a subject and on the other end is attached to a small flip phone. The use of this device is for the quick draw of the phone.

The device works by having the phone closed and stored on the inner side of the lower forearm. At this position the vibrate of a phone call or sms message would be easily felt against the arm in any situation. With the other hand, the user then pulls the phone forward and the tracks extend so that the phone moves from the lower forearm past the wrist and into the palm. The phone is then opened and either used in a phone call or text. When finished the phone is flipped shut and pushed back so that the tracks condense and the phone ends up back on the lower forearm.

With regard to obviousness and anticipation, none of the mechanics are new in any way, but the idea that these mechanics would be attached to a human forearm and used for a small flip phone are quite novel. I don't personally know of anything that is any anyway similar to this. This is mostly because I believe this is an awful idea, but either way I think this would be a valid patent as I do believe it is non obvious.

Assignment 10- Part 1 Silly Patent
This is for Patent number 6982161 titled "Process for the utilization of ruminant animal methane emissions"



The entire idea behind this patent is a device that one connects to cattle ( a cow is the example they use) that absorbs and stores the methane waste flatulence through tubes connected to the cattle's anus. Within the apparatus there are bacteria that can grow and live with the methane and use it as fuel for their growth. Within the apparatus the bacteria then grow with the methane.

I think this is a silly patent for somewhat obvious reasons, but using a more analytical lens this patent doesn't really describe much useful good for the product. The one thing the patent brings up in the prior art section is that the overproduction of methane is bad for the environment and this process and equipment does work to denature some of the methane, but it does not describe what to do withthe ample amounts of bacteria that have been grown within the device. It also just seems not cost effective to such an extreme.

I think this is a patent that was made to be a patent troll and the makers believed if/when methane from cows was harnessed they would be able to sue to get some money from patent infringement.

Assignment 9 part 1- Patent Troll discussion

Patent trolls as previously defined are companies that have no intentions of using patents to produce or license the intellectual property but rather simply wish to sue and threaten to sue companies who "infringe" or are potentially infringing. In many of these cases there is no actual belief that a company is infringing on a patent, but it is protected by the first amendment to send legal letters threatening a lawsuit for a potential patent infringement.

 In plain english this is blackmail, and it is protected by the first amendment rights. Many times companies will send these letters to many companies hoping that one of them will be a sucker enough to settle and just pay the company money.

Another issue with this is loosely worded patents that are utterly unspecific and thus allow for a large domain of potential infringement, but when inspected in further depth the patent should not have been issued in the first place as in many cases it is obvious or anticipated. As a result there are patent trolls who own a couple of loosely worded older patents that arguably give a company a hold over a large domain of intellectual property, and thus stop innovation and industry growth in a certain area.

upon closer examination many of these patents would not pass a patent review board, which is why most patent troll companies hope to get most of their revenue from getting people to pay a licensing fee through extorting them with letters and threatening correspondence. Patent trolls generally do not want to go through a litigation process and more use it as a threat because the legal fees are extremely expensive.

Assignment 9- Part 2

Assignment 9- Part 2
Based on the Harvard Business Review Article - https://hbr.org/2014/07/the-evidence-is-in-patent-trolls-do-hurt-innovation

The costs fall disproportionally on companies that perform R&D as the more R&D a company conducts the more likely they are to be sued. Research from MIT showed that medical imaging companies that were sued by patent trolls decreased revenue for the company as well as overall innovation.

Unfortunately the most common targets of Patent trolls are not generally companies that can afford it or have large legal departments, rather it is startups that disproportionally targeted. 41% of software startups reported "significant operational impact" due to the paten troll lawsuits which overall made them exit a business or change their strategy. Another survey showed that 74% of startups funded by VCs experience "significant impacts" from patent demands. A third study showed that constant law suits from patent trolls overall led to a decrease of 22 billion in venture capital investing over five years which was a 14% decrease.

Rutgers conducted another study that showed that after having patent litigation most startups with R&D departments decreased their R&D budget by about 20%.

Harvard and University of Texas conducted a study of public firms  who had been sued by patent trolls. In cases where the law suit was deemed spurious and dismissed compared to cases that were either lost or settled companies ended up decreasing their R&D spending an average of 211 million dollars opposed to 0 when the case was dismissed. This represents a 48% decline in R&D spending which is extremely significant.

Overall when we look at all this data nothing is definitive, but it is quite telling. It is simple logic to understand that if a company is constantly being sued and having to decrease revenue because of their R&D then it makes perfect sense for a company to decrease their R&D spending significantly. With decreased R&D spending it is fairly safe to assume that innovation goes down if the investment in innovation goes down. Potentially not directly proportionally but it is safe to assume that this has a net negative effect on innovation as a whole.

Assignment 8 part 4- Patent Trolls story
Based on the Harvard Business Review Article- https://hbr.org/2014/07/the-evidence-is-in-patent-trolls-do-hurt-innovation

This post is about a Harvard Business review article which discusses patent trolls and specifically if patent trolls have a net negative impact of innovation. The assertion is that having patent trolls decreases companies freedom to experiment and develop new technologies because every step of the way they will be sued by patent trolls whether these lawsuits are founded or spurious.

The White House and the Congressional Research Service both quoted research studies that conclude that patent litigation harms innovation but not necessarily distinguishing between legitimate claims and patent trolls.

There were 6 times as many patent related lawsuits in 2014 than in the 1980s and the number of companies sued by patent trolls grew nine fold in the last ten years. According to Haber and Levine the majority of patent related lawsuits are by Patent trolls.

Some counter that increased patent litigation is simply a sign of a health economy with more innovation happening and not necessarily just due to patent trolls.

In aggregate, patent trolls cost defendants 29 billion every year in direct costs. Overall these litigations in aggregate decrease firms wealth by 60 billion per year. On average the damages from a patent infringement is 21 million. This is money that is taken away from innovative companies and thus decreases funding for innovation.

Assignment 8- Patent Trolls Part 3 MPHJ

MPHJ is a company with four patents and one pending patent. They have come up in the news because the federal trade commission has recently looked at their actions as a patent troll to try rectify the situation.

The patents in question refer to scanning documents and uploading them through the same network onto a computer, but the patents are extremely vague in nature and thus MPHJ in actual fact has no right to any money from these companies and is in simple terms scamming these companies.

To date they have contacted upwards of 1600 small to medium size companies threatening legal action if they do not pay a licensing deal. They generally ask for 1000 to 1200 per employee that works there. The legal firm they work with stands to gain 30-40% of any licensing profits that MPHJ receives.

This becomes even more ridiculous when we learn that they have taken no companies to court and have at no point in time had any intentions of taking anyone to court, because the patents are vague at best, and they would severely struggle to win any sort court case against any of these alleged patent violators.

The company is simply a scam because they send these letters demanding money and saying that "many companies had already agreed to buy licenses" which is false as only 2 companies have fallen victim to this behavior and have agreed to pay licensing fees.

As much as the federal trade commission has urged MPHJ to stop they have argued that the first amendment protects their right to send these letters as false in nature as they may be. They argue that they have a right to enforce their patents and send out any letters pertaining to them as false and malicious as they may be. They federal trade commission has tried to limit patent trolls because patents can support innovation and technological advancements and it is patent trolls like this that simply hurt the industry.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/07/business/ftc-settles-first-case-targeting-patent-troll.html

Assignment 8 part 2- continued definition of Patent Troll

While the first post explained that patent trolls do not look for licensing deals before and rather wait for an infringement to sue, many times their end goal is licensing. Basically patent trolls use their patents as legal weapons and bargaining chips rather than intellectual property to produce anything useful for society.

As a result many patent trolls do not even invent the patent but will commonly buy underpriced patents often times from failing business who are liquidating their assets. They will find patents that do not have much use at all but are potentially vague and can be used to either sue other companies or to black mail them.

While the initial definition kept talking about lawsuits that the patent troll can do, in most cases the cases never actually go to court. Because of exorbitant court fees the patent trolls rarely actually want to go to court. Likewise, other companies being threatened would almost always just pay a licensing fee of sorts rather than go to court. Many times it is a simple financial calculation that even if the company does not believe it is in any way violating a patent and is confident they can win the court case they will settle for a bogus licensing deal so as to avoid the legal fees, because regardless of the outcome they will be forced to pay the many times millions and millions of dollars in legal fees.

Because most of these cases do not end up ever going to court the patents that are considered the best for patent trolling are actually the extremely vague ones that in many cases most experts believe should never have been issued in the first place.

Lodsys is a company that produces nothing but owns a patent that in vague terms gives them the intellectual property rights for in app purchases. As a result they send out infringement letters to mostly small app development companies, most of which will simply agree to a licensing fee rather than going to court. However, 11 companies have take Lodsys to court over this and both Apple and Google have requested an analysis of the validity of the patent. A process like that can take years to produce any sort of result.

Assignment 8 Part 1- Basic definition of patent troll

A patent troll is an NPE (Non Practicing Entity) that does not effectively use their patent constructively to create or promote a product or service, but rather sues others who infringe the patent to make money.

While many companies with patents do not personally produce anything they choose to license the patented technology to others to take a piece of the product. These types of companies are not considered patent trolls. Rather patent trolls do not look for licensing deals but rather wait for an infractions so that they can litigate.

Sometimes a company will attempt to make their product using the patent and either outright fail or simply not be as good/competitive as a competitor, and will thus sue the other company to makes some kind of profit.

This is a much larger issue in America than in Europe for example partially because Europe has a loser pays for legal expenses rule while in America both parties pay for their individual legal costs regardless of anything else.

Most examples of patent trolls today have to do with software patents and thus for many companies it is very profitable to stockpile patents and many times not make a licensing deal because first they can make money from the litigation as well as potentially hurt a competitor through not giving them a licensing deal even if it would be mutually beneficial.

Assignment 7 part 4- Discussion of Youtube video

Assignment 7 part 4- Discussion of Youtube video

In this video the lawyer explains why obviousness is so important and the specific steps one should take to protect their patent, so that it is not see as obvious.

He begins the video by discussing the new board that is put in place to determine obviousness. He suggests to find information and seek expert advice prior to any case or need to prove that a patent is non-obvious as apparently the new system will be moving very quickly. By very quickly he means that you will have less than 12 months to submit your case for why your patent is in fact non-obvious when challenged which seems like a significant enough amount of time to me, but is apparently relatively short for a legal procedure of this kind.

After that he discusses looking at the precedents of the appeals court specifically regarding your case to attempt to show that your invention is non obvious. If in fact you are unlucky enough to have your patent ruled obvious then you have the choice and ability to appeal it, but once again you should have all of your information and proof and expert advice before hand as once again this process moves quickly.

Overall I thought this specific Youtube video seemed quite obvious in regards to how to prepare a case, but apparently many people do not do this as the board for reassessing patent obviousness is a relatively new establishment and apparently this process of having you non-obvious case ready was not really required prior to recent times.

Assignment 7 part 3- obviousness discussion based on Youtube video

Assignment 7 part 3- obviousness discussion based on Youtube video

In this video the author, Jacky, discusses the slide to unlock patent and why she believes that it should not be a valid patent.

Her discussion of this starts by breaking this patent down to two main parts. 1) the continuous unbroken movement across the screen of a touch screen phone 2) to have the the movement go from one predetermined location on the screen to another. She then discusses these two in turn.

The continuous movement across the screen she believes is obvious and is shown in prior art. Because the phone is a touch screen, how else would one unlock it she ask. The fact is that one could potentially press an external button to unlock the screen but either way the continuous movement of across the screen to unlock a phone has been shown in prior art and thus this aspect is at least obvious.

For the second part regarding the predetermined locations, she argues this is obvious. While there is no prior art for this specific part, Jacky believes that anyone in the mobile phone industry developing unlocking software for a touchscreen would think of this at the time of invention. As a result she believes that it is obvious and thus that this patent should not in fact be seen as valid.

Week 7 Assignment 2- Obviousness further explained
Specifically I will look at the KSR case and the evolution of Obviousness as explained in class and online sources.

Teleflex sues KSR.
The basic idea is Teleflex has a patent on wireless transmission of stimulus from pedals to internal parts of a car engine instead of wired transmission of such stimulus (such as pushing the gas pedal with your foot which leads to a sensor that then increases air output/intake and increased gas usage).
KSR switched from the industry standard wires to wireless transmitters and Teleflex sued for patent infringement.
KSR wins in District Court. Teleflex wins in Appeals Court. KSR wins in Supreme court.

Both Wins were based on Article 103 which states basically that a patent is obvious if at the time a person with a basic knowledge of the prior art and field could have come up with the patent.

The single loss was based on the TSM test which stands for Teaching, Suggestion, and Motivation. The basic idea is that even if the patent was obvious to someone with a basic knowledge of the prior art and the field if there was no specific explicit "teaching, suggestion, or motivation" to either combine certain ideas or apply an idea to a slightly different field then it is not obvious.

The TSM test was the earlier method of determining obviousness which took a very conservative reading of obvious, so that unless something was explicitly explained then someone else could patent it as non obvious. The newer doctrine based on 103 that was put in place by this ruling allows for a more implicit hint at what is considered obvious so that even if something is not explicitly stated, but anyone with a basic knowledge of the prior art and the field could at the time come up with the patent then it is obvious.

This has led to the invalidation of many patent infringement claims as the previous TSM test was much more infavor of people with a patent regardless of if it was actually practically obvious or not.

Assignment 7 Part 1- Explanation of Obviousness

Assignment  7 Part 1- Explanation of Obviousness

In defining obviousness we need to look at the difference between Novelty and Obviousness.
Novelty is being able to look at a single prior art and saying something along the lines of "this is basically the same thing", or "anyone with a basic knowledge of this field could have made this new product using this singular prior art" an example of this would be if someone makes a titanium bottle with a screw on top and tries to patent it when there is an identical patent that exists for an identical bottle that is instead made out of aluminum. In this case the titanium bottle would not be considered novel.

For something to be considered Obvious it goes through basically the same process, although multiple prior arts may be used and combined to argue that someone with a basic knowledge of the field could easily think of and make this change. To illustrate an example, imagine there is a new material for coating the underside of boats that is more resistant to erosion from sea water which is patented, and a specific wake board design which is patented. If someone comes along and tries to patent an identical wake board from the prior art with the sole difference that it is coated in this erosion resistant material it would be considered obvious. By simply combining these two prior arts it is fairly obvious that the coating used on a boat could be effectively used on any aquatic instrument and thus this "invention" could have reasonably done by anyone using the information given in these two prior arts.

The catch with this one is that the more prior arts needed and the more diverse their fields are, the less obvious the invention becomes. So a product using 20 prior arts from fields ranging from astrophysics to mobile gaming to carpentry would probably be considered non obvious opposed to something with 2-4 prior arts all in the mobile gaming industry. While Obviousness seems to be subjective term, this is a relatively more objective way to make this all together subjective decision.