Curiosity Counts

Here is a very cool infographic timeline Gutenberg to ipad...

curiosity counts - A visual timeline of the “the press,” from...

Apple v Samsung - Two Great Blog Posts

After finishing my morning work out with Rex Parker I wandered over to the Wall Street Journal to see what they had to say about the Apple v. Samsung case. An ok analysis for most but for us IP junkies it simply wasn't enough. General statements about patent and trademark infringement, a couple of pictures on one of the AllThingsD blog but not much to give you a feel for the scope of what's really going on. Is there some reason why the WSJ never puts the patent numbers on any of their IP articles? Are we just not smart enough to read them ourselves?

So, I went on the hunt. Here are two blog posts that have the goods on what's going on.

First, FOSS Patents written by Florian Mueller click here to read his post.

The second is ThisIsMyNext - the temporary home of Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel, Paul Miller, Joanna Stern, Ross Miller, and Chris Ziegler. Here's Nilay Patel's post - click here.

Patent Allowance and Business Methods

Mark Nowotarski, Mike Bowman, and I wrote a guest article on IP Watchdog that was posted today. The article, "Increasing Patent Allowance Rates by Selectively Targeting a More Technological Patent Class" deals with how the class assigned to your patent can drive patent allowance. You can read the article by clicking here.

Thanks to Gene Quinn of IP Watchdog for having us in his online magazine.

New Business Methods White Paper

Our business methods guru, Mike Bowman, has taken a look at the Patent Reform Act of 2011 and how its tax strategy language has the potential to impact firms in the insurance and financial services arena who hold or use patents with tax strategy elements. For our latest insight on what's happening in business methods patents please click here to download the white paper, US Patent Reform Act of 2011 - Implications for Insurance and Financial Firms.

We published another important paper focused on the impact of business methods patents on university technology transfer and commercialization efforts - Business Methods Patent and Technology Transfer. It provides some compelling examples of the types of business methods patents that are appearing in the healthcare and medical research domains. Please enjoy them and let us know what you think. I like the handwashing method with onboard entertainment!!

Please let us know what you think.

The Timeless Challenge of the Language of Inventions

The challenge of finding the right words to describe innovations and inventions is timeless. The inventor needs to create a vocabulary for something that hasn't been described before. But with what words? New words made up to convey the inventor's intent? Old words that convey the concept but not the new meaning?

A 1873 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine discussing the invention of the telegraph presents the inventor's conundrum,

"The difficulty of forming a clear conception of the subject is

increased by the fact that while we have to deal with novel and strange facts, we have also to use old words in novel and inconsistent senses."

"The Difficulty of Forming a Clear Conception" : The Telegraph, Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 366 as cited in The Information by James Gleick

Curious Technology Transfer Moment

I was chatting with several technology transfer gurus involved in some of the most advanced biomedical and biomedical engineering discoveries. The conversation moved to the difficulty of figuring out what is going on in the world of patents and inventions. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to plug Coronado IP and its transformational search capabilities, I delivered my elevator speech. The conversation took a curious turn. The technology transfer gurus told me that they never buy new search technology, that they don't believe in being early adopters and wait for the technology to be mature before investing. What????

To recap, some of the people who are steeped in inventions, patents, and bringing innovations to the marketplace don't believe in buying new technology. My head hurts.

Music and the Business Methods Conundrum

One of the important topics of debate in Business Methods patents circles is where these patents fit along the information technology continuum. At it's heart is the "What does it do?" vs. "What do you do with it?" nexus. This is what a semiconductor does, this is what a disk drive does, this is what memory does; this is what you do with it - use it to process on-line banking transactions, to create customer loyalty programs, to place sensors on fish and track them so anglers don't have to work so hard. "What does it do?" and "What do you do with it?" have become essential questions in the information age quest to define the boundaries of patentability.

The Gutenberg printing press with it movable metal type and Johannes Gutenberg's creation of oil-based colored and black inks brought books and the knowledge they contained to a far broader audience than before. Depending on your perspective, this may be the earliest entry in the information technology continuum. Gutenberg focused on the printed word.

Ottaviano Petrucci is believed to be one of the first to print music using the Gutenberg movable type process. He used the movable type in a multiple-impression process where one run was for the staves - the five parallel lines, another for the words or decorative elements, and the final for the notes. There is some dispute on whether Petrucci's approach was a double impression or multiple impression process. According to the Center for Intellectual Property & Information Law Petrucci received a twenty year patent for the double impression process. This was one of the earliest records of patents for inventions and improvement in music printing. You can read the translation of the patent grant here.

According to Joanna Kostylo and the University of Cambridge, three years lapsed between Petrucci's petition for a patent and publication of the first work under the patent "Harmonice Muscices Odecaton A." Start ups take note; the time to get a patent and get your product to market is never short.

Even the Renaissance had its patent issues. Petrucci's early activity in the printed music market drew competitors. Andrea Antico was granted a patent to print music using a woodcut method focused on printing keyboard music. Petrucci received a new exclusive right to print organ music. The two printers were competitors. According to Ms. Kostylo, the pope withdrew Petrucci's organ patent because he failed to produce music for keyboards under his patent. The two inventors battled it out in the market place for printed music.

This brings us back to business methods. Did Petrucci get a patent for a business method; using the Gutenburg movable type invention to create printed sheet music? Was sheet music one of the early example of the "What Does It Do" vs. "What Do You Do With It" nexus?

The links to the Petrucci patents above are great if you want to have a look at some very early patents.