A HOT Patent and the Unintended Consequences of Innovation

The Washington Metropolitan Area just had its first major snow storm of the season and the first blizzard in a long time. It might have passed unnoticed by the rest of the country if it hadn't been the last weekend of Christmas shopping and the weekend of the Senate cloture vote on the Senate Healthcare bill. There was lots of news about how the Senators had to get to work in such horrible weather. Something the very healthcare professionals whose future they were debating do every time it snows - haul out the four wheel drives and get to work, they have a job to do.

The Washington area is not known for its ability to handle snow. Panic sets in, the masses assemble at every grocery store in an attempt to score the last loaf of bread or gallon of milk in the area, and then everyone hunkers down in their homes until the local news media issues the all clear alert. Our colleages from Boston and parts north find this behavior laughable.

VDOT and MDOT - the local Virginia and Maryland departments of transportation did a good job of clearing the roads this time. Everyone was back at the mall by Monday. By Sunday morning some were even braving the roads for the mandatory post snow storm cafe latte at the local Starbucks. But, there was a problem. Some of the traffic lights were covered with snow and ice. You couldn't tell what color the light was. It wasn't all the lights but seemed to be the lights at some of our expensive new intersections. The Washington Metropolitan area has lots of road construction underway so we have lots of new intersections and traffic signals.

The presence of the Patent Office and high tech, bio tech and innovation corridors and the Federal government organizations responsible for billions in research grants means that there is lots of innovation going on here. In addition to inventing new stuff, a lot of people come here to see if the stuff they invent is any good. The Washington area is a special kind of melting pot. Lots of our population is from somewhere else brought here for work, military assignments, school, government or politics. We have representatives from every state representing their populace in Congress and people from every country with the possible exception of Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, as part of the diplomatic community. The people who come here bring their driving and shopping habits with them. The Washington area is a market research bonanza for everything from the McRib to the LED traffic lights. So the latest snow storm made for an interesting opportunity to evaluate the new signal light technology.

Yesterday the New York Times reported on safety issues with LED traffic lights in its article called "LED Signals Seen as Potential Hazards". The LED traffic light offer many advantages to cash strapped municipalities - lower operating cost both in terms of power consumption and a tremendously long useful life compared with conventional signal lights. The LED traffic signals reduce the need for DOT personnel to hang precariously in bucket trucks above busy intersections to change the incandescent bulbs. It appears that one of the unintended consequences of innovation is that LED signals don't emit much in the way of heat. Lots of work went into making the lights work in the existing signal light housings. To do that you had to eliminate the heat.

The heat from conventional incandescent lamps is what melts the snow on traffic signals. Without the heat from the conventional traffic signal bulbs, snow and ice gets packed into the lights obstructing the lens so that you can't tell what color the light. This results in people having accidents. Tragically some of the accidents resulted in fatalities. To make matters worse, in storm situations only one side of the signal can be obscured - the side with the gusting wind. So one side works and the other doesn't. Not good in a snow storm when one side is working and the drivers on that side follow the lights and the drivers on the other side can't see what's going on with the lights.

The pace for replacing traditional incandescent signals with LED signals is accelerating. Wisconsin, a place with lots of snow, has converted more than 90 percent of the lighting controlled by the state to LED bulbs. So now instead of hanging precariously from bucket trucks to change bulbs, the DOT workers need to hang precariously from bucket trucks in the snow and use brooms to sweep off the snow and ice that obstruct the lenses on the traffic signals.

The LED traffic signal patents almost all tout the benefits of improved energy efficiency and lower cost to operate. Many of the inventions deal with techniques for improved heat dissipation so that the new LED lights can be retrofitted into existing traffic signal housings, and operate better in warmer climates. Others deal with improving the life of the LED lamps by reducing the heat emitted. One would assume from the New York Times article that the heat dissipating means which conduct heat away from the LEDs appear to be working particularly well since snow isn't melting from the lenses.

Enter US Patent 7,211,771 for a Deicing System for Traffic Signals. David Smith and Steven Canan of Precision Solar Controls, Inc. have invented a circuit for detecting and eliminating the buildup of snow and ice on the viewable face of an LED traffic signal lens. One circuit measures ambient temperature, a second transmits a signal when the ambient temperature is below a predetermined level, a third signal receives a reflection of the transmitted signal when frozen matter is present on the LED signal and the fourth signal heats the lens until the ambient temperature on the lens is above the predetermined level or the frozen matter on the lens is eliminated. The patent application was filed in November of 2005 and granted in 17 months on May 1, 2007, pretty quick.. The patent is clear and concise in disclosing the invention without all the vocabulary obfuscation of other patents. Precision Solar Controls has a hot patent in its portfolio and hopefully one that when put into action will eliminate the unintended consequence of LED traffic lights keeping the DOT workers out of the bucket trucks on snowy days. It will no doubt be of benefit in places where snow and ice and traffic lights are a hazardous mix during the winter helping perfect the LED signal light technology. Here in Washington we'll probably just stay home anyway.



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Here is a link to Phil Falconer's article at timesunion.com.

There's lots of information about the art and science of lighting at the Lighting Research Center whichi is part of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.

The Federal Highway Administration of the US Department of Transportation has information on their latest research and development activities. Check out the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center and their research work.

HitchHiker's IGuide to the Galaxy

Today I had a "deja vu all over again" moment when I read some technology blog posts speculating about the arrival of the new Apple IPad tablet. A lot of technology prognosticators were putting forth their positions on the been-there-done-that experience with tablet PCs. I was having a deja vu moment because while the IPad exhibited all of the amazing human factors and industrial engineering that is all things Apple, I was taking a stroll down IGuide memory lane.

Enter the technology time machine and return to 1988 when WANG Laboratories as developing its Freestyle product. Freestyle was a product ahead of its time. You could write with a stylus to sign documents on the screen, use your mouse to move documents around, add voice annotations to your documents to convey important ideas along with the contents.

Freestyle was to be followed by a handheld PDA like device that incorporated lots of the features of Freestyle into something you could cart around with you. The IGuide would let you store all of your important information in portable wireless form.

Stephen Levine, technologist and inventor extraordinaire, created a cult following within the R&D world at WANG. To inspire the troops Dr. Levine, who had a fishphone on his desk, invited Douglas Addams, the author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, to come in and give a talk about his books and about the "guide" that the characters had with them. The future arrived in 1988.

The video is vintage Steve Levine demonstrating Freestyle. (Prior art alert...) Enjoy.

(The video takes about 20 seconds to get started.)

The Diet Season and the Exercise Escalator

Last week the CEO of NutriSystem, Joe Redling, was on CNBC squawking about the improving financial results of his company and the upcoming Diet Season. NutriSystem, just closed a deal to sell their products at Sam's Club and Walgreens. This and their existing deal with Costco and Wal-Mart means that NutriSystem's stuff will be in about 10,000 retail locations. A direct challenge to Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice. The Diet Season is the busy season for NutriSystem. Mr. Redling was excited.

Anyone who goes to a gym on a regular basis is familiar with Diet Season. On January 2, probably January 4th this year due to the extended New Year's Eve holiday weekend, the Diet Season begins. Right after the Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New Years Eve holiday feasts, office parties, and endless trays of cookies and the resulting over consumption of goodies come to an end, we feel compelled to make the annual New Year's Resolution to go on a diet, exercise more and become healthier. Hence the emergence of the Diet Season. The current healthcare debate only adds to the pressure to get moving and be part of the Diet Season. The gym fills up with people who haven't exercised since last January. They immediately start hogging up the cardio equipment, lifting weights that are too heavy for them, and straining every muscle in their bodies. The Diet Season is then followed by the Orthopaedic and Chiropractor season but I digress. Let is be said that cardio is big during the Diet Season.

All this brings me to Walter Harrison and Samuel Talbot, the inventors of the Exercise Escalator. The Exercise Escalator which appears to be the predecessor to the Stair Master, is an "in place" exerciser which resembles a reverse action escalator. Mr. Harrison and Mr Talbot's invention is covered by patent 3,497,215. It was filed in 1967, after the Diet Season that year.

The invention claims, "An escalator type apparatus for exercising a subject "in situ" in a simulated stair climbing activity, comprising a structure including a flight of steps movable in a closed loop, each step having a closed riser affixed thereto, and means operatively connected to said apparatus for measuring the effort of a subject in the act of simulated climbing of said movable steps." They invented the stair case to nowhere.

The Exercise Escalator is especially suited for multi-lead electrocardiography during the exercise of patients with coronary heart disease...presenting minimal danger to the weak and unsteady; one which exercises the muscles habitually used by nonathletic people..." I think the January crowd qualifies here.

So as you mount the stair master or what every stair climbing cardio device you find in your over crowded gym in January, think of Mr. Harrison and Mr. Talbot's invention and the their contribution to the annual ritual of the Diet Season.

Grass Roots Advocacy - Robo-Caller Revenge Issue

In the season of issues, compelling public debates, and political activism we bring you the Grass Roots Edition.

Gone are the days of The Federalist Papers when Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote essays about how the new government would operate and why this type of government was the best choice for the United States of America. Today's democracy is an incessant stream of digital messages and electronic discourse, talking heads and bleeding edge blogs. Information is being created with such speed it's hard to digest let alone think about the impact of the changes and issues on the table today. If Congress was forced to write the bills by hand I doubt there would be any bills that were 2,000 pages long, but I digress.

The Congressional Management Foundation (CMF), is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting a more effective Congress and a group that clearly has their work cut out for them. It's report, "Communicating with Congress: How the Internat Has Changed Citizen Engagement" reports that in 2004 the Congress received 200 million communications from constituents - a four fold increase over the volume received in 1995. The increase was a direct result of internet-based communications. By 2008 they report that 44% of adults in America had contacted a Senator of Congressman in the last five years. 43% of those communications were via online methods.

91% people who contact Congress via the Internet cared deeply about the issue that triggered email. And they expected a reply. Only two-thirds actually got a response and most were dissatisfied with what they got. (Not surprising.) The form letter writing machine is alive and well up on Capitol Hill.

CMF's Beverly Bell presents the flip side in a letter to the Washington Post in which she notes that policy-makers in the Executive and Legislative Branches feel overwhelmed by citizen communications, and, because so much of it is identical, they find it increasingly difficult to manage and trust. Does this mean that basically they are ignoring constituent concerns? During the health care debate several Congressmen announced that they intended to vote the way they wanted even if it was against what their constituents wanted. How does advocacy work these days?

I live in Virginia where we just finished one of the first post Obama Governor's races. The house phones were victims of incessant advocacy Robo-calls from political luminaries across the political spectrum. In the days leading up to the election the house was bombarded. I was wondering how all this technology impacted the dynamics of the new digital citizenry and everything that goes with it. I cranked up Cogntion IP and did a little searching.

That brings us to patent 6,311,211 - Method and apparatus for delivering electronic advocacy messages. The patent, owned by Juno Online Services, presents a way to automate sending advocacy messages to your representatives. Sixty-three claims of reverse robocaller messaging bliss. The patent is describes an invention that is the Citizen's Revenge on the Robo-caller.

The inventors claim:
1. A method of operating an advocacy network, comprising the steps of:

accessing a user database, the user database comprising information about users and information identifying a representative associated with each user;

automatically selecting a user based on information in the user database; and

sending an advocacy message to the selected user through a first communication network.

So, they have your name in the database along with the names of your representatives. Then they have the capability to automatically send an advocacy message to your representatives.

Ok, now for the saturation elements...

Claim 6 adds...wherein the response message comprises one of an e-mail message, a facsimile message, a printed letter and a telephone call.

My problem with this claim is that it should say "where in the response message comprises ALL of the messages... an email, a fascimile (does anyone use those anymore) a printed letter and a telephone call.

Then there is the ability to send a message at a predetermined time.

Then add: the response message comprises a telephone call automatically established between the representative and the selected user.

Jackpot... but I wonder how long the person answering the phone will listen before hanging up?

Is Juno enforcing it's patents? Wouldn't that put a stop to all the Robocalls?

Tinkerers of the World Unite

Here's an excellent link to an article in the WSJ on Tinkering Makes a Comeback Amid Crisis. Innovation is alive and well and living in the garage again.

Monopoly, Patents, & Business Methods

Today's Wall Street Journal article, "How a Fight Over a Board Game Monopolized an Economist's Life" presents the ins and outs of Ralph Anspach's trademark battle with Hasbro, the makers of Monopoly. Professor Anspach and Hasbro have different perspectives on the history of the game and the patents that cover it. We wonder if what is really disclosed is a business method.

Hasbro cites a patent issued to Charles B. Darrow, a heater salesman as the origin of the game. That patent, 2,026,082, was sold to Parker Brothers in 1935. Parker Brother's registered the Monopoly trademark in the same year and went on to sell over 750 million copies.

Professor Anspach cites an earlier 1924 patent, 1,509,312, invented by Elizabeth Magie Phillips as the real origin of the game.

Aside from always executing a strategy to buy the utilities and railroads, having to have the Top Hat or the Dog as my game piece never having the stamina to finish a game, I found the claims interesting. I think Ms. Phillips is the inventor of the corner space and that Professor Anspach may be on to something here from a prior art perspective if in fact Mr. Darrow saw a version of the Phillips invention. But there are no records to determine if the two inventors ever went to the same trade show or crossed each other's paths.

The Landlord Game disclosed in Ms. Phillips patent has the following claim:

A game-board provided with corner spaces, intervening spaces of different denominations and values, some of the spaces of the different series corresponding and distinguished by coloring or other markings, so that the corresponding divisions may be recognized, a series of cards of changeable value, two or more of which are alike and which relate to two or more certain spaces on the board, a series of movable pieces to be used in conjunction with the spaces of the board and controlled by dice, so as to determine play.

The Monopoly patent introduces the concept that the spaces are arranged together in groups by color, that they have value, and that if you own the whole block you can extract more money:

In a board game apparatus a board acting as a playing-field having marked spaces constituting a path or course extending about the board, said path affording a continuous track for the purpose of continuity of play, certain of said spaces being designated, as by position, or color so as to constitute a distinguishable group, there being a plurality of such groups each differing from the others and each having its spaces adjacent on the same side of the board, the apparatus having indications of the rentals required for the use and occupancy, by opponent players, of space of one or more such groups, which rentals are subject to increase by the acquisition of an additional space or spaces of the same group by the same individual player, thereby making it possible for the possessor to extract greater payments or penalties from any opponents resting or trespassing thereon.

Mr. Darrow may have disclosed a business method. But does anyone have the McDonald's Broadway piece?

Where are the patent numbers rant: The WSJ used one of the drawings from the Darrow patent in the article but once again didn't provide the patent numbers.

Hope..With Someone Else's Image - Nope!!

It's been a busy week on the intellectual property front.

First, David Young, chief executive of Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group, one of the country's largest book publishers pronounced that he would like to see legislation that would prevent the sale of books below cost. At issue is the price war between Wal-Mart and Amazon for some of the book titles expected to dominate the holiday shopping season. Wal-Mart is selling books below cost. Amazon is cutting costs and selling the digital versions for $9.99. The issue is economic. Independent booksellers and new writers will suffer when books are sold below cost. Wal-Mart appears to be paying the full price, the copyrights are being protected, and the authors are getting paid.

Then we have artist Shepard Fairey, who designed the famous Barack Obama "HOPE" poster, who, according to AP, admitted Friday that he didn't use the Associated Press photo he originally claimed his work was based on, a photo taken in April 2006 by Mannie Garcia, on assignment for the AP, at the National Press Club in Washington.

Mr. Fairey appears to have pulled in some serious money selling posters, autographed posters, and a whole range of stuff featuring his work. For more info on the emergence of the poster as a cultural icon see:

Ben Arnon: How the Obama "Hope" Poster Reached a Tipping Point and Became a Cultural Phenomenon: An Interview With the Artist Shepard Fairey

Mr. Fairey apparently had artistic amnesia when he said he didn't use the photo that featured a single image of then Senator Obama as claimed by AP intead saying used a picture with two images, one of Mr. Obama and another of actor George Clooney. By saying he used the picture with two people in it rather than the one with only Mr. Obama, he tried to claim he significantly modified the picture and was not infringing AP's copyright. He claimed that his work was covered under the fair use doctrine. But it now turns out he altered the single photo and added the word HOPE across the bottom.

His legal team lead by Mr. Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford University -- withdrew from the case and said the artist had misled them by fabricating information and destroying other material. I can tell you this, when your lawyers quit on you because you didn't give them the straight story, it's not a good thing. When your lawyers are from the Fair Use Project and you misled them and destroyed material its a very bad thing.

Mr. Fairey earned much critical acclaim for his work, vandalism of public property aside (do you remember all those posters that showed up all over the place prior to the election?), Mr. Fairey earned quite a bit of money from his use of AP and Mr. Garcia's work.

In determining which of this week's intellectual property happenings is cause for concern, Mr Fairey wins. Mr. Fairey is the one who absconded with someone else's work without paying for it. The book publishers might be concerned that their product is being undervalued but at least it's being valued. In the case of AP and Mr. Garcia's work, they received no value. That's a greater concern.