Electric Mirror's New Patent for the Tech Savvy Traveler

There is just something about beautiful architecture and well thought out hotel design that adds to the travel experience. A hotel that is well done and has lots of pleasing surprises is just delightful. The dazzling lobbies, the beautiful attention to detail - from the door handles to the broadloom in the hallways to the way the light flows through the windows and then of course there's the technology. It's more than just having a nice parking space for your IPod or having easy to access WiFi, it's all the other cool stuff like the buttons in your room to let the housekeeping people you'd like to have your room made up without screaming to the hallway passers by, "HEY THIS ROOM IS EMPTY, COME STEAL MY STUFF." But the coolest new hotel toy is the in-mirror TV. You can watch the stock ticker rolling across the screen while blow drying or keep abreast of your favorite sporting event while showering or brushing your teeth. These new in-mirror TV's are the latest and coolest hospitality industry addition for "Tech Savvy Guests".

So when I received a recent email from Aaron Mischel of Electric Mirror in Everett, Washington that featured their Top Story "Electric Mirror Receives Key Patent for Lighted Mirror TVs", I was intrigued. It is the first time I have received marketing emails for a product that not only incorporated information about their products and their customers - the email featured lots of interesting links to their projects and their clients - it incorporated the announcement of the award of their patent complete with links to the patent, and an image of the first page and some of the drawings from the patent itself. Patent 7,805,260 was granted September 28th, 2010.

Claim 1 reads:

1. A mirror assembly mountable to a wall, the mirror assembly comprising: (a) a mirror platform having a front surface and a rear surface; (b) a chassis mountable to the mirror platform; (c) at least one electrical component disposed between the mirror platform and the chassis; (d) an electrical passageway formed within the chassis for allowing the electrical component to be placed into communication with a power source located remotely from the mirror assembly; and (e) a recess formed within the chassis for housing a connection between the power source and the electrical component such that the chassis can be mounted substantially flush against the wall when the electrical component is electrically connected to the power source.

This is a pretty tight claim.

Here is an elegantly designed product complete with the patent to protect it from an American company complete with a waterproof remote control and mirror defoggers. What more could a traveler ask for?

Six Degrees of Software & Software Patents

The Six Degrees of Software is the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon for nerds. It works like this - pick something that you do and see how far you can go before you run into something that uses software. The answer is, NOT FAR. And software is getting closer all the time.

Consider the toaster...heating element with a timer. Pretty simple. What about a heating element with a timer and an LED display connected to the wall outlet connected to the digital electric meter connected to your house connected to the grid which is connected to the electric company....

Consider the car wash...

The barber seems to be low tech until you make your appointment on line.

So, software patents are always an interesting and often heated topic of conversation. Pick your topic and then consider who owns the patents:

• Convergence of the open source software world and patents
• What's controlling your surgery - the surgeorn or the Da Vinci Robot or the software?
• Business Methods patents - software as the brick and mortar of the new millenium or Still Life with Flow Chart?
• How will anyone ever figure out what the essential patents are so the Smart Grid can be built?
• Who owns the patents for electronic health records?

If you want to have some fun, Google (now a verb) Microsoft Burning the Ships. Burning the Ships is the story of Microsoft's efforts to play nice where its patents and the open source world collide. It's interesting that the patent attorney blogs find it a compelling tome while the software guys are incredulous about the new and friendly Microsoft.

In our quest to advance the discourse on software patents, business methods (software patents by another name), and open source we call your attention to an interesting blog written by Florian Mueller that focuses on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and patents. Mr. Mueller's blog is not for the faint of heart - it's packed with information but if you want some interesting insight into the complexity of the issues. Check it out and then go back and consider the six degrees of software in your professional and personal life.

Business Methods Updates

Our Business Methods colleagues are at it again. They are providing insight into the recent changes to the e-shopping business methods patent class schedules published by USPTO. Mike Bowman is walking through the changes to help us all understand how things are evolving.

I'll be adding their posts here soon but in the meantime you can check them out at Business Methods Modus Operandi, our blog focused exclusively on business methods patents.

Business Methods Patent Stats Fall 2010

Business Methods Patents represent the new frontier in intellectual property. These are the digital inventions of the new millennium. Business Methods remain a nascent part of the US and international patent universe that continue to grow in number and importance. Our Business Methods analysts took a look at the status quo in Class 705 to provide insight on this important domain.

As of September 28, 2010, USPTO had issued 51,558 patents that are classified as business methods. The table below provides the breakdown of where these patents are classified.

Area	Count
Planning and Innovation	4,412
Marketing, Selling, Evangelizing	9,198
Exchanging Money for Stuff	19,315
Watching the Store	8,650
The Protection Racket	9,871
None of the Above	112
Total	51,558

Here's a quick look at how we define the major areas where USPTO groups business methods patents. For more detailed insight see our earlier Business Methods Monday posts.

The Patent Office defines Business Methods Patents as those patents classified under Class 705 - Data Processing: Financial, Business Practice, Management or Cost/Price Determination. The high level definition put forward by USPTO is:

Machines and methods for performing data processing or calculation operations in the:

• Practice, administration or management of an enterprise, or
• Processing of financial data, or
• Determination of the charge for goods and services.

PTO defines four classes as business methods patents but includes a fifth in class 705 which has do with business cryptography and digital security. We use our own group titles to describe what is going on in the Business Methods Arena. They conform to the USPTO groupings but are a little easier to understand.

Planning and Innovation - Determining who your customers are and the products and services they want or need. USPTO describes this as Operations Research and Market Analysis.

Marketing, Selling, Evangelizing -- These patents are about informing customers that you exist, showing them your products and services and encouraging and providing incentives for them to make purchases. This covers advertisement management catalog systems, incentive programs and redemption of coupons.

Exchanging Money for Stuff -- This group of business methods patents covers all aspects of exchanging money and credit before, during, and after a business transaction. This includes what you would expect - credit and loan processing, point of sale systems, billing, funds transfer, banking, clearing houses, tax processing and investment planning. (Investment planning seems a little out of place.)

Minding the Store - Here you'll find the patents that deal with tracking resources, money and products. USPTO places patents having to do with human resource management, scheduling, accounting, and inventory monitoring in this group.

A Protection Racket -- The fifth and final group has to do with encryption and digital security. USPTO groups business cryptography here. When USPTO presents does their business methods presentations this group is not called out specifically as business methods patents but since it resides in Class 705 you need to view it as part of the business methods picture.

Business Methods Monday - USPTO Update

News from last week's USPTO's Business Methods Partnership Meeting:

Only the patents classified in Class 705 are considered business methods patents.

The allowance rate for applications classified in Class 705 is 23% or put another way 77% are rejected or abandoned.

80% of the patents in this class are tied to a computer.

Pendency to First Office Action is 31.7 months - over 2.5 years.

Pendency to Issue/Abandonment is 46.7 months - almost 4 years.

Through July 2010 there are 312 Examiners focused on business methods patents. Through July 2,100 patents have been granted.

In 2009 there were 1,725 patents granted with an Examiner Corps of 328 examiners.

(Patents up...Examiners down...)

They expect the pace for business methods patent filings to increase both as a result of the resolution of the Bilski case by the Supreme Court and an improving economy.

Patent Argot

If the inventory of ready-made words in our language determines which concepts you are able to understand, how would you ever learn anything new? -- Guy Deutscher, Honorary Research Fellow, School of Languages, Linguistics, and Cultures at the University of Manchester.

This quote in a recent New York Times Magazine distills both the challenge and the triumph of a patent. The ability, in a single sentence, to stake a claim to an invention and define the boundaries of what is yours. Then to use that single sentence as the framework to describe how to make or use it your invention. A single sentence to describe something novel. The choice of words, their structure, and the links to the instructions in your specification will all determine if you have an invention that will generate revenue or an invention that will have a nice certificate that you can hang in your office. This unique language and vocabulary and the structure and flow of innovations, inventions and patents is the Patent Argot - the special and secret language of patents and inventions.

For many, the Patent Argot vocabulary of patents is an impenetrable wall between business owners and entrepreneurs and understanding which patents are relevant to your business and which are not. It is the Patent Argot is what keeps you from finding things. It is part of why you are never sure if your freedom to operate report has really covered all the subject matter. It's what drives that strange feeling you get when you've read a patent and you say to yourself, I read English and I have no idea what this thing says.

An argot is, "a specialized idiomatic vocabulary that is peculiar to a particular class of people (the Intellectual Property and Patent Cognoscenti.) One dictionary defines it as a special language, especially that of an underworld group, devised for private communication and identification; a language with its own style, grammar, and vocabulary. While the underworld group aspect of the definition might resonate with anyone who's ever received a Cease and Desist letter, Patent Argot is a salient feature of almost any patent you read (or write.)

Inventions have always created new vocabulary. The Patent Office allows inventors to be their on lexicographer - to create their own dictionary of specific terms that can be used to describe their inventions as long as the definitions of these words are "accurate, complete, unambiguous, and concise" - a tall order.

Creating new words to describe inventions has been around for as long as man has been inventing things. In the 1500s, Leonardo Da Vinci created his own inventive argot. His first flying machine was defined as the "ornithopter" - ornithos for bird and pteron for wing. (The Notebooks of Da Vinci may provide insightful prior art.) In 1863 Ponton D'Amecourt invented the term helicopter to define his flying machine - "helico" spiral - "pter" for wings. The contemporary spin is the VTOL - the Vertical Take Off and Landing vehicle.

Another important feature of the Patent Argot is the desire to craft language that is as broad as possible so that your patent can reach into the future to cover things not yet invented. Fuzzy boundaries on an invention that can be defined in context help a patent be more flexible. It is a language that uses today's vocabulary in the broadest possible way to compensate for a future we cannot foresee at the moment a claim is crafted.

It is why we have Portable Law Enforcement Data Processing Devices (handheld parking ticket issuing devices) or make purchases on Amazon.com or the iTunes Store using a single action ordering system. It's also why you need to look for new ways to search so you can bypass the Patent Argot and use a framework that understands that nutriceuticals are dietary or nutritional supplements or that a toaster is also a heating element with a timer without you having to tell it so. (Shameless plug for Coronado IP.)

In the Patent Argot posts we'll explore the impact of the secret language of patents and how understanding it will help you understand the secret world of patents and of course, help you Search The Way You Think.

Are You Ready for Some Football?

The South Carolina Gamecocks are 3-0. A very nice start. Drew Brees and the Saints won their opener but it was filled with tense moments. The Redskins beat the Cowboys, just barely, and Rex Ryan’s mother is upset with him because of his colorful choice of language. And, fantasy football season is in full swing.

Fantasy Football is basically a Computerized Statistical Football Game – A method and apparatus for playing football on a computer system based upon actual football performances by a database of football players. The computer football game is played by a league of individuals, each of whom can individually, or in groups, own a franchise. Franchises select their players in an initial draft. The starting players are then selected by individual franchise owners. Wins and losses for the computer football games occur by calculating a total of each individual player’s points who make up the team. The calculation of points is done automatically either manually or using actual weekly performance by individual NFL players as the basis for determining points.

So reads the abstract of US Patent 4,918,603 filed in August 1, 1988 and granted April 17, 1990. A pretty quick turnaround by the Patent Office.

This patent is cited as being the seminal work in patenting of fantasy sports inventions. The patent is classified as an amusement device – a simulated athletic event including a simulated projectile (I’m guessing that would be the football) that includes a means for processing electronic data. Is this a game or is it a business method? Is it a game that is a business method?

One of the inventors, Patrick Hughes, who had been playing fantasy football with his friends, patented his version of the game, secured a license with the NFL Players Association and NFL properties and proceeded to find a corporate sponsor, Miller Brewing Company. With Miller’s backing the game was soon being played in 6,300 sports bars around the country.

The inventors went on to extend their fantasy sports empire to basketball where they received an endorsement from Cal Ripkin, Jr. and basketball where Grant Hill became part of their celebrity deal. Fox Sports even had a version branded as Terry Bradshaw Fantasy Football.

The ‘603 patent has three claims – one independent and two dependent. Here are all three claims:

What is claimed is:

1. A computer for playing football based upon actual football games, comprising:

means for setting up individual football franchises;

means for drafting actual football players into said franchises;

means for selecting starting player rosters from said actual football players;

means for trading said actual football players;

means for scoring performances of said actual football players based upon actual game scores such that franchises automatically calculate a composite win or loss score from a total of said individual actual football players' scores;

said players' scores are for quarterbacks, running backs and pass receivers in a first group and kickers in a second group; and

wherein said players in said first and second groups receive bonus points.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said bonus points for said first and seconds groups are based upon complex or difficult plays.

3. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein said complex and difficult plays include extra points for a quarterback who receives or runs for said touchdown, extra points for said running back for throwing or receiving a touchdown pass, and extra points for said pass receive for passing the ball or running for a touchdown.

Here are some links to some of the inventor’s other sports fantasy patents.

7614944 – Systems and methods for providing multi-level fantasy sports contests…

7,001,279 - Systems and methods for providing multiple user support for shared user equipment in a fantasy sports contest application.

7,548,242 - Systems and methods for integrating graphic animation technologies in fantasy sports contest applications.