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Too sexy to be taken seriously: movie star’s invention story is a lesson for both men and women

September 27, 2018 by Bruce Berman 0 Comments

In the 1930s she was called “the most beautiful woman in the world,” but screen star Hedy Lamarr was obsessed with how things worked.

An Austrian émigré in Hollywood, Lamar, intellectually curious and highly patriotic, and who was raised Jewish, wanted to do something to help her adopted country defeat the Nazis. This prompted her to develop a complex, secret communications system that would later serve as the basis for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, wireless phones, GPS, and other developments.

Problem was it took the Navy 20 years to take her and her co-inventor seriously. Both were high school dropouts and of Austrian and German extraction at a time of heightened suspicion and spying. This fascinating story is explained in greater detail in The Intangible Investor in the November IAM magazine, “Torpedo invention laid the foundation for Wi-Fi and more.” Subscribers can find it here starting October 1.

What drove Lamarr to invent is a focus of this fascinating and well-received documentary, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (96% rated on Rotten Tomatoes). It is available on Netflix and on DVD from many public libraries. Even those familiar with the story will find the film worth watching. It illustrates that some of the best inventions derive from the most unlikely sources and can seem implausible.

For more on Lamarr’s background, go here. For her patent, 2,292,387, “Secret Communications System,” go here.

“Bombshell” estimates that Larmarr’s invention, had it been widely adopted, would have been worth $30 billion.

Lamarr and her co inventor, George Autheil, a respected American avant-garde composer and concert pianist who spent a decade in Paris associating with James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway, posthumously made it into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

“If you do good,” Lamarr said, “people will accuse you of selfish motives – do good anyway.”

Image source: washingtonpost.com 

 

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Family Entertainment: This “Rube” saw the future and its foibles

April 10, 2018 by Bruce Berman 0 Comments

San Francisco-born Reuben Garrett Lucius “Rube” Goldberg, an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor, best known for satirical cartoons that depicted complicated devices that performed simple tasks in creatively complex ways.

But Goldberg, born on July 4, 1883, was also a visionary, who saw the impact of personalized communications decades before it occurred. His Forbes cover,“After Color TV: The Future of Home Entertainment,” from March 15, 1967 (below) depicts a family with each member engaged with its own mostly flat screen and targeted content – including the baby and cat. Recall that in 1967 the idea of the color TV, aka “talking furniture,” was still relatively new.

Future Family: Alone Together

Note the types of content, the different screens and the interactive controller used by the father. The baby’s wind-up truck does not have a chance.

The Fun of Getting There

Goldberg is associated with popular cartoons depicting gadgets that perform simple tasks in indirect or complicated but imaginative ways, giving rise to the term “Rube Goldberg machine” for s similar gadget or process. Goldberg received many honors in his lifetime, including a Pulitzer Prize for his political cartooning in 1948.

Goldberg was a founding member and the first president of the National Cartoonists Society, and he is the namesake of the Reuben Award, which the organization awards to the Cartoonist of the Year.

He is the inspiration for various international competitions, known as Rube Goldberg Machine Contests, which challenge participants to make a complicated machine to perform a simple task (kind of the opposite of an invention, which attempts to solve a problem or improve efficiency).

The contest, in which college or high school students build devices to complete a simple task in a minimum of twenty steps in the style of Goldberg, is held throughout the United States, and local winners are eligible to compete in the national contest.

Rube Goldberg reminds us that how a simple problem gets solved can be as fascinating as the solution.

Source: imgur.com

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IP “literacy” matters – Ideas Matter promotes IP understanding for all

January 22, 2018 by Bruce Berman 0 Comments

A basic literacy about IP rights is everyone’s responsibility. 

While at times complex, patents, copyrights, and trademarks can be widely understood if people are clear about their purpose and who they benefit.

Putting IP rights in perspective is serious business – especially given that knowledge-focused economies place an increasingly high premium on innovation, authorship, and brand.

Ideas Matter, a London-based consortium of IP holders and innovative businesses believes it is necessary to provide audiences more information about why IP rights are important and how it affects people. Recently, it teamed with the Center for IP Understanding at the IP Awareness Summitt in Chicago, to produce a video about the need for everyone to know more about IP rights.

“I think the economies of the world have realized that the market is controlled by innovation and invention,” said Judge Randall Rader (ret.), Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. “That requires research, that requires development of new ideas and resources, and, of course, those investments need protection.  That’s where the intellectual property system pays benefits.”

Ideas Matter released a video of interviews with IP experts and holders conducted at the IP Awareness Summit in Chicago. IPAS 2017 was held by the Center for IP Awareness (CIPU) in conjunction with Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology.

For background about the video and Ideas Matter, go here. Twitter: @IP_IdeasMatter.

To view the five-minute video, go here or click on the image above.

Image source: ideasmatter.com

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2018 in focus: Videos from IP Awareness Summit explore better IP understanding

December 26, 2017 by Bruce Berman 0 Comments

The IP Awareness Summit 2017 was the first IP event to focus on perception and awareness of intellectual rights and their impact.

Videos of panel discussions, held at Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology on November 6, have been posted to YouTube and the IPAS event website.

More than a record of the Summit, these videos move the IP awareness discussion to a new level, and are worth perusing whether or not you attended IPAS. (Some observers choose to view/listen while multi-tasking.)

IP Erosion

The presentations include economist and entrepreneur David Teece’s keynote, “IP Erosion: A Growing Threat to U.S. Economic Leadership.”

To access the IP Awareness YouTube channel, please enter “IP Awareness” on YouTube, or go here.

Panelists and their current or prior affiliations are identified on YouTube, beneath the videos.

All eight videos are centralized and can be accessed from the IPAS 2017 website, here. 

For specific IPAS panels, click or tap below.

IP Education Today

Identifying Good and Bad IP Behavior (intro)

Identifying Good and Bad IP Behavior (panel)

IP and Theft: The High Cost of Confusion

Keynote – David Teece, The Tusher Center, UC Berkeley-Haas School of Business
“IP Rights Erosion: A Growing Threat to U.S. Economic Leadership”

Media Coverage and IP

Making IP Awareness a Higher Priority

Breakouts: Impediments to IP Understanding

 

Feel free to tweet, post or otherwise share the IPAS YouTube videos with others. You can also send your thoughts and comments to explore@understandingip.org.

 

Image source: understandingip.org

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Antitrust Attorney General suing AT&T supports patent monetization

November 21, 2017 by Bruce Berman 0 Comments

Yesterday, United States Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim, filed suit to stop the $85 billion AT&T-Time Warner merger, which previously had been progressing through regulatory approval. 

Almost at the same time, in a recent carefully crafted speech before a business and law audience, he outlined his preference for reliable patents and consistent, free-market enforcement. Putting a patent attorney in charge of antitrust may be the Trump administration’s best idea yet.

Delrahim’s remarks were delivered recently as part of the USC Gould School of Law’s Center for Transnational Law and Business Conference.

“Fresh thinking about the implications of SSOs [standards setting organizations] and the proper role of antitrust law is long overdue,” said Delrahim, who is the first patent attorney to head the Antitrust Division. “Bargaining over new and innovative technologies is a high stakes game, and each side has an incentive to use every means necessary to improve its end of the bargain.  In this game, the competitive market process should win.”

Well-Crafted

The thoughtful speech was welcome relief to IP holders, especially non-practicing entities whose primary business is patent licensing. However, some people thought the timing and intent of the remarks were more difficult to discern.

“Clearly he [Delrahim] is sending a message that the AG’s office, and perhaps the Trump administration, knows the difference between IP exclusivity, which is conducive to innovation and businesses, and anti-competitive behavior,” a significant patent holder told IP CloseUp.

It’s ironic that his comments were made just days before the DOJ’s decision to sue to stop the AT&T-Time Warner merger, or maybe not.

Yesterday the Department of Justice sued to block the AT&T-Time Warner merger, citing its anticompetitive nature and ability of the combined company “to drive up the cost of channels like HBO, CNN and TBS to rivals and ultimately to consumers.”

Senate Committee on the Judiciary documents submitted in support of Delrahim’s confirmation, show that he has worked in the White House as an advisor and has had a distinguished private legal career, often supporting acquirers in large transactions.

Delrahim emigrated from Iran with his family in the 1970s when he was ten years old to escape the political strife. After law school, he joined Patton Boggs. In 1998, Delrahim became a counsel to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, working under Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT). Jon Leibowitz, who was then a Democratic Senate aide and worked with Delrahim, remembered him as being a pragmatist.

His video recorded confirmation hearing, worth looking at. Delrahim’s testimony occurs approximately 52 minutes into the recording.

Not a Vigilante

CNN, which may have to be sold to permit the AT&T-TWC merger to go through, reported that “A long time colleague of Delrahim’s who says he is a liberal told CNNMoney that he can’t imagine that Delrahim ‘would engage in any type of vigilante justice to help the president in the deal…That’s just unfathomable to me.'”

Delrahim IP background and more enlightened approach to patents in the marketplace could go a long way to repairing the legislative and judicial hits that the patent system that has taken over the past six years.

“We don’t have the tools to know what the competitive royalty rate is,” concluded Delrahim in his USC speech, “—we’re not price regulators, after all—and if we inject antitrust law where it does not belong. It can actually subvert the competitive process and do serious harm to American consumers and to innovation itself… It’s time to correct this asymmetry to ensure that there are maximum incentives to innovate, and equally proper incentives to implement.”

For the text of Delrahim’s remarks, go here.

Image source: bostonherald.com; fortune.com

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Qualcomm counter-offensive reminds NY Times readers who put the ‘smart’ in smartphone

July 17, 2017 by Bruce Berman 0 Comments

Qualcomm is the first known patent licensor to tout its invention prowess in a New York Times ad directed at the business community. 

One of the world’s most successful licensing businesses reminded Times readers – in a sparsely worded, full-page ad that ran in the business section on July 17 – that it “invented the essential technologies that make your smartphone so indispensable.”

“”You know how you’re in love with your smartphone?,” ran the headline in big block letters. “That’s just the beginning.”

Fighting Back

The ad is a brilliant counter offensive move – one that has been much needed among patent licensors. It reminds diverse audiences, including the public, lawmakers and the courts, as well as its and other shareholders, that Qualcomm technology is ubiquitous.

Its inventions may currently appear most dramatically in smartphones but will soon be almost everywhere through IoT, as Qualcomm “leads the world to 5G [technology]”.

Qualcomm’s $23.5 billion in 2016 revenue was driven primarily by patent licensing.

This exercise in self-promotion, sadly, is necessary to remind audiences that inventions matter, and that Apple, Samsung, et al. simply do not have all of the innovation they need to sell products.

If licensees are not going to pay fairly for inventions that make their products special, licensors, like Qualcomm, will remind audiences about the technology that does.

Qualcomm can use the positive visibility. In January, the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm, accusing the company of using anticompetitive tactics to maintain its monopoly on a key semiconductor used in mobile phones.

“We put the ‘smart’ in smartphones.”

Days later, Apple, Qualcomm’s longtime partner, sued the company over what it said was $1 billion in withheld rebates. In the lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court for the Southern District of California, in San Diego (where Qualcomm’s HQ is located), Apple said the money had been promised in conjunction with an agreement not to buy chips from other suppliers or to divulge Qualcomm’s intellectual property licensing practices.

Invention Credit

The Times ad concludes with the url: qualcomm.com/weinvent. It leads to a thoughtful one-minute video that essentially says: “We’re not the name you think of when you think of smart phones, but we put the ‘smart’ in them.”

The Qualcomm ad reminds the world that Apple and other handset makers would not be what they are without Qualcomm inventions – which is true enough.

“Qualcomm – Why you love your smart phone.”

Go here to see a web version of the print ad.

Image source: qualcomm.com; nytimes.com

 

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Will blockchain technology fuel a new patent war or prevent one?

September 8, 2016 by Bruce Berman 5 Comments

The race is on to gain control of a new technology that has the power to reinvent banking and make transactions and other agreements between parties cheaper, safer and easier to complete.

Like disruptive inventions that preceded it, blockchain has businesses, large and small, jockeying for leadership. This means that patents are likely to play a significant role.

Blockchain is a shared database of transactions and other information, which is open to all and controlled by no one. It also can function as an autonomous semi-private network.

Blockchain began life as the trading infrastructure that permits secure recording of payments for bitcoin, the fledgling crypto-currency. But in the right hands the technology is capable of much more. A blockchain can handle complex transactions, even entire contracts.

IP Windfall?

It is no surprise that competition is building for patents that go beyond bitcoin and cover inventions that support a distributed public ledger. Call it blockchain 2.0. The race among a variety of disparate players is not likely to be a repeat of the smartphone wars, but it does have the potential to create an IP licensing windfall for early movers, leaving some volume users to pay unanticipated royalties.

The shared nature of blockchain (see diagrams below) makes it unlikely that any one or two players will explicitly control the technology. However, that will not prevent some patent holders from trying to profit.

The blockchain is a public database that by-passes money-based payments by recording all transactions screen-shot-2016-03-04-at-42158-pmdigitally. It forms the core of bitcoin and other crypto-currencies by maintaining a decentralized record of all transactions. Proponents say it has the potential to disrupt financial services by making payments and the settling of securities transactions, in particular, far cheaper. Reuters reports that financial institutions alone are expected to invest $1B this year and next in developing blockchain.

Some companies, like IBM, are hoping for a more open system, in the vein of Linux, while others, mostly software developers and some banks data carriers, are looking to have an IP leg up on the competition and to keep the technology at least somewhat proprietary. This would give non-financial and other players a chance to profit from licensing and encourage more investment.

Mysterious Origins

The story of blockchain and its early promotion as the technology underlying bitcoin is fascinating if not mysterious. It appears to start with Craig Wright, who claims to be the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. Wright, an Australian, recently announced that he has filed 50 blockchain technology and crypto-currency related patents in the UK. Why the UK? That’s another question. And why has Wright announced his applications rather that wait to for them to issue or publish?

Where there are bitcoins and other crypto-currencies, reports, CoinDesk, an industry publication, there are patents, which could be worth far more than the currency if found to be valid and infringed. However, these patents will be difficult to prove valid. The USPTO and most courts (after the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Alice) are now taking the position that most software is not inventive, and merely automates previously established inventions.

However, not everyone agrees. Two Hogan Lovells attorneys say that “Viewed as providing an improved computer data structure, [our] proposed bitcoin method claim should be precisely the type of improvement to computer functionality that is still patentable under Alice.”

Blockchain patent applications have generated an unusual amount of publicity. Whether these patents will issue or if they are capable of sustaining validity upon PTAB and district court scrutiny is unclear. Business Insider obtained a copy of the US patent, filed on May 10, for a passcode blockchain that Verizon has apparently been working on for three years.

“There is quite a bit of excitement about having digital rights on a blockchain-type system. It could allow for pay-per-usage, for example, while smart contracts — the contractual clauses that form part of a transaction — could provide automatic payment distributions, “according to a Moody’s Investors Service report.

“A blockchain of digital rights for consumer products — music and news articles, among others — could ensure that artists or authors are paid immediately once a consumer reads an article or listens to a song, with funds proportionally distributed as per contractual clauses.”

Goldman Sachs is among the big banks excited about the blockchain. Thirty banks have now signed up to the R3 or R3CEV partnership. R3, based out of New York, is trying to establish industry-wide standards and protocols for using the technology, as well as exploring potential use cases.

Business Insider’s coverage of blockchain is very useful for getting a handle on how it works and may be applied. Go here for a stream of articles with useful diagrams, including the triptych in this post.

Establishing Blockchain Standards

Establishing standards for blockchain will also be difficult.

R3 CEV, a startup working in blockchain which launched in September 2015, reports the Wall Street Journal, named the project Concord for the harmony it hopeblockchains to build among more than 60 banks participating in the project. The consortium originally started with nine multinational banks. The group currently includes Barclays PLC, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

“Perhaps the most important difference between Concord and bitcoin and ethereum is the way transactions are recorded. With bitcoin and ethereum, every transaction is recorded, verified and disclosed immediately in their public, distributed ledgers. With Concord, while the transaction is verified via a distributed ledger, it isn’t publicly disclosed. The details are shared only by the parties involved.

“Figuring out the best way to use blockchain-based tools in the financial-services industry has become a hot topic. A number of firms, including Digital Asset Holdings, HyperLedger Project, Ripple, Microsoft’s Azure, and others are all working on products to take advantage of the new technology.”

A number of companies of various types and sizes have filed blockchain or related crypto-currency patents. The emphasis on patent applications, as most people in the IP world know, is more style than substance. CoinDesk reports eight companies filing and Quatrz comments on ten Bank of America’s patent applications publishing on December 17.

Leading patent recipient IBM is taking a more holistic approach to blockchain, integrating it under a recently announced new business unit, Industry Platforms, that includes cloud computing and artificial intelligence, and that will work closely with the financial services and other industries.

Industry Platforms will have company-wide responsibility for blockchain research and development, according to CoinDesk, in addition to helping foster open technology standards with the stated goal of accelerating market adoption. Project-based innovation leveraging open source technology has had great success in avoiding litigation in the core technology generated by these projects.

The new unit represents the next phase in IBM’s blockchain initiative, building on past activities that have resulted in a range of prototypes, and play a leading role in the Linux Foundation-led HyperLedger Project. In parallel and with the support of R3, HyperLedger is the largest and most organized Blockchain initiative.

“Truth Telling” Design

“Blockchain’s design prevents the owner of a currency token from committing fraud by spending it twice,” reports Bloomberg Business Week. “The first spend is recorded for all to see, so no one would ever accept a second spend.

alaindelorme-murmuration03“The truth-telling feature of blockchain makes it enormously useful to banks, which have been among the first to start testing it. Microsoft launched blockchain as a service last year. Smaller companies are building dozens of apps on blockchain, such as one for musicians to track and collect royalties on their works.”

“The poetic vision of a blockchain society is a flock of starlings at dusk: decentralized yet perfectly coordinated. Blockchainers like to show video clips of murmurations—those enormous clouds of birds that pivot and wheel, climb and dive, split and merge with amazing grace. Blockchain, in this vision, could replace gobs of bankers, accountants, and lawyers, as well as escrow accounts, insurance, and everything else that society invented pre-21st century to verify payments and the performance of contracts.”

Benefits for IP Holders 

The promise of blockchain to streamline important, voluminous tasks is uniquely important to IP holders. It could provide an opportunity to copyright and other IP dependent businesses and individuals (patent holders, too) to track and receive incremental payments that in the past were difficult to comprehend; blockchain could serve to minimize disputes in ways that the courts and PTAB have not.

Right now, no one really knows what blockchain has wrought or what it is capable of, but there is a strong feeling that the distributed public ledger technology can be a catalyst for new ways of doing business, and that IP rights will play a role. There are a lot of businesses pulling for blockchain to succeed, and hoping that it will be will be readily shared.

__________________

UPDATE:

A Goldman Sachs patent application, published by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on Sept. 8, 2016, was originally filed in March 2015. It outlines a distributed ledger that can process financial transactions in the foreign exchange market, reports Quartz. It’s Goldman’s first blockchain-related patent.

Image source: Goldman Sachs Global Research; businessinsider.com; mnn.com (Alain Delorme)

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Taylor Swift assists recording artists, Apple Music, and (even) herself

July 27, 2016 by Bruce Berman 0 Comments

Taylor Swift, a pop star with sufficient power to move mountains, succeeded in moving an equally resolute object last year: Apple Music’s position on paying royalties to recording artists. 

A year later it is unclear if was the musicians, Apple, or Swift who benefited the most.

A Wall Street Journal op-ed last week reminded us that there are more important things to cover other than Kardashian/West war of words that the combatants and media are jointly milking.

“In Support of Taylor Swift, Economist,“ Hong Kong based op-ed writer David Feith says,”Never mind the feud with Kanye West, the pop star has waged more important fights defending the value of intellectual property.”

Taylor-Swift-Apple-642x3611

The Top Earner

Forbes ranks Swift as the number one celebrity artist in 2016 with $170M in earnings. According to the magazine she is in the top 100 of self-made women and power women.

Swift has sought to champion the IP rights of recording artists by using her star power to assure that they (not she) are paid. That’s admirable, for sure, as the streaming services, Pandora, Spotify and YouTube, to name a few, have built valuable businesses without paying their fare share of artists royalties. (YouTube has been valued by Bank of America at $80 billion.)

But maybe Swift was at least somewhat motivated by dollars, not sense.

After outing Apple Music for refusing to pay artist royalties in a now infamous tumblr post, Swift wound up receiving not one but two spots from the company, promoting their new streaming service. I guess they were more interested in thanking her for the exposure than punishing her for the dis. Both ads went viral generating huge attention for Apple Music and her. Good timing, I guess.

Here is the latest Taylor Swift Apple Music ad, which generated more hits than most TV series (via Fortune).

Below is the original tumblr piece in which Swift challenged Apple – and the stream industry – to change their music rights policy. Swift won more than the argument, and so did Apple. The argument is well-stated:

http://taylorswift.tumblr.com/post/122071902085/to-apple-love-taylor

 Free-riders come in many shapes and sizes

“This may be the ‘information wants to be free’ era, when online content is glibly swiped by millions who would never dream of shoplifting,” said WSJ’s Feith, “but Ms. Swift has a deep appreciation for the profit motive and the fruits it bestows on society.

“Ms. Swift’s most ambitious [IP] crusade may be in China,” writes WSJ’s Feith, “where she has launched branded clothing lines with special anti-piracy mechanisms to combat rampant counterfeiting on e-commerce sites like Alibaba’s Taobao.”

Swift has been known to trademark not song or titles, but phrases from songs which can be used to build her brands and fashion portfolio.

*****

I hope that Taylor Swift invents something soon, so she can bring her loyal following and keen business instincts to patents and patent holders. They sure could use them. 

Image source: appadvice.com 

 

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Brody/Berman-mentored Fruti-Cycle wins LES business competition

May 2, 2016 by Bruce Berman 2 Comments

Fruiti-Cycle Project, an Ungandan start-up that has developed an affordable bio-gas powered, refrigerated tricycle that speeds to market delivery of fruits and vegetables, has won the Global Prize at the 2016 LES business plan competition. 

The business plan and presentations were mentored by Bruce Berman of Brody Berman Associates in the U.S., who helped to develop the IP strategy, which incorporates patents, trademarks and trade secrets. There also is the potential for franchise licensing.

The Fruti-Cycle is a biogas powered tricycle, with a 300kg carrying capacity refrigerated courier for conveniently and safely transporting fresh fruits and vegetable to the market. It is targeted at the 70% of small-scale farmers in developing world. The Fruti-Cycle Project team is led by Nelson Mandela of Makerere University, in Kampala, Uganda.

8680c43c-0c59-11e6-b472-0670855d2669Fruti-Cycle costs half the price of competitor Bajaj’s tricycle and easier to run. According to its designers it will earn revenue through direct sales ($800) +licensing fee ($8/month). With $50,000 initial cost, it provides a 15.6% return on investment in the second year.

With subsidies from the government, partnerships with local farmers’ organizations and international organizations, Fruiti-Cycle will obtain a sustainable competitive advantage to create cheaper better model to supply the local market and scale to international market within five years.

More about the Fruti-Cycle Project, team and business plan, can be found here.

For additional information, go here.

Competition sponsors included Article One Partners, Relecura, Traklight and Knobbe Martens law firm. The Global Prize includes a cash award.

Image source: tffchallenge.com

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LES members have until Monday to vote on business plan competition

April 22, 2016 by Bruce Berman 0 Comments

FThe LES Foundation International Business Plan Competition Members’ Choice award will conclude on Monday, April 25. LES members who have not voted still can.

Competitor videos can be viewed and rated here by using the star system (5 stars being best).

Votes are logged as soon as you click on the stars – five stars being the highest. You may return to the page and change your vote, if you wish. It is not necessary to give a rating to all of the teams.

The online voting has been extended to Monday, April 25th at Midnight PDT. The winner will be announced during the LES 2016 PanAm Meeting.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Your intrepid IP CloseUp reporter, Bruce Berman, had the privilege of mentoring two of the finalists, Guardian Sensors from Austin, TX and Fruity-Cycle Project from Uganda.

Both businesses are led by bright young entrepreneurs with good, IP-influenced business plans. Please take a moment and vote!

LES-15-Grad-Stdnt-Bus-Plan-Comp-banner-550x173-FINAL

 

Image source: lesusacanada.org

 

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Family App Developer Says it’s the Victim of a Patent “Troll” — Research Indicates Otherwise

February 9, 2015 by Bruce Berman 0 Comments

When it comes to invention rights (patents) it is often difficult to determine who is a victim and who is merely promoting its agenda.

Life360, which markets the world’s largest family tracking app, says it is being unfairly targeted by what it calls a patent troll, Advanced Ground Information Systems Inc.(AGIS).  SF-based Life360, which has raised $50 million from security giant ADT, says it wasting its capital on defending itself from AGIS, a company that makes tracking equipment and software for the military and first responders. But that is only part of the story.

In a video interview  last week on Bloomberg News, Life360 CEO Chris Hulls, a former Goldman Sachs banker who spent time in the U.S. Air Force, said that “We believe it to be meritless suit from a troll. Life360 is helping people. Our product is one that saves lives, and its ridiculous that we have to defend ourselves in court.”

Life360-300x119

In a letter from Life360 to AGIS, Hulls wrote: “Dear Piece of S***, We are in the process of retaining counsel and investigating this matter… I will pray that karma is real and that you are its worthy recipient.”

In the patent world holders and their patents are not always as good or bad, or right or wrong, as they might appear. The “bad” guys in licensing are sometimes bottom-feeders looking for a quick payout given the high price of litigation, but, more often than not, they are legitimate holders of valid patents that are being used without authorization. Infringers sometimes invent four of five-letter words terms for those who expect to be paid for their inventions. Thus, it may be opportune for a a business edit the story to suit its needs. This appears to be the case with Life360.

The Court of Public Opinion currently is a more powerful ally to a patent infringer than it is to a small holder whose rights have been violated. Patent infringement is not a victimless crime. Unfortunately, it is not always clear who the real victim is.

Inventor-owned Patents

Envision IP, a law firm which focuses on patent research, says that it is unlikely that AGIS is a “troll.”

“The four patents it asserted against Life360 list AGIS as the original assignee – so these patents were not purchased or acquired by the company,” said Maulin Shah, Managing Attorney. “The suit is filed in the Southern District of Florida, apparently in AGIS’s backyard, and does not appear to have pursued an
explicitly patent-friendly jurisdiction like Texas, Delaware of the Eastern District of Virginia.” (The suit lists Jupiter, FL the company’s address.)

Envision IP, which conducts invalidity studies, says that the complaint against Life360 is the only patent infringement lawsuit currently filed by AGIS, and it has not asserted its patents against any other companies. (Life360 is one of 25 defendants sued by an NPE called Remote Locater Systems LLC.) Also, AGIS appears to be an active operating company that has been filing annual reports since 2004. “It does not seem that the entity was formed as a shell used solely for patent licensing/enforcement purposes,” says patent attorney Shah.

Additionally, AGIS is represented by Kenyon & Kenyon, a highly respected law firm known for defending large operating companies, like Bosch and Siemens. Kenyon represents precious few if any plaintiffs, and it is highly unlikely that it would agree to represent AGIS if the case were truly meritless. But, then, you never know.

Life360 to the Defense

Life360 Inc. said last week that it will provide legal support for other small companies sued by Advanced Ground Information Systems Inc. So far, according to Envision IP, it does not appear that any logohave. Jupiter, Florida-based AGIS sued Life360 in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida, in May 2014, accusing the California company of infringing four patents related to mobile-phone communication.

In a Feb. 3 statement, Life360 said that in addition to assisting others who are accused of infringing the disputed patents, it has filed a countersuit (click on View Complaint) in federal court in San Jose, California, accusing AGIS of marking all of its products with its patents regardless of whether the patent contains a claim covering the product. Life360 is represented by the Bergeson, LLP, a Silicon Valley law firm, in that matter. It is unclear who is representing it in defending against the patent suit.

According to PandoDaily six-year old Life360 has now raised a total of $76 million from more than a dozen investors that include Duchossois Capital Partners, BMW i Ventures, Facebook, Google, Expansion Venture Capital, DCM, and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Potential for an Injunction

Perhaps Life360’s greatest fear – and hence its high-profile defense – is that if AGIS can show that it is an operating company, and one that supports the military and first responders,  it can potentially use an injunction to stop Life360 from selling its app, effectively shutting the company down. Much of this could be saber-rattling to enhance the parties’ respective negotiating position. But for Life360 its defense in the AGIS suit may indeed be a bet-the-company-matter.

According to the complaint (page 3), AGIS’s founder, Malcolm Beyer Jr, who is named as an inventor on the asserted patents, is a former Marine, and graduate of the US Naval Academy. He developed AGIS’ patented technology “shortly after September 11, 2001.” The commercial product based on the patents is called LifeRing. (The page explains the product features and provides a market comparison.) 

Whatever the outcome, going public with a “damn-the-troll” defense, as Life360 has, is looking old and worn, even if it can still sometimes work. Allegations like those are outside the merits of the case, and from the preliminary research, will be difficult to prove.

Image source: agisinc.com; articleonepartners.com

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Video Interview: “Investor Pressure Helped to Secure Rockstar Deals”

January 2, 2015 by Bruce Berman 0 Comments

Opportunities still exist to monetize patents for those willing to do their homework and adjust expectations, veteran patent licensing executive Bob Bramson, a WiLAN director, told IP CloseUp in an exclusive interview.

There is a common theme running through Rockstar’s recent $188M settlement with Cisco, its litigation against Asian handset makers, including Samsung, and sale of 4,000 patents to a group led by RPX for $900M: Patent holders with solid patents and realistic expectations can still find success.

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Despite impediments like IPRs, software-adverse decisions like CLS Bank v. Alice, and aggressive anti-NPE lobbying, significant patent agreements are stilling being transacted. The key to their success, says Bramson, who is responsible for more than 1,000 patent licenses and sales over a 40 year career, is quality and need.

“Licensing is about money,” says the patent attorney and strategist who was recorded in our offices in late December. “Surely, the sugar-plum visions of a few years ago need to be rethought, but that does not mean there aren’t good opportunities out there for those willing to conduct the necessary due diligence. Patent monetization is about risk and reward, and if after careful analysis the potential damages are still there, then you at least have the basis of discussion. The last thing a patent monetizer wants to do is win the battle but lose the war.

“Rumor has it that the Rockstar deal got done because of pressures exerted by some of their investors, notably Apple and Microsoft. There is a complex network of relationships and needs that fuel agreements between big parties, and direct revenue is frequently only a part of it.”

Patent Value in Perspective

While it’s difficult to calculate the precise current value of Rockstar (the company) based on its December 23rd patent sale to RPX, it is safe to say that it is a quarter to a half of the $4.5B that it’s investors, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Ericsson, EMC and

Screen Shot 2014-12-29 at 10.41.00 AMBlackberry, paid in 2011. That said, $1B to $2B value on a single patent portfolio in the current anti-enforcement environment is nothing to sneeze at.

These investors also had complex needs and unique resources, the most important of which appeared to be keeping the patents out of Google’s hands. In Apple and Microsoft’s case, they also had huge amounts of cash on their balance sheet to deploy.

“I expect that there will be a clearing out of patent monetization businesses in the next couple of years,” continues Bramson, who founded and served as CEO of InterDigital Technology Corp. “But that’s not to say there aren’t still opportunities out there. Smartphones are one of many industries that rely on patents to compete. Sectors like medical technology and smart cars are heating up, and 3-D printing is likely to be huge.”

Watch the interview with Bob Bramson by clicking here.

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Image source: IP CloseUp 

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