Photo-sharing website Pinterest has been a rising star in the social media world in recent months, garnering significant interest from curious users and technology industry observers. But as the site continues to grow in popularity, it may soon face an unavoidable question pertaining to copyright management.
According to the MIT Technology Review, the site has been able to claim "safe harbor" under provisions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and has essentially shifted the burden of intellectual property management to Pinterest users and original content creators. Website administrators have established a system for flagging potentially infringing content, but it is up to third parties to set this process in motion.
However, as more businesses incorporate the site into their marketing campaigns, pressure to provide more thorough intellectual property reporting could be on tap.
Experts insist that continued growth will inspire a deeper examination and possible reform of Pinterest's copyright management policies. According to the Verge, YouTube's overwhelming popularity forced it to develop an aggressive content takedown policy to remain in compliance with DMCA standards. Similar moves from Pinterest, however, could be disruptive to the company's fundamental business model of fast, simple and free sharing.
Commercialization and Licensing Processes and Management
Intellectual property experts have long wondered about the variety of external factors that may cross the minds of patent examiners during deliberation. A recent collaboration between Cornell University professor Michael Frakes and University of Illinois professor Melissa Wasserman may have added new intrigue to the debate, with research suggesting that the structure of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's funding framework may play a significant role in the patent approval process.
Frakes and Wasserman analyzed data sets before and after 1991 – the year in which the USPTO became primarily funded by user fees – to derive the first empirical study of its kind.
"Our findings suggest that the agency's fee structure biases the PTO toward granting patents," the researchers concluded. "The evidence is [also] consistent with a view that distortions in the PTO granting patterns are more likely to occur when the agency is financially constrained."
As PatentlyO contributor Jason Rantanen noted, this could be creating unintended bias, such as the tendency to grant patents associated with larger enterprises over the applications of smaller firms.
This research may add a new layer of debate over the USPTO's recently released proposals for a revised fee structure. It is interesting to note, for example, that patent maintenance fees are on track to grow by 42 percent, 26 percent and 61 percent between the third and 12th years of a patent's lifecycle.
Intellectual Property Activities and Management
University research has spawned some of the more impressive inventions in recent memory, and it appears that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is keen to call upon this engine of innovation once again and work with academic institutions to flatten regulatory hurdles standing in their way.
In a recent interview with the National Academy of Inventors, USPTO associate commissioner for innovation and development Richard Maulsby expressed his interest in serving as an advocate for American academic progress. The agency spokesman pledged to continue his working relationship with the NAI community and suggested that his office has a number of outreach initiatives, such as round table discussions and workshops, geared toward the interests of colleges and universities.
"Such support from associate commissioner Maulsby and his colleagues will likely further encourage more institutions to consider more seriously the benefits of faculty innovation," University of South Florida researcher Paul Sandberg explained in a statement.
The potential implications of the recently passed America Invents Act is expected to be one area in which university patent teams will embrace USPTO guidance. Colorado State University director of technology transfer Todd Healey recently asserted that the move to a first to file framework could place an increased burden on his office. In an interview with the Coloradoan, Healey suggested that the change could cut down on patent prosecution in the future, but university staff will have to be all the more diligent in filing their initial claims.
Innovation Processes and Management
A new study from the National Science Foundation has revealed that most businesses are prioritizing intellectual property protection for their trademarks and trade secrets over copyrights and patents.
NSF researchers made use of data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau to inform its own Business R&D and Innovation Survey – a report drawing on the responses of approximately 40,000 American companies in manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries.
Overall, just 15 percent of respondents described trademarks as "very" or "somewhat" important to their businesses. Similar feelings were expressed regarding copyrights and patents at rates of 12 percent and 5 percent, respectively.
These findings have come as somewhat of a surprise to analysts considering the durable value of intellectual assets.
"Much of today's business derives its competitive advantage from the ability to protect and exploit exclusive rights over investments in intellectual property," noted NSF lead report author John Jankowski. "Hence, IP protection is a persistent and recurrent concern of businesses."
There were several outliers in the statistics, however, representing a notable uptick in IP activity. Respondents in the publishing sector acknowledged the importance of copyright protection, for example, while computer and electronics manufacturers were more intent on bolstering their patent portfolios.
Intellectual Property Activities and Management
The threat of bankruptcy is one of the more daunting parts of running a business, but all companies must prepare for such a contingency and determine how intellectual property management strategies could be affected if they or a business partner fall on hard times.
"It is common for debtors to seek authority to sell assets or seek determination on key business issues on an expedited basis such that parties-in-interest may have only a matter of days or weeks to respond," noted attorney John La Liberte in a recent guest column for Corporate Counsel. "In short, bankruptcy can be a minefield for the uninitiated."
This is of particular interest to patent holders and intellectual property licensors engaged in ongoing business relations with a debtor that is contemplating a liquidation of its assets. According to La Liberte, joint ownership claims can be especially thorny, as a bankrupt business partner may sell away its rights to a third party and threaten the interests of the original owner if it is slow to respond.
As Eastman Kodak continues to plot its course through bankruptcy proceedings, its intellectual property portfolio has been a primary topic of conversation. According to Reuters, the company recently took advantage of bankruptcy law provisions to abandon its naming rights to the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, a 20-year agreement originally worth $74 million when signed in 2000. Company officials contend that a continued liquidation of its intellectual assets may be the only way to turn Kodak's fortunes.
Intellectual Property Activities and Management
Clean technology has been a buzzword echoing in the minds of political leaders, economists and environmental advocates for several years, but a recent flurry of patenting activity among sustainable energy pioneers suggests that noble concepts are finally turning into material innovations.
Solar energy continues to dominate the conversation, according to Environmental Leader contributor John Lazurus, accounting for more than 30 percent of all patents granted in the cleantech space between 2008 and 2010. Wind power and hybrid vehicles have also garnered respectable shares of intellectual property interest, yet each of the three still retains a fair amount of "patentable white space," according to Lazurus, that could provide avenues for powerful investments.
With innovators barely scratching the surface of smart grid, geothermal, nuclear and biofuel IP potential, cleantech could soon see a swell of patent applicants hoping to be the first to file inventions that could transform the way industries and nations generate and distribute energy.
According to GigaOM, patent disputes in the cleantech industry have not reached the level of hostility seen in the mobile technology sector, but that could soon change as competition becomes more fierce. Earlier in the month, Honeywell's patent team filed suit against upstart smart thermostat manufacturer Nest, suggesting that industry veterans are already taking stock of their patent portfolios to ensure smaller competitors are not getting a leg up on crowding the marketplace.
Intellectual Property Activities and Management
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has released an initial proposal detailing how it plans to utilize its newly gained authority to set its own fees. While a number of businesses have been distressed by some of the planned fee increases, intellectual property experts insist that the ends may justify the means in the quest to improve patent quality.
Patent management teams around the country have been crunching the numbers contained in the USPTO fee change proposal in an effort to determine exactly what the legislation could mean for their operations. According to an independent analysis conducted by Bloomberg Government, large companies would pay approximately 47 percent more to apply for and register a patent.
But despite increased sensitivity to price changes in a time of economic uncertainties, some IP analysts are taking the agency at its word and acknowledging that such fees will be necessary to increase USPTO hiring and pare down a massive national patent backlog.
"There should be no question that now is the right time to have a discussion about the benefits of investing in further improvements in patent quality and the potential costs of delaying that investment," explained Microsoft patent attorney Horacio Gutierrez in a recent company blog post.
According to PatentlyO, the forthcoming debate could help the patent community face vital questions such as the importance of maintaining a reserve fund for three-month's worth of USPTO operating expenses and for establishing transparency and accountability for internal investments.
Intellectual Property Activities and Management
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has circulated three draft guidance documents concerning its role in facilitating the development of biosimilar products. Experts are suggesting that the newly released provisions could affect everything from invention disclosure to trade secrets management within the dynamic pharmaceutical industry.
The FDA defines a biosimilar product as one that is "highly similar" to an already-approved biological product, yet retains minor differences in the structure of its clinically inactive components. This classification is distinct from generic versions of over-the-counter drugs which essentially differ in name only and are regarded as therapeutically interchangeable.
With the government agency in support of the inherent cost-efficiency of qualified biosimilar products, the pharmaceutical industry is on alert.
"Manufacturing processes are patent eligible, but require disclosure of all information about how the invention is enabled," explained Mass High Tech columnist Lori Valigra in her latest column. "But that opens the door for competitors to look at the details and design around them."
As a result, Valigra envisions pharmaceutical companies revisiting their trade secrets management protocols to potentially hide their innovations from biosimilar competitors.
As the FDA awaits public comment on its draft guidance, the scientific factors considered by the patent review committee could attract the most attention, according to Patent Docs. The structure of independent safety reviews and the operational definition of clinical significance, for example, remain open to interpretation.
Innovation Processes and Management
As Apple, Google, Microsoft and others continue to vie for supremacy in the mobile device market, it has become clear the intellectual assets will play a central role in the future of the industry. With Google's proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility still navigating the final hurdles before approval, competitors have suggested that the search engine giant could gain an unfair advantage from its strategy of licensing intellectual property obtained in the deal.
According to PCWorld, Google hopes to retain the ability to block the sale of goods that potentially infringe upon standard essential patent licensing agreements until matters of litigation are resolved, thus shifting the burden of proof to licensees. Microsoft and others contend that such moves would degrade the quality of consumer offerings and inhibit industry competition through the threat of injunction.
In a letter to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Google deputy general counsel Allen Lo stated that the company "appreciates the IEEE's important role in industry standard setting" and would honor commitments made by Motorola Mobility and continue licensing the standard essential patents in its possession and collecting associated royalties.
Such patents have already been used to ban the sale of Apple mobile devices in Germany, according to PCWorld, and similar injunctions could become a staple of Google's intellectual property strategy. With that in mind, Apple is also pushing for a reevaluation of the pricing terms associated with standard essential patent licenses.
Commercialization and Licensing Processes and Management
Late last month, the World Health Organization unveiled a road map for eradicating tropical diseases that will involve the open exchange of intellectual property between nearly a dozen global corporations. But while increased access to pharmaceutical patent libraries is expected to drive clinical innovation, it remains to be seen if practice will live up to theory.
The WHO has recruited financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, governments of the United States; United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates and the World Bank in its quest to eliminate 17 tropical diseases by 2020. But perhaps more valuable will be the sharing of expertise and biological compounds between medical researchers.
Although the initiative has attracted attention from a wide variety of interested observers, some have begun to wonder if the project retains rigorous scientific standards.
The answer, according to Nature columnist Daniel Cressey, is a "cautious yes." The open patent strategy adopted by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, for example, has yielded the release of details surrounding more than 13,000 proprietary molecules that have shown promise in malaria treatments. With more eyes scanning the results of past trials, researchers expect to see even faster drug optimization.
However, the data sets presented for interpretation may have been sanitized of clinical failures, according to Cressey, as a result of companies screening out potentially "undesirable traits in molecules." With potentially misleading information released into the public domain, the consequences could be clinically dangerous.
Intellectual Property Activities and Management
