Sunday, April 23, 2017
Monday, May 4, 2015
Week 12 Blog #4: My Expectations for Change in the Patent Industry As I Become a Professional
One issue that this course has gotten me passionate about is the role of trolls in the American economic system. Patents drive business, they are the lifeblood of companies ranging from multinational corporations to small start-ups in the garages and basements of individuals. As a burgeoning entrepreneur, the one entity that truly frightens me in my quest to create are patent trolls. A company that exists solely to take advantage of the innovation conducted by other companies should be an entity that is deemed illegal by our justice system. Unfortunately, this sort of rationale is not present and smaller companies become the prey and eventual fatalities of the actions by these trolls.
My expectation with the issue of trolls is that the government continues to address their impact on not just individual companies, but on the American economy as a whole. How can companies exist when they are consistently underneath the microscope of those who seek to simply find loopholes to take advantage of them? What kind of free-market world is this where companies don't even have the opportunity to develop? The AIA Act passed in 2012 by Congress was a good first step, but there is so much more to be done in terms of litigation and dealing with patent trolls.
I am hopeful that some sort of major legislation comes out sooner than later that will reduce the effects and existence of these trolls. We have already seen progress within the federal government, only to be stalled by the lobbyists in Washington hired by these trolls, but nonetheless this is an issue that is growing in prevalence. The matter of how our legal system will deal with these trolls is not simply a curiosity of mine, but a major influence in how I will go about in terms of conducting business in my future career. I will undoubtedly keep up with the developments of this ongoing battle and fully expect that within the next year or two, we will have a stricter form of legislation designed to stimulate innovation through putting a muzzle on these trolls that have caused a countless amount of damage to thousands of individuals and companies. It is time a stand is taken against these agitators.
Week 12 Blog #3: How My Personal Skills Improved Through Collaborative Learning
I've learned a lot of qualitative and quantitative knowledge through this course about patent litigation and the issues present within our current system, but one thing I wanted to note was how some of my more intrinsic, personal skills improved through both our class discussions and homework. There are as follows.
1. Communication
I never posted a YouTube recording of myself before and certainly never made a recording for something that was academic related on my YouTube account. One of the things this course taught me was effectively using social media, and specifically the video functions of it, to communicate to an audience outside of the traditional pen and paper. My first videos were filled with long pauses, moments of silence as I tried to think of what to say next, and general frustration on my end on how to make the perfect video. Through the critique of my peers, I learned that no video was ever going to be perfect in the sense of perfection that I sought, but the most important thing was to clearly convey my thoughts and opinions to my peers so that they would at least understand my material. I would write my blog posts before I made my videos and would attempt to summarize these posts prior to recording, which eased my transition to recording myself. Rather than read a long post that anyone could simply open up on my blog, I decided to intersperse separate thoughts, opinions, and questions in my videos to keep my audience engaged. And most importantly, I learned to shorten my videos and maintain them in a concise manner so my audience had a definitive understanding of the topic that I was presenting. The video aspect of this class played a major role in improving my communication skills.
2. Writing
Blogs are not your traditional essay formats. Frankly, the way I saw it, blogs could feature any format that was most comfortable for you. But what I sought to do in my blogs were to really go in-depth and attempt to present my information in a clear and logistical manner. Initially my blog posts would feature generic statements not really backed up with too much substance, but as the semester progressed, I noticed how my blog posts would feature more details whether it be facts around a certain case, quantitative trends that caught my eye that I could throw into a post, or just going more in-depth in explaining why I felt a certain way about an issue relating to patent litigation. The blogs were a good informal setting for me to improve my writing skills in a way that I could better communicate heavy amounts of information in a manner that was clear to my audience and was different from the traditional norm we are accustomed to in academia.
3. Participation
I normally sit in the front of most of my classes, but I rarely ever participate because I'm typically frightened by the prospect of blurting our the wrong answer or because participation doesn't have any sort of impact on my grade. Seeing the importance of participation in this class initially for my grade really got me to raise my hand as often as I could in the semester, but I see my learning experience was also enhanced by this. Yes, in many cases my analysis would typically be faulty or incomplete, but I felt that I was consistently corrected and I actually understood the material better through making these mistakes through thinking out loud. By the end of the semester, I was more eager to participate and did so because although in many cases, I didn't know whether my logic was correct, by putting it out there, I could see how I analyzed certain issues correctly and where I could improve my overall line of thinking and I think this emphasis on participation for this class really demonstrated to me the importance of participation not just for the learning experience of the class, but for myself personally.
Week 12 Blog #2: On the Value of IEOR 190G
To be honest, when I first signed up for this class, I had no idea of what I was getting into. I didn't quite understand the syllabus initially, I didn't understand if there would be any technical material in this course, and I didn't understand how a business major with no intention of going to law school would ever really need to use patent law and an understanding of patents for my future career. For me this class initially sounded very vague and I was quite hesitant about whether this was the right class for me to take. Having gone through over 12 weeks of IEOR 190G, my mindset has undergone a full 360.
I believe the beauty of this class lies in its ability to connect to all the different spheres of the tech world and the individuals involved to showcase how patents truly dictate the evolution of our society. Coming in and leaving this class, my immediate ambition after graduation lies working with technology services and institutions in either a consulting or investment banking analyst role. While these industries are indeed number driven and focus a lot on the quantitative and qualitative nature of their businesses, I never realized how patents drive the existence of these tech companies first and foremost. When I recently went to a conference a few weeks ago for individuals interested in investment banking, speaking to professionals in the industry, one of the key components they spoke about when it came to the valuation of companies was about the patent portfolio of these tech companies. The importance of patents for so many people in so many separate industries really surprised me throughout this course and for someone who desires to be involved in the tech industry in my future, this course taught me that the foundational structure of any tech company revolves around that company's patent portfolio.
The reason I would suggest this class to my peers is because of its cross-functional utility for so many different industries. It doesn't matter whether your an engineer, business major, or pre-med, patents apply to so many different fields of study and I feel that this is definitely a course useful for whatever field of study a person is in. But I would not recommend this course simply because of the usefulness of the course for future careers. There are many courses at Berkeley that are offered that are useful for our future careers, but what separates this course is the learning experience. We are consistently challenged in class when answering questions, pushed in our homework to provide clear analysis and understanding of patent law, and have our work critiqued by our own peers. This learning experience is eye-opening and forces you to learn in a new style that improves your sense of interpreting patents and using deductive reasoning to come to conclusions. That is why I would suggest this class to my peers. The unique experience behind it differentiates it from so many courses offered at our great university.
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Week 12 Blog #1: On Collaborative Learning Through Social Media
I feel one of the ongoing issues in higher education that we face today is the attempted individualistic, divided nature of work. The idea of "my work" comes before the thought of "our work". In life, nothing can be done without using the foundational precedents that are already in place. When we craft a research paper, we use sources. When we solve a physics or statistics problem, we utilize the earlier formulas and theories derived by those in the field. When we seek to create a product, we take bits and pieces of the prior art that came before our finished product. Yet from the beginning of our academic careers, we're taught to be individualistic, to showcase our thoughts and ideas as wholly independent from the thoughts and ideas of others.
One of the reasons I enjoyed this class was the fact that Professor Lavian attempted to break through this form of learning that had been instilled in our minds for so long. When comparing my earlier work in the semester to the blog posts and YouTube videos I produce now, I credit my improvement to collaborative nature of this class through social media. The beauty and value of social media exists in its ability for individuals to clearly convey their opinions and thoughts in an engaging matter. I don't know if this applies to all in the class, but for me, I took the comments I received on both my blog posts and YouTube videos quite seriously. How I convey my thoughts and how others perceive the quality of this ability are two components I truly sought to understand through this social media activity. I would take all the feedback from my peers, whether it concerned the volume of my speech in the videos or my inability to properly go more in depth on my opinion concerning certain components of my posts, and attempt to structure my work more so to their liking and opinions.
I found the value of learning through social media to be astounding because of for the first time, I could quickly find out how to improve not only the learning experience of others, but the learning experience of my own self. The succinct, concise nature of social media keeps individuals engaged and really helps make points clear in a manner that differs from the traditional, obtuse form of learning we have become so accustomed to throughout the years. My opinions, thoughts, and ideas were influenced by my peers and I really felt that social media connected all of us in a way that it took the larger concepts that we were studying and broke it down to the point where we could all collaboratively form a pool of ideas and pick and match what ideas best fit along with our ideologies. It would be wonderful if a greater number of professors utilized this form of learning as for the first time, I felt I could ask my peers to see their own opinions and meld these thoughts with my own to create stronger arguments. In classes where concepts can be tricky and sometimes not as clear to understand, I think this form of collaborative learning through social media really helps breaking down obtuse concepts and allowing for students to thrive not as individuals, but as a group. But the way to truly make this a constructive concept requires students to truly buy into this initiative. In this class, I know as a group we were all fortunate enough to see so many students focused and engaged in their blogs and videos that really assisted everyone in terms of their learning. That is how this initiative can succeed. When students provide constructive, critical commentary that provides debates, that causes disagreements, and brings to light new ideas others had not come up with before is how collaborative learning through social media can succeed. Right now we have the tools, but as students and lecturers, we have to truly buy in to make these tools work.
Friday, April 24, 2015
Week 11 Blog #4: Patent Advice for Small Companies
In Ms. Kasznik's lecture she quoted that a patent serves as a strategic asset that can be used as leverage in any situation and that for small companies and start-ups, their advantage in filing patents was the fact that they have the ability to innovate faster than most larger companies who are primarily focused on defending the patents they already possess. While looking more in-depth into this fact, I happened to come upon an article published by Todd Hixon of Forbes who argues that for most small companies, patents are just about worthless. Mr. Hixon writes that many entrepreneurs misunderstand the value patents create and how difficult they are to enforce.
I believe patent owners struggle with understanding that patents function more so as an attacking mechanism rather than a defensive tool in the sense that patent owner are free to go after those parties they feel are infringing upon certain elements within their patent, but the patent doesn't give the owner the right to develop that technology solely without any interference from other parties. We see this in the multiple patents we have reviewed over this course such as the numerous patents for a beverage cup protector that essentially were patents that were all quite similar, but had a few differing characteristics that made each one non-obvious and novel.
The issue for small companies however is the fact that there exists so many blockades to them filing patents for their work or simply getting their business off of the ground. Mr. Hixon gives the example of a small company where the product design might be protected by a patent, but the manufacturing process might be subject to another company's "blocking" patent. Furthermore, smaller companies in the information technology world are attacked by the broad patent portfolios of larger companies and with the major players in the market dominating this patent pool, new entrants are left in the cold.
With all these factors in play, Mr. Hixon provides some suggestions for small technology companies to help them grow outside of a reliance on their patents. Some suggestions include not basing a company's business strategy on patents, filing patents in the U.S. and not beyond that, paying close attention to patents that others hold which might enable competitors to block you, and build business on real competitive advantages such as product value-in-use, customer relationships, and rapid innovation. While Mr. Hixon provides some good advice in this matter, I still believe patents have a good amount of value for small companies in terms of defending their products and getting noticed on the map by big competitors who might seek to buy them out. While there are certain risks associated with attempting to base a business model off of patents, I wouldn't say patents are completely worthless to these small companies.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Week 11 Blog #3: Comparison of IP Rights
In the early part of her lecture, Ms. Kasznik provided certain insight into the different forms of intellectual property and what made each form unique. I will proceed to go into an in-depth analysis of these different types of IP and what makes each one unique from the other.
1. Copyrights
Copyrights are original works of authorship: literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, etc. They are guaranteed automatic protection and last throughout the author's life along with an additional 70 years. Copyright provides a framework for relationships between the different players in the content industries, as well as for relationships between rights-holders and the consumers of content.
Copyright protection subsists in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression from which they be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. In essence, the purpose of the copyright is to promote the progress of useful arts and science by protecting the exclusive right of authors and inventors to benefit from their works of authorship.
2. Trademarks
Trademarks are the word, name, symbol, device used in trade to distinguish goods. Two basic requirements must be met for a trademark to be eligible for protection: it must be in use in commerce and it must be distinctive.
There is no expiration as long as the trademark is used commercially. The purpose of trademarks are for companies to protect their brands. When a company trademarks a logo or name, it is essentially ensuring that others will not steal or mimic the original company's identity. Certain companies are identifiable by certain defining aspects of their products through symbols, names, or words and trademarks ensure that this brand is allowed to exist without the interference of others stealing and diluting the established brand name.
3. Trade Secrets
Trade secrets are business items/info that are of economic value and kept confidential. There is no need to show novelty or to disclose to the public and there exists the need to take measures to keep confidential. The lifespan of trade secrets are indefinite and their purpose is to protect a company's most valuable product from being infringed on.
4. Patents
Patents are the right to exclude others from making, using or selling products covered by invention in a defined territory, a constitutional property right as defined by Ms. Kasznik. As we've discussed before on numerous occasions patents must be novel, non-obvious, reduced to practice, and features territorial protection for up to 20 years from filing.
There exists four types of patents that the USPTO has established:
- Utility Patent: Issued for the invention of a new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or a new and useful improvement thereof, it generally permits its owner to exclude others from making, using, or selling the invention. Approximately 90% of patent documents issued by the USPTO have been utility patents.
- Design Patent: Issued for a new, original, and ornamental design embodied in or applied to an article of manufacture, it permits its owner to exclude others from making, using, or selling the design for a period of fourteen years from the date of patent grant.
- Plant Patent: Issued for a new and distinct, invented or discovered asexually reproduced plant including cultivated sports, mutants, hybrids, and newly found seedlings.
- Reissue Patent: Issued to correct an error in an already issued utility, design, or plant patent, it does not affect the period of protection offered by the original patent.
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