Getting Hired in the IP Field [PTO Stats]

There is nothing better then data...said no one...ever. However, I think lawyers should have a keen eye to trends, and trends only make sense with data.  The patent office is a great resource to uncover strategies and long term trends in the field (and in American innovation in general). Below are some patent stats for 2012.

It is interesting that slightly more than half of all the applications filed in the US, originated from inventors in foreign countries. The take away is that foreign filing in the US is a serious source of work and revenue for firms, large and small (there is a reason I go to Japan once a year). However, one could argue that Americans have lost the edge in their own patent office. When you break out the foreign countries into their own catagory, the situations becomes more interesting.

Japan, once the second largest economy in the world, is still the second largest filer of Applications in the US. In contrast, China (PRC), is the world's second largest economy, but is tied with Canada for the amount of applications filed in the U.S. Over time, these number will begin to reflect the rise of China on the global stage, but the concern that China is already at the front, is a bit misplaced.


Lastly, the estimated number of active patent practitioners is 26,000. So, when you calculate the total number of applications filed by the number of active practitioners, you get 20.8 Applications per practitioner. Seeing that some of these applications are pro se, some companies have hundreds of applications filed by a small team, the number of applications per attorney or agent is actually quite small. I will let you draw your own conclusions on what that means for the prospects for new lawyers.

Why you had a hard time getting an IP job 2009

Not my children, but they raise an interesting point

There was [is] a misconception that "IP" people and especially "Patent" people land on their feet after a traumatic work event.

In most cases these traumatic work events are solitary affairs to be met with stoicism when they arrive, and laughed off once gainful employment is once again obtained.   Job loss, it should be noted,  is not uncommon. It is definitely not uncommon in late 20th / early 21st century America. In general this theory holds true, with a strong caveat concerning Bio-background patent prosecutors (a situation which I have addressed before). Engineering background IP practitioners have generally found it easy to obtain new employment.

However, at the tail end of 2008 and well into 2009 and beyond, there was a uncommon tightness in the IP employment market for all background. This tightness didn't comport with the conventional wisdom about IP.

Conventional wisdom held that IP slightly a-cyclical or even lightly counter-cyclical to the overall business market. If IP was influenced by the broader economy, it was the result of companies exploiting their IP to the full extent possible in a difficult market. This theory held that lots of new applications, litigation and diligence work would be generated in a mild downturn as people companies and organizations attempted to maximize license fees, infringement judgements and acquisitions.  Litigation and diligence can be the topic of a different post.

Here we take a look at the wisdom as applied to applications, and find it lacking.


source: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/10/where-americas-inventors-ara/7069/

As evidenced by the chart title, the above graphs the number of application filings by US inventors per year.  Instead of seeing a steady churn in work, we see an inflection point, then a steep and accelerating drop off until 2010.

What this chart shows is that "peak-application" (like peak-oil) hit sometime before anyone was actually aware a problem was brewing. As 2007 transitioned into 2008, the trend accelerated such that applications were approaching free-fall in by the end of 2008.

However, if people remember correctly, the Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy did not hit the news until September of 2008.  So this drop off was not the result of the economic collapse that erupted in the wake of Lehman, but was part of the systemic breakdown which caused it. While everyone was keeping their eyes glued to the "market", IP watchers should have been analyzing the IP "market".

The second chart below breaks this data out to the highest regional markets for patent applications.


As far back as 2005, there was a leveling off in the application filings. This would have been the point to consolidate and solidify staffing levels. Instead, 2007 saw some of the largest summer associate class sizes. New York suffered severely. From a pre-2007 height of  over 1,000,000 applications to a current number of just over 600,000; New York had seen a 50% reduction in filings. By 2011 the IP filing market was only 10-20 % off the lows.

A 50% reduction in patent work in New York means a lot less law firms getting paid, and a lots less associates on the firm's rosters.

What these two charts show is that triggering event for the Great Recession (Lehman Bankruptcy ) was not the triggering event for the decline in patent filings. The gears were already in motion back in 2006.  The reasons for the run up and crash are likely as varied as reasons for the crash in the broader market; over-supply, irrational belief that history always points upward, empire building at the cost of sustainability. Any, and likely all, of these factors played into the massive disruptions that gripped law firms in 2009-2010. (see Towsand, Morgan, Darby et al.)

Firms are not quick to innovate in the best of times. Facing a 50% drop in work load, billings, and profits is not the best of time. All of this conspired to make it difficult to get a job in the IP field in 2009. Thankfully, the broader market is slowly improving.

As the line representing new filings continues on its upward march, we would do well to keep a close eye on the movements and metrics of our own "market" s well as the broader market.

Infringement frequency pushback

As a quick post, the following chart is presented from Google's fantastic Ngram viewer.

First, a bit of information regarding Ngram. The viewer is one of those Google 20% projects (i.e. not a core google product) that came out of the Google's massive data trove generated when it optically scanned libraries worth of print books. This scanning was itself not without controversy. See here.

The viewer allows you to search for the frequency of a word, or phrase, and see how that phrase has changed over time.  This allows for hours spent traveling down the internet time sink looking for interesting word / data combinations.

However, I think (and IP nerds agree) that the interesting output is related to the frequency of IP terms in written english. A look at the graph above demonstrates that for all the recent talk about Patents being a drain on industry, the frequency of discussion has remained relatively flat since the 1800s. Time bias being what it is, you see a peak in the late 1940's (probably a combination of medical advances and post WWII electronic / solid state electronic development.) and then a precipitous drop off to a nadir in the 1970's.  For 30 something developers or businessmen, it looks like there has been a terrible rise in patent usage.  However, even in 2009, with Trolls in full swing, the rate of  the usage of patent terms has yet to return to the nominal historical average.

More interesting, copyrights, long the bane of innovators, has been on a steady historical march, with no signs of slowing.

What is slowing is the march of IP infringement references.
     In the above chart, the concept of a "trade secret" seams to occur far more than any of the traditional Federal IP rights. There appears to be a high burst in the mid-80s to the 2000. (Potentially the rise of Japan and China? Topics for another day).

Patent, copyright and trademark infringement references hit their peak in 2000 and have been decreasing ever since.

It should be noted that these are references to the specific terms in published works. It does not include online media (which might be siphoning off the results post 2000)).  However, it would be odd, and a post in its own right to not have some correlation to the prevalence of a term in print and its prevalence in all media.

Anyone who is selling the concept that IP rights, their enforcement, or position in the mind-space of our society needs to justify those claims in light of the charts above.

Flat Design and the Decline of the GUI Design Patent

 With the advent of IOS7, Apple has joined Microsoft (Metro) and Google (Now) in putting to rest (for the time being) digital skeuomorphic designs. While a good thing for designers who like clean lines, it might complicate future GUI Design Patent Strategies.

A quick primer, digital skeuomorphic design elements are when the interface or the icon is designed such that it looks like the physical world object that it is designed to digitally replicate. For example, the bookshelf in Ibook, is digital skeuomorphic design. There is no reason that a digital container of book files needs to look like a bookshelf; other than to relate to you, the user, what is the purpose of the digital program. Additionally, buttons with dropped shadows, or clever isometric representations of objects within the icon space, are all examples of digital skeuomorphic design.

However, with the advent of flat design across the three major mobile development platforms, things like icons designed to look like bookcases is going to be a thing of the past. Flat design, like its "Modernism" architectural equivalent is premised of reducing the ostentation ornamentation. In the same way that neo-Gothic architecture like this gave way to boxy simplicity of like this, so too does flat design trend to simple geometric forms and a studied lack of ostentation and ornamentation.

Part of this change has been led by a difference in attitudes regarding the purpose of the GUI in the first place.  Digital skeuomorphic designs were originally used to help people with no inherent knowledge of the inner workings of computers to easily map real world actions to digital ones. A digital file was made to look like a physical office file. A digital delete function was made to look like a trash can, etc. Now, with at least two generations of American consumers raised on digital entertainment, there is less of a need to visually explain the functions of each icon. It is simply enough, in most instances, to state its function and designate an area for the user to interact with that function.

lots of rectangles, no shadows 

GUIs, flat or not, can be protected by design patents. In 1996, the USPTO created guidelines for the protection of GUIs based on its decision in Ex Parte Strijland.  GUI design or surface ornamentation is protectable as long as it is shown to be novel, not obvious, and not functional. The claimed design may be presented as a line drawing or a digital image. Color and grayscale are allowed to be presented in the same GUI application, but line drawings and digital images are not. Animated designs are also patentable in the United States, and must show a minimum of two views of the animation. 

This is all a long winded intro into the point. Of the recent victories that Apple has achieved against Samsung, Apple succeeded in proving that Samsung had copied a design patented GUI (seen at left). As you will note,  this Apple design is chock full of skeuomorphic elements. This includes not only the icons themselves, but their placement, the shape of the icons, their slightly beveled appearance etc.

However, by moving to a flat design paradigm, Apple and its competitors are moving into a field whose sole purpose is to simplify the display elements, not add ornamentation. As noted above, design patents mush have a non-functional use, and must be directly related to the ornamentation. If flat design takes hold, it will be increasingly difficult for designers to obtain protection for flat designs as they  essentially become functional identifiers for computer tasks. As a result, we are going to see a lot of convergent design elements that people will accuse other people of stealing, but no one will be able to obtain a patent on.

As a result, it is preferable to augment your GUI design patent strategy with a screen shot copyright strategy. This way, if it is an instance of blatant copying, you are still protected by an enforceable IP right.

Jordan Garner

Architectural Plans and IP

The house to the left, deigned by famed Architect Richard Neutra, and immortalized by photographer Julius Shulman is not for sale. 

However, in the future you could get your very own copy of that house or another house, directly from the work shop of Richard Neutra. 

A new partnership between, Dion Neutra (Richard's son),  and the Neutra Office and California Architecture Conservancy,  allows for individuals to license the right to build their very own Neutra-designed home. Dion Neutra and the Neutra Office will even supervise the construction. 

Of course, the price is "upon request" but is supposedly line with existing custom architectural plans. 

I was once told that if you have to ask the price of something, you can't afford it. That is likely the case here, and that's unfortunate. 

It is really unfortunate that existing plans, already created and merely stuffed into a portfolio somewhere, are being priced as though they were new works of commission. The benefit for Dion is that the plans represent the sunk IP development cost of Richard Neutra not Dion Neutra. Attempting to extract that cost now, on a per copy basis, is a great way to ensure that those with the money to afford it, will resort to hiring a living architect. It is a little like saying every time you wanted to hear a song from your favorite artist, you had to pay to go to a concert. 

One goal of IP to place the maximal level of control over a work in the hands of its creator. However, a competing goal is to maximize the value of the work. In this circumstance, it is clear (maybe not to them) that it is the desire of the Conservancy is to minimize the wide scale reproduction of Neutra design homes, at the expense of well...nothing.

Pricing the plans such the "brand" value of the Richard Neutra is maintained (i.e. expensive), does nothing to advance the state of modern architecture, nor does it maximize the inherent IP value of Richard Neutra's work. 

One of the problems in American Housing stock is that the places in which people who appreciate Neutra style homes (i.e. Modern, yuppie types) live, are the same places that have pretty well developed housing stock. It is generally not possible (economically, or otherwise) to move into, say Scarsdale, and build a Neutra home from scratch. You would likely need to tear down an existing house and build a Neutra home over the bones of that. Once you have spent a significant amount of money tearing down a perfectly good home, odds are, you are going to replace it with something highly customized to your needs. Odds are, a Neutra Home, is not highly customized to that affluent individual's particular needs. 

Instead of pricing it in a way that only a very few people will avail themselves of the opportunity, Conservancy should be pricing the plans to hit the urban / upscale suburb market. By making the plans available for a small fee, the range of potential builders increases dramatically. 

I am not advocating forcing IP owners to license their works at cut rate prices. However, it makes sense to sell the plans to modern, aspirational housing, to actual aspiring artistic people. These people generally do not pay for custom architectural plans, because they are expensive. Here, Neutra has no cost, so the profit margins, at any price, are wide.  


Jordan Garner - 

Last days of First to Invent System

This is a short post, and probably should have been done before now, however Life! Today is the last day to file a U.S. Patent Application under the 1st Inventor system that we have used for 200 Years. Starting Monday, the U.S. (in harmonization with the rest of the developed world) will move to a First to File system. 

What does this mean. Well, probably nothing. However, if you are in a development race with another company, you should really think about filing today.  Now, in the U.S., it will be possible to be beaten to the patent office by a later inventor. 

So, if you have a provisional, or even a technical document, you should think about filing it before midnight. I could help you with that. It is easy to file a provisional and under the new rules (AIA) the cost is pretty modest for small companies. 

Next week starts a brave new world, or in Greek, an Apocalypse. 

Contact Jordan at: jgarner@leasonellis.com

Changes in Patent Law and Kickstarter

I love Kickstarter as much as the next person. Friends and colleagues have used the crowd-sourcing platforms, and ones like it, it generate interest in various projects that were too nebulous or personal to fund directly.

However, there are some serious issues that any designer, inventor, or artist, should consider when using the platform.

But first, lets discuss some changes in the U.S. Patent law. (Something I have lectured about in Shenzhen for 2 years running).

On March 16, 2013, the U.S. moves to a "First Inventor to File" system. This is the creamy middle between the rest of the world's "First to File" system, and the old U.S. system of "First to Invent." The reasons for this change are detailed and boring, and largely have to do with large companies wanting to harmonize their patent dockets across global jurisdictions.

Fascinating you say! Well, you don't, unless you are a patent geek.  However, if you are a producer of "kickstarter-able" (an adjective denoting awesome concept stage project) items, this should interest you.

Why? Because, if you place your custom designed fixe bike lock on Kickstarter, and you have not filed for a patent (even a design patent), you are in trouble. There are two mistakes that you made by going to Kickstarter before going to the patent office.

Mistake 1 - by publishing on the Internet, you have FOREVER given up your right to get a patent in "absolute novelty" countries. So, your sweet bike lock concept? You can never get protection on that in Amsterdam because the EU is a "absolute novelty" system. You have to, if you want protection in Europe, (and investors and business partners love to see IP before they give Euros) you need to file for protection before disclosing the idea, even for designs.

Mistake 2 - By not filing an application, even a provisional application with just some drawings and the $75.00 fee to the USPTO, you have set yourself up to be beaten to the patent office.  Say, for example, that after you go live with your Kickstarter page, a unscrupulous individual in  "Asia" decides that your idea is pretty sweet. So he(or she, 'Pirate' is an equal opportunity profession) files a patent in the US based on your concept.

 In the old days, when you filed a patent, there would be something called an "interference" which would determine who of the pair of you was the first to invent. Since we have gotten rid of that system, the new procedure is called a derivation procedure. We have no idea how time and money intensive this procedure is, since it is brand new. Either way, you are going into the Patent Office and spending time and money you probably would have preferred to keep. All the while, this individual is flooding the market, and her bank account, with your concept.

So the two bits of advice I give to clients who want to go the crowd funding route is: 1 File SOMETHING at the patent office before you go live, and 2, after you have filed something place "patent pending" somewhere on your page.

I hope this help. As always, you got a question, you drop me a line. 

Russian Hackers vs Giant Vampire Squids

Of course, the poor illustration to the left is a wildly inaccurate retelling of the current legal battle being waged between banking giant Goldman Sachs, the Federal Government, and Russian Computer programmer Sergey Aleynikov.  While I won't go into the detail  (you can find info here, here and here) these are the basics. 

In 2008, Mr. Aleynikov, computer programmer, Russian Immigrant, and stand-in for future Bond villain, went to work for Goldman Sachs. During his tenure at the "Giant Vampire Squid" of Wall Street, he came across (or illegally accessed) some code base relating to high frequency high volume trading algorithms. Later, proving once again that there is no better capitalist than a former communist, Sergey struck out on his own, joining a financial start-up.

 Goldman Sachs, who had been paying Sergey 400k a year, insisted that he had stolen the code and was using it to make money at the expense of Goldman Sachs making money. Furthermore, Goldman claimed that the code, improperly used, could lead to destabilization of the financial markets. 

(It is a good thing that Goldman Sachs is responsibly in control of "Market Destabilizing Technology" ; We wouldn't want that to fall into the wrong hands)

Getting in the way of Goldman Sachs and profit; or destabilizing the world financial markets are  great ways to get the Feds called down on you.  

In December 2010 Aleynikov was convicted of the two counts of theft of trade secrets and transportation of stolen property under The National Stolen Property Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2314, and the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, 18 U.S.C. § 1832. 

Even though Federal Probation Service suggested a 24 months sentence, the Court in Lower Manhattan sentenced him to 97 months in prison, plus three-years of supervised release and a $12,500 fine. Furthermore, three weeks before sentencing, Aleynikov was incarcerated on request of the government, as he was judged  a flight risk.

Much like land wars in Asia, and going against a Sicilian when death is on the line, one simply can't take code from Goldman Sachs and expect anything less than utter devastation.

However, Mr.  Aleynikov was not quite helpless. His attorney appealed his conviction, asking the Second Circuit to review the District Court's decision denying a motion to dismiss the indictment for failure to state a claim. The Second Circuit heard oral argument on his appeal and, later that same day, unanimously ordered his conviction reversed and a judgment of acquittal entered. 

A copy of the opinion is here.

In summary, the Russian immigrant played the oldest trick in American Jurisprudence...A technicality. 

He argued that the source code was not a "stolen" "good" within the meaning of the NSPA, and  the source code was not “related to or included in a product that is produced for or placed in interstate or foreign commerce” within the meaning of the EEA.  The code was for internal Goldman Sachs use, and was not a 'good' so much as a component of a service that was offered. A plain, reasonable reading of either statute failed to cover his actions.  The Appeals Court agreed, and reverse the judgment of the district court.

Of course that is not the end of the story. The current Congress, who can't even agree to send money to hurricane victims, quickly drafted and passed, the Theft of Trade Secrets Clarification Act.  Then, noted anti-capitalist and Anti-wall Street Crusader President Barack Obama signed the Act into law. 

The Act expands the EEA so that it casts a wider net over actions that constitute a trade secret.  The EEA now applies to trade secrets related to "a product or service used in or intended for use" in commerce.  Senator Patrick Leahy, the sponsor of the bill, said specifically the new language would encompass trade secrets like Goldman’s internal source code, which, though not for sale, "was part of a financial trading system that was used in interstate commerce every day."  Cong. Rec. S6978 (daily ed. Nov. 27, 2012). 

So there are 3 takeaways here. 

1. If you are Goldman Sachs and you don't like a law, call a Senator and you get a new one.

2. For non-Goldman Business. The scope of Federal Trade Secret protection has just been expanded greatly. It is advisable that you reference this law in any employment contracts or other Disclosure or retention agreements, just so that employees know that prison and fines await them.  

3. For non-Goldman Employees. You need to make sure that any code or documentation that you come across, does not find its way into your side, start-up projects. The threat of this law and the repercussions they entail are pretty serious and can easily derail a career. There will be employers that will cite this law against innocent employees, so the only way to protect yourself is to meticulously document where the code you are using is originating. No short cuts.  

The Case of the Missing Flying Machine...Patent

60 Minutes and the Atlantic , recently reported that the original copy of the patent awarded to the Wright Bros( for a "Flying Machine" ) is currently missing. As you can see below, the current format of patents has changed very little in the 106 years since the Wright Bros received their notice of allowance. 

In fact,  many of the issues surrounding the Wright Patent are relevant to conversations we are still having today.  

It took the patent office nearly 3 years to grant a patent on something so innovative as a FLYING MACHINE. While the concept of actual controlled flight was not a physical impossibility in 1903, it was clearly considered an engineering problem of supreme difficulty. Everyone who has seen the sepia-toned films of various failed flying machines ( here) could reasonably say that the below patent was "obvious". Yet, the patent office did believe that there was prior art that diminished the novelty and non-obviousness.  Any patent attorney or inventor can relate to the frustration of having the patent office take 3 years to issue a patent on truly innovative technology. 

Of greater importance to current state of Patent Opinion and Policy, is the fact that as soon as the Wright Bros got their patent, they engaged in a series of brutal and drawn out patent litigations against their competitors.  At the time, opponents of the Wright Bros claimed that enforcement of the patent monopoly was a hindrance to the development of aerial technology.  Furthermore, distinguished inventors such as Alexander Graham Bell (himself an avid patent-er) called for the reform of the patent system to limit the "abuse" of men like the Wrights. 

Sound familiar. 

Anti-software advocates like to stress their opposition to only a certain class of patents, arguing that mechanical and pharmaceutics don't need patent reform. They argue that the actions of software companies and non-practicing entities are somehow new. That the system was never designed to handle these sorts of "abuses." That technology can not progress unless they are unshackled from the rules. 

 However, the Wright Patent Wars serves as a lesson. In spite of all the dread supposedly to come to american aeronautical progress, American companies still lead the world in aviation. Additionally, the chief target of Wright's Patent wrath, the aviation company founded by Glen Curtis, is still in operation.  The Wrights and their company "The Wright Company", after the expiration of their monopolies, were passed by nimbler, more innovative companies. Eventually, Wright Company  merged,  2 decades after the Wright Patent Wars - into a  new company with their old rival Curtis. Together they formed a small aeronautics company. The Curtis-Wright Company doesn't dominate the international aerospace market. 

The larger point is that the world moved on. The patents, documented for all time (although missing) serve as a official record of innovation at a glance, but only at a glance. Patents or not - innovation constantly moves on. 

Res Ipsa Loquiterminator

Res Ipsa Loquiterminator:
         
         French for "I have been replaced by a computer" is a phrase that you are going to hear more and more in law firms. Not really, since I can't imagine anyone at a law firm using such a sweet portmanteau. (Credit given to my good friend M.Cabrera Esq. for coining the term)


Regardless, what you will hear is younger associates griping about how they are unable to make their hours in light of the rapid adoption of Predictive Coding in document production.  If you want to know why computers are going to start eating your lunch, you can check here.  


For those with an aversion to clicking on the Wall Street Journal, it basically summarizes two recent civil cases where predictive coding (that is, computer sorting of documents for discovery based on relevancy of content) were allowed.  Importantly, these permissions were given over the objection of opposing counsel. So the gates are wide open to our new robot masters. 


Super, what does this mean for budding IP attorneys?  Well, document discovery in IP litigation (especially in the pharma area ) was/is pointlessly time consuming. While it will probably still be necessary for some IP specialists (read: doc reviewers with a scientific background) to review large reams of data, it is likely that the time of the 4 and 5 room discovery teams is coming to a close. This means even less demand for specific practice area qualifications (the Maw grinds slow and exceedingly fine) .  While this won't happen over night, it most likely will happen in the next few years. 


I am reminded of a document review in which I participated, where most of my time was spent sifting through bills of sales looking to see if the technology in question was "on sale" prior to the 1 year date.  Most of the documents I was looking at were internal order forms.  I quickly realized these were pointless, even though they had some of the "core" keywords plastered all over them.  


I imagine that predictive coding will allow case managers to make broad sweeps of this type of relevant (but not really relevant) data prior to bumping things up a step in the food chain.


It occurs to me that another place where Cybercoders (wouldn't that make a great Kids TV show...no) could come in handy is the new Inter-Partes Procedures instituted in the AIA. Limited discovery is now allowed.  Normally, this "limited" discovery would be limited by the cost and time involved.  However, with the use of Cybercoders, you could access huge amounts of data for minimal cost. I would wager that more and more Re-Exams are going to employ predictive coding as part of there opening gambits.  


Where I think human IP-based doc coders will still have the edge is searching for "best mode".  It is incredibly difficult for a computer to determine if a lab notebook or result table is disclosing the best mode for carrying out the disclosure.  Furthermore, IP coders are probably still going to be tasked with searching for deficiencies of enablement, or documents that purport to show that the invention failed to clear a statutory bar.  


Unfortunately for Human IP Coders,  Congress Passed the AIA with a specific section that minimizes the importance of both "Best Mode" and "Enabling Disclosures" in invalidating a patent.  Never fear, when tireless thinking machines drop the ball, Congress can recover that fumble and spike it on your career.  

Whitney Houston and the Morality of Copyright Term Extensions

The recent untimely death of diva and part time actress (who doesn't love "The Bodyguard"...) Whitney Houston has got me thinking about the recent extension of the Copyright act. (Recent as in 1998 -- but when you have a law that goes back to 1790, almost anything is "recent".) I think that the Act, even flawed as it was, demonstrated a triumph of Moral/Economic IP, as well as tangible evidence that Michael Eisner did not want Mickey to go off copyright on his watch.

Wow, that's random you say. Well not really. Using Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston as two recent examples, we can conclude that Copyright Terms that exist beyond the life of the artist, are in part, social insurance programs designed to care for the offspring or spouses of artists. The most recent extension of the copyright act is "Life + 70 years" for authors (or songwriters) and "120 Years after creation  / 95 Years after publication" for corporate authorship. Leaving aside the arguments about corporate authorship (which is where the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act" comes into play), lets look at the effect of the term for regular authors.

Both Whitney and Micheal had substance abuse issues. Likely, these issues killed them. Both Whitney and Micheal have children who will grow up parent-less in a world which places a significant dollar value on their talent. Their heirs (notably their minor and semi-minor children) should be allowed to collect on the remaining value of the works, that society is willing to pay. This is more true in situations where the artist has died fairly young.

It is impossible to calculate the value of having a world renowned (and rich) artist as your parent. As a society, we have made a collective decision that the works of art are still valuable to us after the untimely passing of their creator. Therefore, easily identifiable heirs should be the recipient of that residual economic value. As it stands, Whitney's heir's have copyright income till 2082. That's a long time. But, Whitney's child is 18. If her mother was a non-substance abusing hedge fund manager, it would be obvious that by the time she was 88 she would have lived a life of privilege.

 If, as some argue, copyright terms should expire upon the death of the author, they as a society, are we prepared to send Micheal Jackson's children to love on the south side of Chicago with their abusive grandfather and enabling grandmother? From a moral rights stand point, the value of Micheal and Whitney's contribution to society in terms of economic output has vastly exceed the amount they were allowed to collect from society in life.

Intellectual Property is not just something that evil record companies use to sue you.  It is a form of deferred pension to those who create lasting works. It is a source of economic security for those left behind, when troubled talent meets an untimely end. IP should extend beyond the life of the artist because....I don't know...the children are the future.

Start-up Ecosystems

As anyone who has read this blog (all 3 of you) know, I love ( more in the Storgian, as opposed to Erotic sense) infographics. It is an outgrowth of a background in Bioinformatics and a general appreciation of good graphic design. So what? All of this is just a haphazard way to introduce another nice infographic that I found the other day.

While I very much like the presentation found here, I take issue with the lack of attorney representation. Of all the people that Start-up founders love to hate, lawyers and especially IP attorneys, are in contention for the top spot.  This is in part due to a justifiable apprehension of the dreaded "Cease and Deist" letter.  However, I think it is also due to a lack of understanding about IP in general. I once spoke to a founder who told me "I don't want to deal with patents because it is too hard to know what's out there and who owns it".

While this may have been true a decade ago, the internet has vastly lowered the cost of entry into the Patent Searching game. Simple patent searches are key to a Founders due diligence. Anyone who wants to get cash from a venture capital firm should know before hand how to answer the question "does this infringe someone else's IP". It is essential to know the space you are working in, not only to know who your challengers are, but also who your investors might be. A patent search can let you find companies and individuals that are operating in the space.  Armed with this knowledge, you can track down investors who understand your technology and want to be a part of it.


Jordan G. Garner 
jgarner@leasonellis.com













Source: Udemy Blog

Pioneers

Infographic by Visual News

Visual News a great site for lovers of infographics (who isn't a lover of good, if slightly misleading infographics) put together this nice image regarding patents and innovation across the world. While I am not entirely convinced in the soundness of their reasoning behind the lack of China presence.  It is definitely a good way to present what can be dry statistic on the the trends in 21st century innovation.
I think two important observations stand out. 1) Even in the age of "Social Media" everything, the biggest patent sector is still directed to electronics devices and computer hardware.  2) That European countries individually do not produce a huge number of patents, but combined into the EU, they become a significant player in the global space.