Industrial IP

Parts I and Part II of this series included discussions related to obtaining and enforcing patent protection issues in the IoT space, and examples of how to structure claims to avoid Alice rejections.  In Part III of this series, we will look into the current landscape and major players in the IoT space, with particular emphasis on autonomous vehicles, in an effort to illustrate opportunities for intellectual property protection.  Specifically, we look at new developments in the IoT space related to licensing opportunities for IoT-based technologies.             As mentioned in Part I of this series, a major aspect in the IoT space involves vehicle to vehicle (V2V) communication and/or vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communication.  As a specific example Gartner Research has recently forecast that new vehicles equipped with data connectivity will increase from 6.9 million per year in 2015 to a total cumulative...

Has innovation in renewable energy been slowing down? Patents are a unique indicator for technology development.  They are one of the most accurate and timely resources for estimating the trend of development in a technical field. Global warming and environmental pollution call for clean technology to provide affordable alternative energy sources, as well as reduced carbon emission.  There is speculation that the drastic policy changes of the Trump administration and Congress might reduce innovation in cleantech, which could be evidenced by the decreased number of cleantech patents granted by the USPTO since 2014. Since the patent filing process generally experiences a time lag of around two years, the drop in the number of granted patents is more likely the result of a decreased number of patents filed around 2012-2013.  IRENA (International Renewable Energy Agency) data shows that 28,282 renewable energy patents were filed in the U.S. in 2012, while 18,311 were f...