End of Semester Course Reflection

It is the final IEOR 190G assignment. As I celebrate the coming end of “homework-cramming” Friday nights, I also begin to already miss the “haha” moments of silly patents, of the slide to unlock;  and the “ I wish I knew more” moments of Samsung-Apple patent war, of the patent trolls, and etc.   

This course have been valuable in two ways. First, it helps me to build a foundation for understanding Intellectual Property Laws, particularly in  patent laws. We begin the course with looking at Top Ten Inventions. Through which we learned the importance of inventions and the notion that all inventions were essentially rebuilding from the previous inventions. These concepts provide a context through which we learn the Patent Laws. Then, we learned about basics of the Patent law by reading the actual patents. Two ideas that were emphasized are “non-obviousness” and “novelty,”  which are standards that play critical roles in  determining whether patents can be granted. Having gained the basic conceptual knowledges of the patent laws, we began explore patent marketization and issues such as patent trolls. This class studies patents from multi-perspectives without digging too deep into the technicalities. Overall, I am satisfied with the contents for this class and I think they provided me with a basis for understanding all issues regarding patents when these issues show in news or works.

Aside from the patent knowledges gained, this course has also helped me to grow personally. First,  I learned how to work with vague questions. In my past learnings, particularly in science or math courses, I have always been asked specific questions that have decided answers. Consequently, I get easily frustrated when the question is vague. Through taking this course, I practiced formulating questions to answer for my weekly blog. I think this skill is important because once I get out of school, I will have less and less specific questions. Instead, I will need the skills to figure out what’s important to answer. Second, I really don’t like speaking in front of camera. I probably would have never uploaded videos if I did not need to. This course has pushed me to try something new.

IEOR 190G has been one of the most rewarding classes that I have taken at Cal. Yes, there are pains, especially during the Friday nights. But looking back, it has been a fun journey of Patent Law learning and personal growth.

Collaborative Learning with Social Media

Internet community expand at an incredible speed everyday. For most people, the internet seems merely a “read-only” place. It seems more like an invitation to consume than an invitation to participate. The distance between the user and the the information given through the internet is so great that sometimes we don’t even know what the program we are using for. For example, most of us see Facebook as a place to make friends, but Facebook is probably thinking of how to monetize its users’ social profiles. Similarly, internet disrupts education from the perspective of a consumer than to the content provider. Most people use internet to find information. In contrast, very few individuals write about what he/she knows and distribute information. I learned how to use Google in the elementary school, but have not written a blog or made a video until having taken this course.

The danger of living in a “read-only” world is that we become passive learners who take information as are given. But Internet, unlike traditional libraries, involves participants behind scene and can be much more. This course has taught me that the internet community is not a “read-only” place. Instead, it is “read-write” community. Every blog post assignment involves reading information online, reflecting and writing, and the posts being evaluated with comments. This cycle creates a vibrant peer to peer cultures of learning. More importantly, this culture will foster the creation of an independent learner, a learner who can adapt to changing contexts by engaging the internet community, a learner who can confidently navigate through the jungle of the Internet.

American Invents Act II

In the previous blog, I talked about what America Invents Act (AIA) entails and also the perceived benefits of AIA. In this blog, I will discuss some of the controversies around AIA.

What are the disadvantages of AIA?  It has been argued that this gives more benefits to the big guy. Why? Because filing patent is very expensive. The big chuck of the cost comes from having a good lawyer to draft the application. Big companies can afford to apply for more patents, and more quickly. On contrary, if you are a small startup with insufficient funds, you simply can’t file patent for every invention or every trivial modifications of the invention. It is suggested that this in term puts the startup at more disadvantaged position because for most startups, their value lies in possessing popular inventions.

Does AIA surely give more benefits to the big guys? I argue that it is not necessary the case. Larger company does more money. But they also have more people creating more inventions everyday. Under the previous system, as long as the big companies invent more, they have claim over more. But with the new system, it is possible that the pace at which they apply for the patents do not follow the pace at which they invent.  On contrary, smaller companies are more agile in identifying which innovations worth patenting and can consequently act quickly to take steps to protect these patents.

America Invents Acts I

Thanks Kasznik for the lecture on “The Role Of Intellectual Property As a Strategic Business Asset” given last Friday. Of the discussions, one topic that I found interesting is America Invents Act (AIA). Kasznik showed a graph on “Patent Litigation across the past 5 years.” The graph shows that patent litigation rose sharply from 2010 to 2013, and declined from 2013 to 2014. Interestingly, AIA went into effect on 2013, the time at which number of patent litigation declined.

Is AIA responsible for reducing the patent litigation? To answer this question, we need to first understand what AIA entails. AIA is a United States federal statute that was passed by Congress and singed into law on September 16, 2001. Its central provision is changing U.S. patent system from “first to invent” to “first inventor to file.” “First to invent” means inventors don’t have to rush to patent office to file for invention because even if someone filed before you do, as long as you have kept lab notebooks and prove that you are the first inventor, you will still get the patent.  “First to file,” on the other hand, means inventors need to race to file their patents as soon as possible because many people do come up with similar inventions and whether you can get the patent depends on when you file for patent.

What are the benefits of AIA? First, AIA aligns the U.S patent system with the international patent system. Second, the act adds greater predictability to determining who has priority to an invention. The switch to “fist to file” modifies the definition of what prior work can be used to deny a patent. By setting a clear boundary of who has patent ownership, the new system reduces litigations on fighting whose invention notebook dated earlier.  

Kirby Ferguson on IP

Kirby Ferguson’s insightful talk on remix challenges the logics behind the patent laws. Using examples that ranges from music to technology, he points out that everything is remix.  In other words, everything is built upon what were previously available. However, the American copyright and patent laws run counter to this notion by giving “property” rights to innovators. Kirby’s talk reminds me of the first assignment that we did for this class. First assignment Top Ten Inventions emphasizes the same theme that everything is a remix. Ubiquitously used wheels and nails provide cases in point. Imagine how much we would need to pay for an iPhone if Apple is required to pay license fees for every component it did not invent itself. 

To challenge the logics behind patent laws is not to say that patent laws are without merit. Some inventions such as medicine development require huge capital investments. If a new medicine is allowed to be freely copied, then everyone will want to free ride and the medicine industry will stagnate. However, if every piece of medicine is patented, then it just increases the inventing cost for the future inventors. When this cost accumulates, it creates a huge entry barrier and can also stagnate the medicine industry. People in the legal field are still searching for the right mix of polices to protect and at same time encourage invention. For such search to be successful, these people need to recognize the nature of all invention is remixing.

Jahanna Blackley on IP

Johanna Blakley gave a very interesting Ted Talk on Lessons From Fashion’s Free Culture. She used fashion industry as an example to challenge some of the common conceptions of IP protections. For one, more protection does not necessarily correlate with higher gross sales. To support her observation, she showed a graph with gross sales across different industries. Interestingly, the gross sales for low I.P protection industries such as fashion and food are much higher that of ones with high protection industries such as book and film. While these differences are probably exaggerated due to different cost and profit calculations for respective industries, I think she nonetheless provides insightful analysis on how low IP protection in fact pushed the designers to innovate more.

Johanna’s search for underlying logic behind things that are copyright protected and those that are not is similarly thought provoking. Two important aspects she found are 1) artistic objects deserve protection and utilitarian objects do not; and 2) idea that needs to freely circulate has no protection while physically fixed expression of an idea do have protection. She has correctly pointed out that in the modern world the boundary between what’s artistic and utilitarian is blurring and the advancement of technologies put everything on digital files. As technology becomes more integrated to our daily lives and works, copyright industry will face unprecedented challenge as many of the current IP laws are defined by physically objects. It is time to revise these IP laws.

Silly Patent #2: High-Five Machine (US 5356330)

In this blog, I consider the economic ramifications for granting patents to inventions that may be novel but very obvious. 

The High-Five Machine is an apparatus, which “allows a user to simulate a ‘high-five’ in celebration of a positive event, thereby providing the user with a convenient outlet for the release of excitement.” The motivation is the observation that people watching sport event along can’t have high-fives. The mechanism is to use moldable plastic or rubber material in shape of an average size human hand to provide a pivotable, self-righting hand-arm configuration for simulating a “high five” when struck by the hand of a user.

The mechanisms of how this High-Five Machine works is very standardized and it should be obvious to person skilled in part, mechanics in this case. However, this patent demonstrates that patent is not all about high-level techniques or new discoveries, it can also include reassembling of previous artisanship with a little bit of creativity.  If the High-Five Machine offers the same excitement outlet as that of human, it could make a lot of money for the inventor. On the other hand, if the inventor charges a very high price for this product, it produces unfair monopoly since the inventor really did not need to do much.