Personal View on the Patents, discussion of anticipation and obviousness

Blog: Personal View on the Patents, discussion of anticipation and obviousness

Google defines patent anticipation as “In patent law, anticipation refers to the prior invention or disclosure of the claimed invention by another, or the inventor's own disclosure of the claimed invention by publication, sale, or offer to sell prior to the inventor's application for a patent.” Essentially this means that anticipation just means that the invention being patented hasn’t been part of a prior invention or study.

Obviousness means someone skilled in the industry would be able to know what the patent is about before reading it. So I like to think of obviousness as whether something is common knowledge or not.

US 6343735 B1 Insulating sleeve 

Obviousness: I think while the idea of the insulating case is pretty obvious, the design is not. It actually takes some planning to come up with a design to maximize insulation. The date of this patent is in 1948, so that is a long time ago.

US 2661889 A Thermal coffee cup

Summary: Obviousness: I think this patent that involves having multiple walls is pretty smart. However, I know many companies manufacture these types of mugs or bottles, so it seems like this patent does not really grant any bottle maker a competitive advantage.

 US 8,251,277 B1 Thermal Sleeve, Method for manufacturing a thermal sleeve, and combination cup and thermal sleeve

Obviousness: I think this worth patenting because the design is unique.

  US 7,922,031 B1 Insulator Sleeve for a Beverage Container, Filing date March 1, 2006

Obviousness: I don’t think this patent is too unique, its contents are too similar to the other patents I have seen before.

US 8118189 B1 Temperature-indicating sleeve and related container

Obviousness:  The device with a cup combined with a thermometer is pretty smart, not so obvious. This reinforces the idea that many patents are just improvements or combinations of prior technologies.

US 6152363 Sleeve construction for improved paperboard cup insulation

Obviousness:  The insulating sleeve created by glue dots is pretty smart, not so obvious as well.

Patent Applications:

US 20080078824 A1 Beverage cup sleeving system and method 

Summary: This patent illustrates different kinds of insulation holders that can be fitted into cups and other modifications that can come in handy. It talks about the various mechanisms and shapes that can be used to fit the cover with the cups, and goes into details about the options for the cups (e.g. can add a hole to put keys, or can put ads on the cup).

US 20100019023 A1: Hand held medical device, protective sleeve, filed Aug 15, 2009 (Priority date)

Summary: This patent refers to creating a device that helps you hold medical devices without getting diseases, since many medical diseases are used in context that are likely to gather unwanted germs. It is supposedly a clear, sealable isolation sleeve, which when applied, still allows you to manipulate the keypads well. It should enclose the medical device.

US 20140151385 A1 Hot and Cold Cup Sleeve 

Summary: This patent seems to want to patent the normal cup sleeve that we have in Starbucks. It seems really basic now that it is common.

Obviousness of the Applications: I think the only patent that is very obvious is the hot and cup sleeve that is very plain. The hand held device sleeve for the medical device is very similar to the protection for coffee cups but the protection is for diseases rather than protection from burns.

Comments and Summaries on the Cup Holding Insulator Patents

Blog: Comments and Summaries on the Cup Holding Insulator Patents

US 6343735 B1 Insulating sleeve 

Summary: This patent is very similar to the other patents that I will be discussing, but the main difference is that the design involves a protruding “blank” structure that apparently makes it easier to hold hot beverages without feeling the hotness. The foldable blank supposedly will make insulation more effective.

US 2661889 A Thermal coffee cup

Summary: One of those bottles that can store really hot beverages but you cannot feel the warmth because there is an insulation mechanism that is created by having an inner wall and outer wall, where the warmth is protected from the outer wall from the inner wall.

 US 8,251,277 B1 Thermal Sleeve, Method for manufacturing a thermal sleeve, and combination cup and thermal sleeve

 Summary: This patent talks about how to create one of the sleeves for coffee that is used for insulation for hot coffee drinks. It talks about manufacturing a sleeve that looks like a mesh of cardboard. The patent draws where you should fold the paper or cardboard so as to maximize the insulation properties of the device.

  US 7,922,031 B1 Insulator Sleeve for a Beverage Container

Summary: This patent features an invention that helps people hold hot coffee cups in a cylindrical container. It is very similar to the other insulator sleeve patents that I have had to look at. Filing date March 1, 2006

US 8118189 B1 Temperature-indicating sleeve and related container

Summary: This patent explains that a cup can indicate the temperature of the content inside. The cup has a thermometer on its outer surface so that the user can better tell the temperature of what is inside the cup so he or she will not get burnt.

US 6152363 Sleeve construction for improved paperboard cup insulation

Summary: this patent argues that there is a more effective way to insulate a user from the hot contents inside his or her cup which involves putting hot melt glue dots which arguable increase the safety and ability to insulate the user from heat.

Patent Applications:

US 20080078824 A1 Beverage cup sleeving system and method 

Summary: This patent illustrates different kinds of insulation holders that can be fitted into cups and other modifications that can come in handy. It talks about the various mechanisms and shapes that can be used to fit the cover with the cups, and goes into details about the options for the cups (e.g. can add a hole to put keys, or can put ads on the cup).

US 20100019023 A1: Hand held medical device, protective sleeve, filed Aug 15, 2009 (Priority date)

Summary: This patent refers to creating a device that helps you hold medical devices without getting diseases, since many medical diseases are used in context that are likely to gather unwanted germs. It is supposedly a clear, sealable isolation sleeve, which when applied, still allows you to manipulate the keypads well.

US 20140151385 A1 Hot and Cold Cup Sleeve 

Summary: This patents seems to show the normal cup sleeve that we have in Starbucks. It seems really basic now that it is common. Also, in my opinion, it seems pretty obvious that a sleeve protection idea would be used so widely, so I am not sure if it will be able to pass.

Sean's Top 5 Quotes from research

This blog post will explain some more bad predictions that people in the past made with regards to new inventions.

• "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." -- Workers whom Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

This quote is about how people in the past did not think drilling oil would be a viable option. Perhaps the science was outdated during this time, or the heavy cost structure of the operations, with high capex for machinery and equipment was not feasible, given the supply and demand for oil at that time and the availability of oil in locations in more accessible areas.

• "It will be years -- not in my time -- before a woman will become Prime Minister." -- Margaret Thatcher, 1974.

This quote is ironic because Margaret Thatcher made a prediction against herself. She eventually did become Prime Minister. I think the quote also illustrates our changing values and push for equality.

• "With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market." -- Business Week, August 2, 1968.

This quote shows how humans did not understand the transformative power of cars and that they thought just 50 cars was enough.

• "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." -- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

This quote is actually very surprising for me because a common business and economic concept is the concept of cycles, so the professor does not seem to know what he is teaching. There is also a tendency for inflation so it makes sense that in the future the stock market will perform better than it is doing now.

• "Everything that can be invented has been invented." -- Attributed to Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899, but known to be an urban legend.

This quote shows that some people are resistant to change. People often feel complacent once their lives are good and thus may be less incentivized to make new inventions. Silicon Valley today though has a distinct culture of innovation.

Explaining Claim 1 of “Swipe to Unlock” Patent

Explaining Claim 1 of “Swipe to Unlock” Patent

This blog post will explain US patent 8046721B2, specifically Claim 1. This patent is described “Unlocking a Device by Performing Gestures on an Unlock Image.” It was filed June 2, 2009. It has a total of 15 claims.

So Claim 1 says:

“A method of unlocking a hand held device including a touch sensitive display, the method comprising direct contact with the touch screen display etc.”

So the claim goes on and on but generally here are the key ideas that I took away:

-          Type of Device – Hand held device, so I am guessing this refers to phones, tablets, and anything in between. The device has to be touch sensitive.

-          The swiping motion – this is really simple since we all know what swipe to unlock means, but describing this process is long. For example, the patent includes the visual cues that suggest u have to swipe left right or down. It also includes the graphical interface and the image being used to unlock, for example the image of a lock.

Some questions that I had:

-          The patent has some really general statements or claims. For example – “The method of claim 1, wherein the moving comprises movement along any desired path.” I wonder how strictly these patents are actually enforced.

Reading this patent case was very interesting to me because I never realized how nuanced the process actually was. Reading through the case, I saw a lot of diagrams that mapped out the swiping movements, and because I had thought of the touch to unlock feature as given and intuitive, I did not realize that it took a lot of effort into making the idea work.

Top 5 Quotes

This blog will be about quotes that are about scientific progress and skepticism of creating new inventions that were unthinkable.

1.“A rocket will never leave the earth’s atmosphere.”  - New York Times, 1936

I like this quote because it shows how little we knew before. It also shows the progress of humans as a species, how we are able to solve problems and find solutions to what we thought we could have never solved.

5. “The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys” – Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer British post office, 1878

I think this quote just reflects the dominant factor prices at the time. In Britain wage labor was cheap and maybe in America labor was more expensive hence the need to use machines for communication. It’s also hard to imagine a world without telephones, and we just have to remember that what we take for granted today actually took years to build on.

8. “The idea that cavalry be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous” – comment of Aide de camp to Field Marshal Haig, at Tank demonstration

I think this quote is interesting because it captures the skepticism of military personnel in reacting to the tank. It seems so obvious today that a tank is like a moving fortress, and that its strong protective quality makes it naturally better suited to horses, which have emotions, limited stamina, and can die.

12. No, it will make war impossible – Hiram Maxim, inventor of the machine gun, in response to the question “Will this gun not make war more terrible?” from Havelock Ellis, an English Scientist.

Today, the machine gun is used in almost all infantry situations. Good for direct combat. It is hard to see how the inventor thought it would make war impossible.

20. I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers – Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

I think this is a pretty funny quote if you read it today. We already know how effective the computer is and how important it is to our daily lives. It helps us at work, it helps us connect to different people, and it helps us communicate over long distances.

Overall, the lesson is that we should not limit our thinking to what we know, because there are a lot of future technologies that we can develop. Who knows, maybe we can live in space or travel at light speed. What seems impossible can actually become reality. 

IEOR 190G - Modified top 10 Inventions

This blog post will outline my new list of top 10 inventions. After receiving feedback from my classmates, I made 2 main edits. First, I briefly outlined my top 10 most important inventions so that the people viewing the video would have an idea of the pacing and structure. I also was convinced, after watching other videos that the airplane has been more significant than the automobile because of its ability to transport people over different landmasses and areas that are farther apart.

Below are the justifications for my new top 10 inventions.

1.     Money/Currency

What and Why: Money refers to a unit of exchange that is a store of value. However, money is ultimately a human construct that facilitates exchange. It is backed by the issuing government and has had its value tied to gold, before our current floating rate regime.

When: Evidence of some form of barter and exchange regime dated to the Roman Empire, but fully developed floating regime occurred around 1970s when Nixon delinked the dollar from gold.

Source: Prior knowledge from multiple business/finance classes

2.     Global Capital Markets, GCM (Stock Exchanges)

What and Why: The global capital markets refers to the worldwide interconnected system of monetary exchange and forms of raising capital through debt and stock. GCM has allowed companies to grow at fast rates as they are able to sell shares and borrow money from the public (retail investor) and even select private sector companies.

When: Late 19^th century (E.g. Chicago mercantile exchange in 1898)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Mercantile_Exchange

3.     Steam Engine:

What and Why: The steam engine made it possible to convert power from coal to cost effective application to boats, trucks, and trains. It allowed humans to tap into energy of stored natural resources when we previously were limited by the energy of photosynthesis (the sun).

When: 1700s

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/innovations-list/309536/

4.     Refrigeration

What and why: Refrigerators have significantly impacted the availability and storage of food, prolonging the storage of foods, especially fresh food. This increases our breadth for food choices, our diets, and our eating habits.

When: The early 20^th century. Chemical refrigerants became widespread in the 1920s.

Source: http://www.geniusstuff.com/blog/list/10-inventions-changed-world/

5.     Airplane (Changed from cars)

What and why: Airplanes have had a greater impact in terms of being able to transport people from geographical regions that are farther away, and reduced the deadliness of sea travelling when people want to visit places that are not physically attached to one another.

When: The Ford Model T (early 1900s) increased demand for cars due to effective marketing, but the production process also revolutionized manufacturing due to the application of specialization, interchangeable parts, and other streamlined production techniques.

Source: http://www.geniusstuff.com/blog/list/10-inventions-changed-world/

6.     Internet

What and Why: The internet is a network of computers that allow access to almost any information any time. It spearheaded the information revolution; now information can be readily accessed and can be applied to education, disease prevention, research, etc.

When: Originally made for the military in the late 1960 (as DARPA)

Source: http://www.geniusstuff.com/blog/list/10-inventions-changed-world/

7.     Computers

What and why: Computers take information and manipulate it to create new output. They can make mathematical calculations at speeds faster than humans and has numerous applications in research, business operations, hospitals, and numerous other cases.

When: 1800s computing devices were created, but electronic computers invented in the 20^th century

Source: http://www.geniusstuff.com/blog/list/10-inventions-changed-world/

8.     Telephone:

What and Why: The telephone has improved our communication significantly and permits long distance interaction between people in very far geographical regions. It “converts voice and sound signals into electrical impulses for transmission by wire to a different location where it is turned back to voice.”

When: Alexander Graham Bell invented the first telephone in 1875

Source: http://inventors.about.com/od/famousinventions/tp/topteninvention.htm

9.     Printing Press

What and why: The printing press is really important because it allowed the mass distribution and led to the democratization of information, as books had to be hand copied previously. This has knock on effects on knowledge, education, and scientific progress.

When: Johann Gutenberg in the 1430s

Source: http://www.geniusstuff.com/blog/list/10-inventions-changed-world/

10.  Agriculture

What and why: Agriculture is ultimately a human construct that has allowed humans to stay fixed in one place rather than stay as nomadic hunter gatherers. Agriculture is key to economies today and is being increasingly more mechanized and “efficient.”

When: Before Roman times, ancient civilizations.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture