Hey everyone! This is my twentieth IEOR 190G Blog Post.

In this last blog post I will be discussing the value that I gained from taking this class. Now apart from the value added from the social-media tools that we used throughout the course of the semester that I discussed in my last blog post, I can proudly say IEOR 190G taught me a lot of material that will stick with me for a long time.

Nowadays everyone has heard of the word "patent", but knowing more about patents than "its that thing where you get to call something yours and sue people for using it" is relatively uncommon. I signed up for this course because I have a great interest in entrepreneurial ideas or solutions and I wanted to be more educated on patents and Intellectual Property as they relate to products in general. This course gave me a lot of insight pertaining to those topics and even if I may not be able to write an approvable patent application entirely by myself, I learnt a lot.

From learning the basics of how to read the actual document, to strategizing ways to protect oneself from Patent Troll litigation IEOR 190G made me familiar with all aspects of the patent process from the submission of the application to infringement litigation. Now I by no means plan to become a Patent Lawyer, and if I did then this would be the wrong course to take, but I do aspire to run my own business, a business whose success might very well gravitate around a solution or service that I wouldn't want my competitors to offer.

Following this course, I am even more convinced than I was at its start that being educated about the tradeoffs that a patent present you is essential when dealing with any form of Intellectual Property. Knowing the value added of keeping an invention a trade secret versus the cost of competitors using your inventions before you can claim ownership was specifically enlightening to me... especially in a world where everyone wants you to sign non-disclosure agreements but few agree!

I plan to use the knowledge that I learned in this class to make more informed business decisions, whether they regard my own intellectual property or my employer's. After having taken this class I will also be able to have fruitful conversations with patent lawyers and experts without the fear of feeling exploited or pushed around.

Lastly, from a more overarching point of view, I feel like IEOR 190G might have slightly changed my paradigm regarding originality of work. I have always been a stickler for originality being very biased against those who copy, however seeing how non-obvious use of prior arts truly can produce novel, original and useful inventions might have changed my mind. In today's "remix" culture where infinite information is at our fingertips and new inventions pop up every day, I feel that the most wonderful solutions build off the combination of more pre-existing entities whether we are talking about the Apple Watch or Bob Dylan's music.

As you may have inferred, IEOR 190G taught me a lot this semester and I could be more thankful to Prof. Lavian for teaching the class in the manner that he did. If you are interested in intellectual property, being an entrepreneur, or even simply dealing with new inventions, I highly recommend that you take this course.

As per usual feel free to view the video below for a discussion on the above.

On that note I thank you all for reading my blog posts and I wish you all the best for your futures.

Hey everyone! This is my nineteenth IEOR 190G Blog Post.

It has been a great semester, but it has come to an end and it is now time to reflect on our time together. In this first blog post I am going discuss Collaborative Social-Media Learning.

In this class we used a lot of social-media tools. From these very blog posts, to our youtube channels to our twitter accounts, we have experimented with pretty much every type of platform. This definitely has benefits the first of which is giving us familiarity with the status quo.

Personally, I am not very up-to-date when it comes to internet presence. I have a Facebook page which I barely use and an email address. When I had to make a twitter account for this class, I finally learnt how to use it. Granted, not know what "tweet" or "retweet" meant prior to a couple of weeks ago is totally my fault and problem, but nonetheless IEOR 190G brought me up to date with today's status quo -- currently having 284 million users, you need to know what Twitter is and how it works.

I have always been one to stay away from social media, afraid of putting my information on the web but something Prof. Lavian said during the semester resonated within me:

"You should be the one in control of what your internet presence looks like, not other people".

This convinced me to make a twitter account and using it for this class has been really cool! It instantly connects you to millions of other users with similar interests and many of my tweets were favorited by users like Braun US and Barrel On. I also found twitter to be very useful when used in the classroom as it helped highlight what my peers felt were important concepts, especially during Efrat Kasznik's guest lecture.

The weekly blog posts and youtube videos were something a was a little bit more used to doing as IEOR 190E, the mobile app challenge lab used a similar format. Blogging really helps to organize your thoughts especially when you also record a video as you are revising what you are going to publish multiple times with each revision helping to tie up loose ends and develop more understanding.

I think that this teaching style can be very beneficial for classes whose material in very current. IEOR 190G's material is exactly that: current. With most of our assignments being based off of our own research and current articles Prof. Lavian shared with us, the collaborative social-media nature of our homework not only forced me to be more aware of current events, but also opened my ears to other current information that my classmates found. Oftentimes, the arguments that people made in their blog post were repetitive, but the few who took an opposing or untraditional stance really made my "gears turn" and it is those posts that I enjoyed reading the most.

To this end, I would highly recommend that professors use blog post more frequently in subject matters that are relevant to current events, and more importantly, get the rest of the class to comment on each other's posts as that is where I gained the most value.

One way that I would improve this way of learning could be to find a platform that would allow all of the students to sign up as a class with individual profiles, kind of like a group, to allow for easier navigation to all of my peers' pages as going back and forth between the google spreadsheet made it easy to lose track of whose blogs I had visited and whose not yet.

That's all for this post and stay tuned for my last post coming up.
As always feel free to watch the video below for a discussion on the above.

Hey everyone! This is my eighteenth IEOR 190G Blog Post.

This time I will be discussing some research I did following our guest lecturer's talk last Monday.

Something that I wanted to look a little deeper into was the "white space analysis" that Ms. Kasznik spoke of when suggesting a few strategies for IP growth.

Following some research, I found that not everyone agrees with whitespace analysis helping being the right way to guide innovation attempts, even if it should be a necessary part of the process.

First of all, when applied to the patent world, the term “whitespace” means an analysis method that identifies the lack of patents in a particular technology area as a leader for innovation decision-making.

There is no doubt that Patent "whitespace analysis" is important aspect of any innovation assessment. This is due to the fact that if a company is introducing a new product or technology, it needs to know at an early stage whether it can own the fruits of its innovation efforts, and whether it might be sued for infringement.

However this should not drive the innovation process! Relying on patent whitespace analysis to determine innovation strategy is akin to making a decision on buying an investment property decision primarily on basis of the absence of other investors in the area.

In other words, "whitespace analysis" should only be used to validate, not to drive, innovation pathways.

That's all for now from me and I look forward to seeing you all in class on Monday.
As always feel free to watch the video below for a discussion on the above!

Hey everyone this is my seventeenth IEOR 190G Blog Post.

This time I will be discussing this week's guest speaker, Efrat Kasznik of Foresight Valuation Group's lecture.

She touched on three main points:

•  First she gave a n IP Marketplace Overview. The main points were the following:
• there is a change from 17% in 1975 to 80% of the S&P 500 Market Value being intangible assets in 2010.
• now 250k patents go into the design and making of a smartphone
• there are multi-billion dollar deals involving IP
• however the USPTO has a huge Backlog and pendency increase
• Sharp increase in troll litigation since 2010 -- mostly litigate against startups which has changed the whole dynamic of the marketplace.
• Next she suggested a few IP Strategies for Growth 
• entities can now use this marketplace to their advantage by building an IP Portfolio to increase their valuation.
• this takes advantage of the later stages of IP's life cycle: i.e. the portfolio's monetization and its liquidation.
• nowadays in emerging markets less patents are being granted even if we have the highest number of applications ever
• mature markets are filing less patents and more patents are filed and granted in a bubble market
• this is due to "white space" analysis or looking at how much of an industry's space of intellectual property 
• Lastly she provided some recommendations motivated by a few IP Case Studies. A few were as follows:
• Support future products: failure to patent innovative research can mean huge prospective losses.
• "Design around" existing patents to avoid damages.

That's all from me for this blog post and stay tuned for my next post presenting some relevant research. As always feel free to watch the video below for a discussion on the above!

Hey everyone!! This is my sixteenth IEOR 190G Blog Post and this time I will be continuing to talk about the TED Talks video we watched, specifically choosing one for analysis.

The TED Talk I chose is Kirby Ferguson's titled Embrace the Remix. In this video he is voicing his opinion on why the modern interpretation of patent law is actually going against its own principles.

His argument is one that human creativity cannot infinitely come from within, but rather comes from "with-out". He illustrates examples like Bob Dylan, the voice of a generation, who some say copied 2/3 of the material in his songs. Danger Mouse, the DJ that remixed the Beatles and Jay-Z to make the Grey Album. Henry Ford who admits to never inventing ANYTHING, but simply rearranging prior inventions!

The way to conceive of creativity is by understanding the remix and how the remix process actually ends up with a totally new creative entity.

Nowadays patent laws use the award analogy of property and this is where a lot of issues stem out from. For example Steve Jobs was first quoted saying that great artists STEAL in the 90s but later in 2008 was willing to go "thermonuclear war" on Android for "copying" his idea the iPhone. So basically -- copying is ok, as long as its not from me!

Patent Laws were made to promote progress, however oftentimes they do the opposite. It is our job to keep a level head and remember the whole purpose being our patent system and perhaps most importantly rethink how we think about creativity!

Well that's all for this post. Watch the video below for a discussion on the above!
Cheers!

Hi everyone! This is my fifteenth IEOR 190G Blog Post. And this time I will be discussing one of the TED talks videos we viewed in class.

The first video I chose to analyze is Drew Curtis'.

He's TED Talk is about his personal story of enduring a Patent Troll infringement case and he has a lot of great insight to give!

He indicated that nowadays it is too easy to get a new patent and this can be achieved by taking something already being done and patenting it for an emerging technology for eg. telephoning on internet.

However due to new technologies this makes the mechanism obscure and oftentimes these lawsuits end in settlements. Unfortunately the avg cost for a defendant if you WIN is $2million and 18 months of your time. This is ludicrous! For this reason it is cheaper to settle than to fight a lawsuit!

However he does have a suggestion: fight the infringement of the patent, not the patent itself as it makes the case much easier and more manageable. By doing this himself he was able to settle his case for ZERO dollars.

His ending recommendations are the following:

• fight the infringement NOT the patent
• make it clear that you have no money and would prefer to give it to a lawyer
• make it as annoying and painful as possible!

He ends on a funny line with DON'T NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS! but in all honesty, these trolls have become the terrorists of the Intellectual Property World!

That's all for this blog post and stay tuned for another video commentary!

Cheers!

Hey Everyone!

This is my fourteenth IEOR 190G Blog Post. In this post I will be continuing my discussion on Silly Patents.

This selection of patents are pretty out there, so I hope you enjoy the read!

The first patent I would like to talk about is: Banana Suitcase

This invention is made along the line of "no-one likes a bruised banana!' however making a banana a suitcase as if it were a professional photo camera is pretty silly. Apart from the fact that a banana is one of the fruits with complete natural packaging that already features a wall a half of an inch thick, it is a novel, and non-obvious invention as I doubt anyone would normally think of putting their bananas in Samsonites!

The next patent I would like to discuss is: Gas Factory

                                                         

This patent is a contraption to capture the methane gas that a cow emanates when farting. Now as silly this device is, the main reason for how absurd this device is that the methane produced by a single cow is close to absolutely nothing. To be able to actually do anything with the gas collected, this contraption would have to be harnessed to hundreds and thousands of cows. It doesn't seem very practical and even if it is novel and non-obvious, it is absolutely not useful!

The third patent I want to show you is: Pedal operated mower

This patent is for a lawnmower that is operated by pedals attached to a tricycle! The apparatus is actually novel, but also non-obvious as we are talking about the early 1980s. As nowadays such an invention would be obvious due to the amount of motorized lawnmowers we have, this patent's date is what makes it legitimate (even if it has expired by now). 

I hope you enjoyed these hand-selected patents and feel free to watch the video below for a discussion on the above!

                                 

Hey Everyone!

This is my thirteenth IEOR 190G Blog Post.

This time I will be talking about Silly Patents. Following some research, it is amazing to see how many crazy patents have been awarded! In this first post I would like to show you some Patents which are completely legitimate but are pretty silly in terms of what their uses may be.

The first patent is titled:Patent Acquisition and Assertion by a (Non-Inventor) First Party Against a Second Party

This patent basically outlines how to be a Patent Troll. Even as legitimate this patent may be due to lack of prior art, in 2008 it seems to me that any Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) dealing with patent law would be well aware of how to conduct this practice! Aside from the fact that trying to patent a method to assert patent infringement as a non-inventor seems quite ludicrous to me.

The second patent is titled:Light bulb changer

How many engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Jokes aside this is a very novel machine and there is no prior art making it un-patentable. However, I would like to call the practicality of this invention into cause. Is this machine really useful? How is having a huge contraption permanently taking up significant space on the floor that changes light-bulbs for you when they run out once every couple of MONTHS? Seems pretty silly to me!

The third patent is:Frameless glasses attaching to body piercing studs

This patent is for eyeglasses that attach to a body-piercing either on your nose or eyebrows. This invention is novel and not by any means obvious! however, at the same time who would ever use them? The weight of the glasses seem to be a safety issue as there is a risk of ripping a piercing off of your face! Quite silly!

That's all for this first blog post and as always, feel free to watch the video below for a discussion on the above!

Hey everyone! This is my twelfth IEOR 190G Blog Post and the third in a series of posts regarding Patent Trolls.

In the previous two posts I defined and illustrated what a Patent Troll is a delved a little into their significance in our modern market. This time I would like to look a little bit into what companies can do to protect themselves from Patent Troll litigation. Some of these strategies are:

• Design Arounds -- used to place an upper limit on licensing fees often equal to the cost of "designing around" the patent in discussion

• Patent Watch -- routinely monitoring patents related to a company's own business activity to determine what is already patented.

• Clearance Search -- a search of patents and pending patent applications that cover important features of a potential product before it starts to be developed. These patents can be acquired to avoid litigation, or the design process can shift to a different product

• Opposition Proceeding -- One can call for a reexamination of a patent with certain limitations

• Litigation -- Going on the offensive can be advantageous. By examining prior arts that question the patentability of the specific patent they can question whether the technology in question is actually infringing the Troll's patent. If this un-patentability of the troll's patent is proved, then not only do the company win their case, but the troll will also lose the option of suing. This is such a scary alternative that oftentimes trolls will back off from the case or at least lower its settlement request.

• Early settlement -- can oftentimes be less expensive than litigation costs or late settlement costs.

• Patent infringement Insurance -- this is a special kind of insurance that protects companies when they infringe patents by accident.

• Defensive Patent Aggregation -- this is the purchase of patents from specific patent holders to avoid their acquisition by trolls. The patents are searched for in relation to the company's specific necessities and products. This phenomena can also be performed by groups of companies to mitigate costs.

Therefore it is now evident that companies aren't completely at the whim of Patent Trolls as it had seemed to me.

That's all for this week! Feel free to watch the video below for a discussion on the above!
See you in class!

Hey everyone! This is my eleventh IEOR 190G VideoBlog Post and this time I will be continuing my discussion on Patent Trolls.

In my last Blog Post I talked a little about what a Patent Troll is giving a few examples of the companies most frequently involved in these cases and what some of the largest cases were.

This time I would like to look a little bit into the significance of Patent Trolls for our modern market.

Their name suggests that Patent Trolls are a nemesis to society, however it is not evident that this stigma is true. Whilst they are painful and seem "sneaky" to traditional inventors who use the patent system to protect themselves, the rising popularity in this new form of litigation has redefined a new way for entities to use the Justice System to turn a profit.

A study made by Northwestern Law school's Michael Mazzeo and Jonathan Hillel reveals some interesting facts about this practice. They find that the economic value of the Patent doesn't change whether the holder is a practicing or non-practicing entity, but the incentives that govern different patent assertion practices are different for both of these groups.

What this could mean is that this new practice of Patent "trolling" is not affecting the economic validity, and/or value of the patents in question, but rather changes the landscape regarding whether or not a lawsuit to assert the patent's protection is worth the suers while.

This dynamic is why facing a patent troll in a court of law is a very particular case unlike many other court cases. Many strategies that large corporation use against smaller legitimate companies are useless when employed against Patent Trolls. For example: litigation costs for the defendant are significantly higher than for the plaintiff who can use a contingency-fee lawyer, and plaintiff-friendly courts can be hand-picked by the Patent Trolls to ensure a better chance for success.

Furthermore, many defensive strategies used by corporations in Patent law litigation can't be applied to Patent Trolls. For example when companies monitor the patent activity of their competitors to avoid infringing, this is obviously useless against NPEs as they are not competitors and generally aren't coming up with new patentable designs in a specific field. Another strategy is to approach the litigation using a "scorched earth" defense that significantly raises litigation costs, however NPE's funds are collected specifically to pay for litigation costs, the sole income for their industries, thus this strategy is also ineffective.

Following this reasoning, we can now see how the introduction of NPEs, or Patent Trolls, into our modern marketplace have had a few interesting implications for corporations across many industries.

That's all for this blog post and please watch the below video for a discussion on the above! See you all in class!

Hey everyone this is my 10th IEOR 190G Blog Post and the first of a series of posts regarding Patent Trolls.

In this first post I would like to introduce Patent Trolls, defining them and giving a few examples.

There are many names for Patent Trolls: Patent Holding Company (PHC), Patent Assertion Entity (PAE) and Non-Practicing Entity (NPE), but all of these differently named organizations all take part in the same practice: the enforcement of patent law on competitors' products that they themselves never intended to manufacture.

More simply put this means that a Patent Troll is any entity who acquires a patent either through the normal application process, or via acquisition from an inventor and sues other entities for infringing their patent even though they themselves never intended to produce the product having the qualities their patent protects. This can occur if a company doesn't have the necessary funds to carry through with a manufacturing plan, but in many cases these Patent Trolls have this type of activity in mind since the acquisition of the patent.

The five companies that are most frequently in these Patent Troll cases unsurprisingly are Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, AT&T and Dell. Some of the largest and most famous cases of patent infringement reach settlements upwards of a billion dollars! A few of the more famous examples are:

• Cystic Fibrosis Foundation v. Royalty Pharma with an award of $3.3 billion in 2014
• Carnegie Mellon University v. Marvell Technology with an award of $1.5 billion in 2014
• Apple v. Samsung with an award of $890 million in 2013.

The magnitude of these cases illustrate how big of a deal these patent cases can be, so these Patent Trolls are definitely an entity to be aware of in the business world as even the largest and most powerful companies like Apple and Samsung spend millions of dollars every year in this type of litigation.

That's all for this blog post, See you all soon in a second blog post continuing my discussion on Patent Trolls. Please view the video below for a conversation on the above!

Hey everyone! This is my 9th IEOR 190G Blog Post.

This time i will be discussing a few videos that I found online regarding Obviousness in patent law.

The first video I will discuss is :

Novelty and Non-obviousness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cv6DbegPxY 

This video is of a lawyer in Goldstein Patent Law discussing the two requirements for patentability of inventions: Novelty and Non-obviousness.
He first gives a brief definition of both of these terms illustrating why they are necessary for patentability. As we already know, novelty is easy and non-obviousness is a little bit of a trickier topic. He continues by guiding us through the process of what we have to do to prove these to obtain the patent and emphasizes the importance of finding the best "closest" prior art/s to your invention to make the best case.
This is an interesting video because it not only clearly describes the concepts to us, but also gives us some good insight regarding how to act and how people perceive the concepts. I find it quite interesting that at some points as he is blatantly pointing out places where his service would benefit a client. It seems that one must seek legal help to protect themselves in this patent process. To me it seems that dealing with such a case without legal counsel would almost be impossible due to the sheer magnitude of prior art out there for every field of invention.. food for thought..

The second video I would like to discuss is :

Patent Office Litigation Prediction #3: Obviousness is King: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4PbnA99ev4 

This video clip that I found is of a lawyer presenting his findings and predictions that he published in a book regarding new adaptations to patent law. The observation discussed in this video is that now "Obviousness is King" in patent law cases and inventors need to behave accordingly to maximize their chances of being awarded patents.

This is quite cool as it is extremely similar to certain discussions that we had in class regarding how to behave in real life situations. I found the advice given to us at the end of the video to be really useful: Specifically regarding being organized about recording the evidence for non-obviousness of prior art usage as these cases have a one-year time frame. 

As there are so many delicate parts to patent law litigation, it is important to keep in mind that there are time constraints in the process that need to be met. And if experts need to be consulted etc. this can turn out to be a non-trivial process.

I agree with the notion that nowadays, with so much prior art out there, proving the non-obviousness of your invention is going to be the key in its assessment.

That's all for now and I hope that you enjoyed the video selection!

Hey everyone and this is my eight IEOR 190G blog post.

This time I will be discussing Obviousness regarding Patents and their legitimacy.

Obviousness has to do with determining whether or not a patent is actually creating a new original invention or simply combining already existing inventions in a way that is "obvious". What this "obvious" means is the root of all discussion and delicacy.

Initially for a patent to be called obvious one simply applied the TSM test:

• In its prior arts there needs to be a Teaching, Suggestion or Motivation towards the combination of the elements that make up the new patent.

But this is too easy to bypass and the definition needed an update! Following the KSR v. Teleflex case, TSM is no longer the norm and can't be rigidly applied as a POSITA (Persona of ordinary skill in the art) is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an automation, and behaves accordingly.

This implies that now many patents are disallowed due to obviousness if they yield a predictable result in combining prior arts, if it is common sense for a POSITA and if it an improvement likely to have been thought of. 

Graham analysis

Graham v Deere

This new method is an improvement on the existing system allowing for a more dynamic analysis of inventions. 

Please view my below video for a discussion on the above!

Hey everyone! This is my seventh IEOR 190G Blog Post!

I will be discussing the various patents for insulating beverages again, only this time I will be focusing more on the anticipation and obviousness of these patents specifically on the issues related to invalidity, priority date and prior art.

The patents that were examined (and the prior arts they cited) were:

• Thermal Coffee Cup

• Sleeve Construction For Improved Paperboard Cup Insulation (with dots)

• which cites the thermal coffee cup

• Insulating Sleeve (with hooks and flat aigret)

• Beverage Cup Sleeving System and Method (accessories, pocket, keychain, microwave, corrugated etc.)
• claims priority over Provisional Application No, 60/839,259 as it is entirely contained within this patent

• Protective Sleeve (flat storage, material and easier less wasteful manufacturing)

• Insulator Sleeve for a Beverage Container (reusable)
• citing Sleeve Construction For Improved Paperboard Cup Insulation
• as it is designed for repeated use, it makes all the prior art disposable sleeves unnecessary

• Temperature-Indicating Sleeve and Related Container

• Thermal Sleeve, Method For Manufacturing a Thermal Sleeve, And Combination Cup and Thermal Sleeve (creped paper sleeve and cup made of many different materials)
• citing Sleeve Construction For Improved Paperboard Cup Insulation and the Insulating Sleeve patents

• Hot and Cold Cup Sleeve (multi layers)

So it can be seen that many of the above inventions build off at least a concept from one of the prior patents examined, however all the patents build off some sort of prior arts.

From an anticipation standpoint, we can see how the Beverage Cup Sleeving System and Method  claims priority over a Provisional Application filed in August of 2007 as this provisional application now lacks novelty.

As for anticipation we need a single prior art piece to have "all of the elements" of a single claim, it is hard to pinpoint if there is anticipation as there are so many combinations of materials and features in all of these claims that they aren't exactly the same.

Regarding obviousness, one may believe that many of the above inventions barely scrape by

without being regarded as obvious. However, each of these patents add a new spin or "non-obvious" idea making the invention novel. Even the Protective Sleeve patent which may seem as the dullest invention that doesn't add anything new to the field has significant importance. The shape that is presented allows for much better spacing organization making the manufacturing of these sleeve less wasteful to the environment and also cheaper. Even if simple, this innovation wasn't obvious.

You can see in the prior blog post how many of the patent granting and application dates cross-over with each other so naturally there are issues with prior arts as many of the patents cite each other.

For example: we can see how the Insulator Sleeve for a Beverage Container builds off of the air-gap method first reported in the Improved Paperboard Cup Insulation patent, however via making the whole sleeve reusable, the invention changes and thus anticipation is not applicable. However, when we think about the obviousness of this same invention, to me it seems to lack a bit of non-obviousness. It takes almost all of its features from prior arts, except for the fact that it isn't disposable. As many objects have been made to replace disposable objects, I think it might be able to be argued that this invention is a bit obvious. The lawyer must have been good!

Please view my Youtube video below for a conversation on the above topics!

Hey everyone! This is my sixth IEOR 190G Blog Post.

background, priority date, technology, ideas, specifications, diagrams and the claims

This week I will be discussing a bunch of patents regarding thermal beverage insulation devices.

First is Patent US 2,661,889 patented in December 8, 1953 for a Thermal Coffee Cup: 

• The application for this patent was submitted on July 20th in 1948.
• The main technologies required for this invention were to have an insulating layer to allow the user to hold a cup of coffee that would normally be too hot to hold. It also requires a lid that can be taken off to permit drinking of the hot liquid.
• These concepts were made into reality via a container jacket that has a corrugated lining around a cup with a lid that has a partial opening to be opened with a fingernail as well as being fully detachable. There are four hand drawn figure showing all of the described features of the jacket, cup and cap.
• Suggestions were that advertising could be placed on the holder.
• What is claimed is the insulated jacket, the cup being sealed on the bottom and having a detachable cap on the top.

Next is Patent US 6,152,363 patented on November 28, 2000 for a Sleeve Construction For Improved Paperboard Cup Insulation:

• The application was filed on May 3, 1999
• The invention is related to the making of sleeves used to increase the insulating characteristics of regular paperboard cups in an effort to achieve the same level as polystyrene cups.
• The patent employs a mixture of currently existing patented sleeves and currently existing cup designs to emphasize insulation via an added air-gap layer while preserving the smooth outside surface for printing.
• The diagrams show the design of the hot-melt adhesive (or syntactic foam) dots that create the air-gap and multiple graphs illustrating the performance of the liquid surface temperature insulation over time and temperature of the cup with different air gaps.
• What is claimed is the sleeve comprised of a plurality of air gaps on side of the sleeve and a layer of printed graphics on the other side.

Next is Patent US 6,343,735 B1 patented on February 5, 2002 for an Insulating Sleeve:

• The application was filed on May 4, 2000
• This invention regards an improved sleeve for hot beverage containers required due to an increasing number of cups made out of biodegradable materials that have low insulation characteristics
• The shape of this sleeve is innovative also for having a design that has a flat storage configuration, two "hooks" where to hang the lid of the cup when it is removed, and sections that tear to allow it to fit on cups of multiple sizes, and a design that used non-corrugated materials but still providing an air gap.
• The diagrams in the document show many views of the sleeve in its storage and usage configurations. Much detail is provided for the exact manufacturing of the sleeve referring back to the diagrams for each described element
• What is claimed is the sleeve and all of the above mentioned features successful included in the design.

Next is Patent US 2008/0078824 A1 patented on April 3 2008 for a Beverage Cup Sleeving System and Method:

• The application was filed on Aug 23, 2007
• The invention related to the conical sleeve surrounding a cup containing a hot beverage to allow insulation without using materials in the cup that could hinder quality and taste of the beverage
• The drawings illustrate different embodiments of the invention with different features including a key ring, velcro straps, a pouch
• What is claimed is many cup insulating systems based around the same concept but with different variations being: microwave safe, corrugated, having a flat storage, having a pocket. A thermal cup protector and insulating ring for beverage containers are also claimed.

Next is Patent US 2010/0019023 A1 patented on January 28, 2010 for a Protective Sleeve:

• The application was filed on July 21, 2009.
• The handling of hot and cold beverages in uncomfortable in many cups hence there is a need for a protective sleeve.
• There are many diagrams illustrating views of the assembled and collapsed sleeve as well as the manufacturing methods for the making of the sleeve.
• The design is superior to honeycomb and expansion designs which leave rough surfaces making the latter design more uncomfortable.
• What is claimed is a protective sleeve made for a container comprising biodegradable paper and other materials including corrugated paper and paperboard amongst other design features and the method for forming such a sleeve.

Next is Patent US 7,922,031 B1 patented on April 12, 2011 for a Insulator Sleeve for a Beverage Container:

• The application was filed on March 1, 2007
• Disposable paperboard cups have dramatically increased in number following popularity in retail coffee establishments thus there is a need to have a sleeve for these cups which provide little insulation, however it is more beneficial to the environment if such sleeve is reusable and it is beneficial to the baristas that the sleeve be transparent/translucent to allow for easy viewing of the order oftentimes written on the cup.
• The diagrams include many views of the invention (including cross-sectional views) as well as specific diagrams focused on the gripping areas of the cup.
• What is claimed is an insulating sleeve for a frusta-conical cup including a peripheral lip portion that makes contact with the rim of the cup having a transparent portion and a U-shaped handle for the user to grasp 

Next is Patent US 8,118,189 B2 patented on February 21, 2012 for a Temperature-Indicating Sleeve and Related Container:

• The application was filed on Dec 14, 2007
• There is a growing need to see the temperature of a beverage or meal in a container for safety reasons whilst simultaneously shielding the user from injury via insulation.
• There are prior examples of such devices, but the inventor sees them lacking safety for the user or even practicality without the added feature of insulation
• There are multiple diagrams depicting the device, and the many representations of how it could display the contents' temperature for user viewing. The surface is also printable
• The temperature detection is accomplished using a thermally conducting part that is in contact with the contents of the container, even when minimally filled.
• What is claimed is a thermally insulated container with a detachable sleeve that comprise a container with know insulating property with a visually observable temperature gage accurate to 4 F. The sleeve having a non-numerical temperature scale that can be word-based or color-based and can be horizontal or vertical on the sleeve with respect to the cup. The use of thermotropic liquid crystals for this temperature indicating system is also claimed.

Next is Patent US 8,251,277 B2 patented on August 28, 2012 for a Thermal Sleeve, Method For Manufacturing a Thermal Sleeve, And Combination Cup and Thermal Sleeve:

• The application was filed on April 15, 2005
• As above the need for such a device is necessary to improve the insulating characteristics of hot beverage containers whilst avoiding "double cupping".
• The diagrams illustrate the invention in flattened and folded as well as open configurations.
• The invention and method for manufacturing it are explained in detail up to the construction of the web of fibers making up the paper substrate
• What is claimed is a cup sleeve made of creped paper comprising a laminate adhered to smooth paper formed into a wrap to enclose a cup. This sleeve is of tapered shape and the indications for the size of such sleeve are very specific. The combination of the sleeve and cup of many materials is also claimed.

Last is Patent US 2014/0,151,385 A1 patented on June 5, 2014 for a :

• The application was filed on February 6, 2014
• Hot beverage sleeves are widely distributed and used, however when used on cold beverages, they fail to work well as cold beverages gather moisture on their outer layer damaging the sleeve by making it soggy and often times undoing the glue keeping the wrap together.
• The diagrams illustrate many views of the invention, in particular a perspective view of the three dimensional structure of the sleeve pointing out its two visible layers.
• What is claimed is a disposable sleeve for cups made of water-absorbent lining, and a water-repellent outer layer embossed by a comfortable grip with the specified weight and dimensions.

Please see my Youtube video for a discussion on these patents!

Hey everyone!

This is my fourth IEOR 190G VideoBlog Post.

This week I will be discussing Mistaken Predictions about society.

First are my top five predictions from the 25 quotes chosen by Prof. Lavian:

1. "Rail travel at high speeds is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia." -- Dr. Dionysius Lardner, 1830

2. "I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers" -- Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943

3. "The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad." -- The president of the Michigan Bank advising Henry Ford's lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903

4. "A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere." -- New York Times, 1936

5. "The idea that cavalry will 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, 1916.

It is easy to see now why these statements are wildly incorrect but what is most remarkable is that all of these people were experts or leaders in their fields! 

Next are my top 5 Mistaken predictions that I found myself:

1. “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” — Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895.

2. “Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years.” -– Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.

3.  “The cinema is little more than a fad. It’s canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage.” -– Charlie Chaplin, actor, producer, director, and studio founder, 1916

4. “Home Taping Is Killing Music” — A 1980s campaign by the BPI, claiming that people recording music off the radio onto cassette would destroy the music industry.

5.“There is Nothing New to be Discovered in Physics Now. All That Remains is More and More Precise Measurement.” -- Lord (Absolute Zero) Kelvin 

Please view the below video for a presentation on the above Quotes!

http://youtu.be/dsCoi7Kiw6s

Hey everyone!

This is my fifth IEOR 190G Blog Post. This post will be dedicated to the "slide to unlock" patent (US 8046721).

In particular, lets take a look at the first claim:

What is claimed is:
1. A method of unlocking a hand-held electronic device, the device including a touch-sensitive display, the method comprising:

• detecting a contact with the touch-sensitive display at a first predefined location corresponding to an unlock image;
• continuously moving the unlock image on the touch-sensitive display in accordance with movement of the contact while continuous contact with the touch screen is maintained, wherein the unlock image is a graphical, interactive user-interface object with which a user interacts in order to unlock the device; and
• unlocking the hand-held electronic device if the moving the unlock image on the touch-sensitive display results in movement of the unlock image from the first predefined location to a predefined unlock region on the touch-sensitive display.

This passage comes from the part of the patent document where one can read what invention the patent is claiming. In this case the "slide to unlock" patent claims the interface that will detect that you are touching your touchscreen device on the "unlock symbol", will continuously track your finger as you slide it across your screen moving the icon along with your finger until it reaches a designated "unlock zone" where you can let go of your screen and the device will unlock.

This succinctly puts the whole idea behind the "slide to unlock" into a few short statements.

Please view the below video for a presentation on the above!

Hey everyone!

This is my third IEOR 190G Blog Post! and this week I will be reworking my selection of the 10 most innovative inventions ever!

This time I would like to talk about my reasoning a little bit as I chose inventions that not only would improve quality of life, but actually extended/saved life(s), both physically and in terms of saving time! In my opinion after life, knowledge is Humans' most precious resource which is why you can also find many inventions related to knowledge and its transmission to others.

So here is my reworked list of inventions:

• Refrigeration      
• It allowed us to conserve our aliments for more than one day enabling long distance trading of perishable goods.
• Electricity       
• Not only did electricity lead to explosive bubble of new inventions, it revolutionized our outlook on energy and its transportation.
• Penicillin          
• Has saved 82 million lives! Was the first substance that could kill bacteria whilst leaving the host relatively unharmed (at least compared to arsenic and mercury!)
• Anesthesia         
• which allowed us to perform excruciating invasive procedures that would be impossible to perform otherwise greatly transforming our healthcare scene and changing life-ending diseases to just a surgery.
• Telecommunications     
• including the telegraph and the telephone revolutionized our society by allowing us to transfer information, human's most precious resource, at unprecedented speeds.
• Internet      
• It gives us access to information coming from all the corners of the globe. Never before have we had so much information at our fingertips. Most importantly all of this information can be used in a vast multitude of applications.
• Wheel           
•  in next place as it revolutionized our transportation. Being a mobile and originally nomadic species, this new ease in transportation improved almost every aspect of our lives in society.
• Printing Press    
•  was a device used to print on paper or cloth. It revolutionized the way people perceived the world that they lived in as they finally had access to information that didnt come out of someone elses mouth! It also allowed for an easier and faster spread of information
• Sewage/Plumbing      
• is what makes modern society possible. We wouldn't be able to live on piles of dung as tall as a skyscraper (an estimate for how much waste one human produces in a year is over 1000 pounds).
• Agriculture       
• Aided our transition from being a nomadic species to a settling one. Agriculture gave us more time in the day to act and evolve rather than worry about where we were to find our next meal for fear of starvation.

Feel free to watch my video presentation at the following link! :)

http://youtu.be/aVCc8lpgaMY

Hi!

This is my second IEOR 190G Blog Post regarding my ppt presentation of my selection of the 10 most innovative inventions ever.

In tenth place I have contraceptives as they allowed us to control the size of our population. This enabled humans in unsatisfactory living conditions to have a way to prevent childbirth. In so doing humans can now have a better chance of receiving a better parenting environment ultimately helping the growth of our population.
Next is refrigeration. It allowed us to conserve our aliments for more than one day enabling long distance trading of perishable goods.
Next come electricity. Not only did electricity lead to explosive bubble of new inventions, it revolutionized our outlook on energy and its transportation.
Next is anesthesia which allowed us to perform excruciating invasive procedures that would be impossible to perform otherwise greatly transforming our healthcare scene and changing life-ending diseases to just a surgery.
Telecommunications including the telegraph and the telephone revolutionized our society by allowing us to transfer information, human's most precious resource, at unprecedented speeds.
The compass allowed us to navigate over oceans, effectively increasing the size of our world and letting us know of the existence of other human societies.
I place the wheel in next place as it revolutionized our transportation. Being a mobile and originally nomadic species, this new ease in transportation improved almost every aspect of our lives in society.
In third place I have the control of fire. This allowed our ancestors to stay alive in the cold nights, it allowed us to cook our foods advancing our digestive systems and palates and it gave us protection. In second place I put the alphabet as it gave us a way to transfer knowledge, our most precious resource, through time and people.
I believe that the most important invention has been the internet. It gives us access to information coming from all the corners of the globe. Never before have we had so much information at our fingertips. Most importantly all of this information can be used in a vast multitude of applications.

Hi!

My name is Oliviero Figus and this is my first IEOR 190G Blog Post.

To introduce myself I am 20 years old and was born in London in the UK but grew up in Rome, Italy. I moved to the U.S. two and a half years ago to attend UC Berkeley and have loved it here ever since.

In my free time am passionate about soccer, skiing, traveling and the great outdoors. My academic interests lie in optimization and problem solving with a focus in Entrepreneurship.

I signed up for this course after having read about it in a CET email. As I have had good experiences in all of the CET course I have take so far, I decided to try out IEOR 190G as well. Now I can say that I am very excited to take this class as Professor Lavian seems extremely passionate about the material. I as feel the material we will learn is very relevant to my career path as an aspiring Entrepreneur. Most importantly I hope to learn the risk-reward relationship of patents and to learn more about the best strategy to take a new product to market.