Podcasts about Patent

My co-host Ken Suzan and I are welcoming you the episode 176 of the IP Fridays Podcast. Today's interview guest is returning guest Franklin Graves, who is a senior counsel at Linkedin and teaching IP law at Emerson College. With my co-host Ken Suzan he is discussing how the law for creators has dramatically changed in the past years. Franklin Graves is expressing his personal views and not the views of Linkedin or Microsoft. He is talking about the paper “Upload Complete” before he joined Linkedin. Bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/franklingraves/ Paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5271442 Website: https://creatoreconomylaw.com/ But before we jump into this interview, I have news for you! Richard Meade, a judge on the UK High Court and one of the most prominent figures in European patent law, was appointed Lord Justice of Appeal at the British Court of Appeal on June 12, 2026. Meade played a key role in numerous landmark British patent decisions, particularly in the area of standard-essential patents (SEPs) and FRAND licenses. In Insulet Corp. v. EOFlow Co., No. 2025-1807, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit completely overturned the original $452 million judgment (which had already been reduced by the District Court to $59.4 million) in favor of Insulet. In its decision of June 2, 2026, in the case of Fujifilm v. Kodak, the UPC Board of Appeal provided comprehensive clarifications regarding so-called “long-arm jurisdiction”—that is, the question of whether the UPC can also rule on national patent claims outside the UPC territory (such as in the United Kingdom). In 14 guiding principles, the judges established specific procedural rules for various categories of cases. There is no automatic UPC jurisdiction over national patent claims outside the UPC territory. The Munich Regional Court has issued an arrest warrant against the managing director of Polytech Health & Aesthetics GmbH because he is alleged to have continued to exploit the Brazilian company Silimed's patent for breast implants despite a preliminary injunction. A number of IT and automotive industry associations—which are among the most frequent users of Inter Partes Reviews (IPR) at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office—have filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, urging the Court to grant Google's certiorari petition. An attorney for a Las Vegas performer has asked a California federal judge to temporarily prohibit Taylor Swift from using “The Life of a Showgirl” as a trademark while the trademark lawsuit is pending. Swift's attorney called the lawsuit baseless. And now let's hear Ken discuss creator law with Franklin! AI, Platform Law, and the Creator Economy: What Businesses Need to Know Now Franklin Graves has spent his entire career watching digital content move through systems that most people never see. He started in marketing at a major music label right out of law school, then represented individual creators on YouTube in a pro bono capacity, then moved to the platform side at Eventbrite, and today works as Senior Product Counsel at LinkedIn, where he focuses on AI, data, and the regulatory questions that come with both. His recently published law review article, Upload Complete: An Introduction to Creator Economy Law, is the first academic paper to address the creator economy as a distinct legal field. In a recent episode of the IP Fridays podcast, he spoke with host Kenneth Suzan about responsible AI development, platform regulation, and what it actually means to own your audience in a world where the rules keep changing overnight. From Content Creator to Platform Lawyer The through-line in Graves’ career is a genuine understanding of how content moves from an idea in someone’s head to an audience on a screen. That experience, he argues, is precisely what in-house counsel needs right now. Lawyers working on AI and product development cannot afford to sit at a distance from the technology they are advising on. They need to use the tools, experience them as a creator or end user would, and understand the nuances of how a product actually operates before it reaches the public. Understanding the product first is the precondition for everything else. That philosophy translates directly into how he approaches responsible AI implementation. The landscape of AI standards is crowded: NIST frameworks, the EU AI Act, sector-specific guidance, and a growing body of industry-adopted best practices. The challenge for in-house counsel is not knowing that these standards exist. It is making them actionable for the engineering and product teams they support. Abstract principles need to become concrete controls and workflows. Graves offers one practical shortcut: most companies already have open source software review processes that involve the right stakeholders, the right sign-off levels, and the right security checks. Layering the specifics of generative AI or large language models onto those existing processes is far more efficient than building something new from scratch. A Fragmented Regulatory World The geopolitical dimension of AI regulation is something Graves thinks about constantly in his role at LinkedIn. The EU AI Act, shifting US executive orders, and country-specific approaches to data privacy have created a regulatory environment that can change the rules of the game without warning. His analogy is instructive: creators have long understood what it means to build a community on a platform they do not own. An algorithm change, a policy update, or a government ban can wipe out years of audience-building overnight. Businesses deploying AI tools globally now face a structurally similar problem. The response, for creators and for platforms alike, is to build resilience rather than rely on stability that may not last. TikTok is the clearest recent example. When the platform faced the prospect of being shut down in the United States on national security grounds, it triggered a broader conversation about platform dependence that had been building for years. Creators who had invested their entire business in one platform suddenly confronted the possibility that their audience could simply disappear. The lesson is not that platforms are bad. It is that concentration of any kind, whether it is your audience, your data pipeline, or your regulatory compliance strategy, creates fragility. What Is a Creator, Legally Speaking? One of the central contributions of Graves’ law review article is definitional. The terminology matters more than it might seem. When courts and regulators talk about creators without a shared understanding of what that word means, the resulting legal analysis tends to miss the mark. Graves draws a distinction between users who post content, creators who post with the intent to build an audience and eventually monetize it, and influencers, a subset of creators who are actively running a small business through their content. The difference is intent. A parent posting family photos on Facebook is a user. Someone building a subscription community around their professional expertise is running a business, and the legal framework that applies to them should reflect that. That distinction matters practically when it comes to liability. As more creators build their own platforms, whether through custom membership sites, open source tools like Ghost, or federated social networks, they take on obligations that previously fell to large platforms: content moderation policies, privacy notices, terms of service, and compliance with data regulations across multiple jurisdictions. A creator in Tennessee running a membership platform with subscribers in Germany is operating a global business, whether they think of themselves that way or not. Protecting Children Online: A Question Without a Clean Answer The tension between age verification and privacy is one of the more difficult problems in platform law right now. Australia, several European countries, and a growing number of US states have introduced or passed minimum age requirements for social media accounts. The technical challenge is real: verifying age online requires collecting identifying information, and collecting identifying information creates privacy risk, particularly for the young people the laws are designed to protect. Who should bear the responsibility for that verification is also unresolved. Is it the platform? The app store? The mobile operating system? Graves does not pretend there is a clean answer, but he points to the mobile layer as an underexplored option. The Apple App Store and Google Play Store already have significant leverage over which apps reach users on their devices. Whether that leverage should extend to age verification is a question that deserves more attention than it currently receives. The Right of Publicity in the Age of AI Voice cloning, digital replicas, and AI-generated synthetic media have pushed the right of publicity into territory that traditional IP law was not designed to cover. Trademark law, copyright law, and existing publicity rights each capture part of the problem but none of them covers it completely. The result, as Graves describes it, is a period of experimentation: lawyers filing trademarks on vocal sounds and phrases, states updating their publicity statutes to explicitly mention artificial intelligence, and entertainment unions negotiating over who controls a performance and any AI-generated iterations of it. Tennessee’s Elvis Act is a concrete example of the legislative response: the state updated its right of publicity law to include voice and to reference AI directly. Similar efforts are underway elsewhere. The underlying challenge is calibrating protection so that it gives creators and performers meaningful control over their likeness and voice without foreclosing the development of generative AI systems that depend on broad rights to process and learn from content. Somewhere between those two interests, a workable legal framework needs to emerge. The brand deal context may be where the issue becomes most immediately practical. When a brand partners with an influencer and the campaign involves generative AI in any form, the contract needs to address control explicitly. Who has final approval over how the influencer’s likeness or voice is used in AI-generated deliverables? What happens to those assets after the campaign ends? These are not hypothetical questions. They are contract drafting problems that any brand counsel or creator attorney should be addressing today. What Comes Next Graves is cautious about predictions, but his sense of direction is clear. The regulatory environment will continue to fragment before it converges. The right of publicity will be updated, imperfectly, in more jurisdictions. Creators will continue to move toward owning more of their infrastructure. And the lawyers who do this work best will be the ones who understand the technology well enough to translate it into practical, defensible decisions for the people they advise. Full Transcript: Ken Suzan: Thank you, Rolf. Our returning guest today is Franklin Graves. Franklin is the founder and editor of Creator Economy Law, a website and newsletter that educates creator economy professionals on the intersection of law and policy with the world of creators, brands, and platforms. Franklin also published the first law review article focused on the creator economy, Upload Complete, an introduction to creator economy law. He regularly appears across news and media outlets as a commentator and contributor with a focus on educating creators and raising awareness of all legal aspects of the creator economy. Franklin is based in Nashville, Tennessee. Ken Suzan: Franklin was invited to participate as one of the creators and creator economy professionals in the first ever White House creator economy conference. Franklin works full time as a product counsel at LinkedIn Corporation. As a member of the product and data team, he focuses on emerging issues in AI and data. Franklin previously held roles on the technology law group at HCA Healthcare, the commercial legal team at Eventbrite, and the business and legal affairs team at Naxos Music Group. Welcome back Franklin to the IP Fridays podcast. Franklin Graves: Thank you so much for having me. It is exciting to be back and reflecting over the last decade since I last joined and also the paper that I wrote that dives into this in more detail. So I really appreciate it. And yes, full disclosure, I currently work for LinkedIn, which is a subsidiary of Microsoft. I’m here in my personal capacity to talk about this, the paper I wrote before joining LinkedIn and all of that. So thank you so much for having me back. Ken Suzan: Excellent. So Franklin, since your last appearance on IP Fridays in 2017, your career has evolved significantly. You are now senior product counsel at LinkedIn focusing on AI and data. How has working inside a major tech platform changed your perspective on the legal frameworks governing digital content compared to when you were viewing it purely from the creator side? Franklin Graves: I appreciate that question because when I wrote the article, I did not work for LinkedIn. And I had been coming from a history in my career where I, right out of law school, worked for a record label like we talked about almost 10 years ago. And I was on the content creation side. I’ve represented a major distributor of classical music digitally at the time. And that was my first exposure to understanding how content was taken from the initial inception stage from creators and routed through all the various digital platforms that were at the time still evolving and even arguably still today continue to evolve. The early days of YouTube Music launching and then Apple Music launching, and then going through all the phases of high-res audio and everything that came after that. So that was an interesting perspective to start my career with. And then I went to Eventbrite, which is a ticketing platform, but was also focused on elevating event creators. They kind of took on that moniker of “Hey, we are event creators that we support.” And that was arguably my first exposure to the platform side, the tech platform side of it, because Eventbrite is a platform. And so then I evolved from there in my personal capacity, in a pro bono capacity representing individual creators across the YouTube space. And that’s what we talked about a little bit back when I first came on the podcast. Franklin Graves: Over the last decade, it’s been a chance to grow my own understanding of the creator economy. The terminology “creator economy” came around. And then now on the other side of it, having written the article and all that, and now being fully in-house at LinkedIn, I truly am experiencing a social media platform. LinkedIn is of course arguably way more than just the platform itself. There are so many different avenues to it, but it is a chance for me to understand what it is like working for a company that is operating the platform that people are distributing content on. There’s a user journey to content and all of that. So it’s definitely enhanced and given me a different perspective from a major tech platform side. And part of my role at LinkedIn is really heavily focused on understanding regulation and how that from an AI and data perspective impacts the company. And so I’ve been really leveling up my game over the last year and a half that I’ve been here, understanding mostly EU regulations, but also US regulations that are still in their infancy when it comes to AI. But really when it comes to privacy and data, those are pretty well established across the board. It’s been kind of a combination of what I learned at Eventbrite, because I went to Eventbrite when GDPR was going into effect. And so that was an eyes-wide-open moment of getting in the weeds with negotiating data processing agreements, understanding data transfers and cross-border data transfers and the like. So it’s been kind of an evolution as the laws and regulations have evolved. So has my career, so has my own understanding, so have the platforms’ responses to those laws and regulations. And I’m sure that probably resonates with a lot of your listeners who have also been growing their practice and their understanding as the laws and regulations in this realm have been evolving too. Ken Suzan: Yes, indeed. Now let’s switch gears and talk about AI. You advise on AI and data daily. As platforms integrate generative AI tools into their tech stacks, what are the most critical best practices in-house counsel should be adopting right now to embed responsible AI principles into product development? Franklin Graves: So as an attorney, one of my key roles is to understand the technology. Even representing creators and working for creator platforms, that’s something I’m constantly trying to do: put myself in the shoes of being a creator. And I think I talked about this last time I was on, but I come from a background where I was working for a major label doing marketing, video editing, social media work. And I was creating content. I understood the whole life cycle from the inception point of an idea to execution and then to the final delivery and distribution of that content to an audience within a major music label. And so part of that is the same thing that I think attorneys, especially in-house, should be doing: using the tools that the product and engineering teams are either developing in-house or partnering with third parties to develop, or a combination of the two. Using them, understanding them, using them as a creator would, using them as an end user or a client or customer would. And making sure that if you understand the product and understand the nuances of how it operates, and being a part of the iterations of that internally before it fully ramps, that really gives you a chance to understand: okay, we have a lot of responsible AI principles and standards and protocols that are in existence right now, whether it’s NIST, whether it’s based on the EU AI Act or anything and everything in between. It’s understanding how to apply those and bring those into a product and an engineering environment in a way that is practical and actionable for the people that you’re supporting, the stakeholders you’re supporting. So I think one of the critical best practices is, number one, understand the product or features that you’re supporting. Franklin Graves: And then understand how you as an attorney can use your expertise and understanding of responsible AI practices, whether it’s a regulatory standard or an industry-adopted standard or a hybrid of the two, to leverage those and implement those, break those down and make them into actionable controls and processes and flows that work within your existing infrastructure. That’s a lot of high-level talk, but that’s the general idea. One concrete example we talk about frequently is with open source AI. If you’re working with a product team or an engineering team that is taking an off-the-shelf open source model and bringing that in-house, a lot of times companies have pre-existing open source processes that cover the use of open source software or code. Piggyback on that. That’s the easiest quick win for attorneys: leveraging your existing open source processes to just build on top of that the AI flavor and layering. It’s not very much that you have to do, but the underlying process of the key stakeholders that need to be involved in the review, whether it’s security, whether it’s executive sign-off if it gets to that point, even export control considerations should already be part of your existing open source software process. So layering in on those existing processes the specifics of generative AI or large language models that you’re trying to bring in is a great way to put this into practice. Ken Suzan: Now looking at the geopolitical landscape that we currently have, we have the EU AI Act setting strict standards and shifting US executive orders. How should platforms and brands prepare for this fragmented regulatory environment when deploying AI tools to a global user base? Franklin Graves: It’s a great question. It’s something that is still evolving, I think is fair to say. I would equate it, as I do in the paper that I wrote, to how creators and arguably brands don’t own the platforms that they’re building their communities on. That spawned this concept of de-platforming or going into building your own platform, a decentralized platform of sorts, and owning your community. That gives you that control and takes away the level of instability that can come for creators trying to build a business on a platform they don’t own, they don’t control when certain updates happen, when algorithms change, when tools and functionalities either become available or go away completely. So it’s very similar to what we’ve been experiencing in a regulatory environment where we have geopolitical complexities, for lack of a better term, that can overnight seemingly disrupt the way in which a platform or even a multinational brand is able to connect and reach an audience or continue to leverage the user base that they’ve built. I think TikTok is a great example of that, where it became a national security concern and suddenly it was facing an executive order that required it to be effectively disabled in the US or completely owned and operated by a US entity. All the mechanics and technicalities of whether it’s actually possible and still have a global platform with a global user base is a whole different discussion. But that’s an example of very similar considerations that are now not just a discussion point at the creator level or the individual brand level, but also in a much broader context at a platform level as well. Ken Suzan: Franklin, let’s now shift gears and talk about your article. In your recently published journal article, Upload Complete, which we will have linked in our show notes, you advocate for a shift in terminology from internet creator law, a term used during our first podcast almost a decade ago, to creator economy law. Why is this distinction important and how does it change the way legal practitioners should view the ecosystem of creators, brands, and platforms? Franklin Graves: Oh yes, this is part of the reason why I wanted to write the article: to lay this foundation of understanding. Because at the time I’d written the article, the term creator economy and creator had really not appeared but for maybe once in an actual court decision. And it was kind of focused on influencers and this concept, and it was just not getting it right. And so it was also, as you mentioned, when we first spoke I was even using the term internet creators. And I think that was something that was common at the time. The “internet” portion as a qualifier has since dropped off. And now for purposes of the creator economy, the term creators refers to individuals, it can be small businesses, which is what we’ve seen from a regulatory standpoint, how these small businesses are being impacted by regulations. But essentially creators in the article I pin in the context of intent. What is the intent behind the person or the small business that is posting content, trying to build a community and form a community in a virtual environment? And then that can even spill over into real physical world environments. And so the intent is kind of what I look at. Franklin Graves: And I have a chart in the article that has a diagram showcasing the overlap of what I refer to as “users generating content.” It’s a play on the concept of user-generated content, UGC. Users generating content is that large bucket of anyone posting on a platform of some kind. And within that large bucket, that large circle, are smaller subsets. You have creators, you have brands. Those are really the two buckets you can put people into. Otherwise it’s like your grandmother or your parents posting content on Facebook or Instagram, and those are everyday users of a platform. The distinction to get into that subcategory of being a creator more so has been analyzing the intent behind the posting. Are you posting content to build an audience, to build a community, to eventually have a chance to monetize the following that you’re bringing in or sell services or something like that? Brands are posting for that reason. Creators are maybe posting for that same reason. But even within the creator category, there’s a subcategory of influencers that are trying to sell something, that are trying to build more than just an awareness of who they are, their influence. They are trying to do brand deals, partnership deals, upsells and all that, and start an actual small business aside from just the content itself that they’re creating. So that’s kind of the distinctions that I make in the paper. And that’s why it’s important to understand and lay that foundation, that anyone can post content online, but the intent, the why behind their posting that content, really does ultimately matter, especially when you’re looking at it from a court case or from a regulatory standpoint. Ken Suzan: Now, Franklin, we’re seeing unprecedented geopolitical activity around platform ownership. For example, the US legislation targeting TikTok and Brazil’s recent temporary ban of X. How do these macro-level battles impact the day-to-day livelihood of creators? And how can they legally and operationally protect themselves? Franklin Graves: So the shift that we’re seeing, and I alluded to this earlier in our conversation, is this concept of Web 3. And that term may or may not be really popular anymore, but that’s essentially what we’re looking at: a shift into a federated, decentralized operation of a platform. So instead of one owner, one company, one entity owning and operating the platform, it’s decentralized. Anyone can start up a server, and it’s interoperable, meaning anyone can plug and play and connect to that larger network. And it creates this unified social network experience. Within each operating node of that network, there can be your own decisions around content moderation, your own decisions around the hosting providers you use, where you’re operating out of, the terms and conditions that apply to that. But the flip side is that instead of creators posting and sharing in a closed environment run and controlled by a singular entity, you’re now experiencing a peer-to-peer type operation where your experience can change based on which server, which node, which user you’re engaging with. You might have content that’s acceptable in one area but not acceptable in another, and maybe it just doesn’t even show up in that other area. Franklin Graves: But from a liability standpoint, as creators start to build their own networks and communities, even outside of a concept like the fediverse, it’s even down to creators building their own communities through online courses, subscription membership-based platforms that they run on their own website. There’s open source software out there, even something called Ghost, where you have memberships. And that is a creator or a small business in the creator economy that is now taking on the obligations that would typically fall upon a platform. They need to take into consideration terms and conditions, privacy policies, legal aspects, and regulatory considerations for running a platform, especially in a global world. So it’s a lot of liability that then shifts over to those small businesses and even brands sometimes that are doing the same thing. Whether it is something as simple or complex as content moderation or all the way up to monetizing an audience, this new world where creators can spin up and run a platform all dovetails back to the concept of creators not feeling like they have control in reaching the audience and the community that they’re building on an individual platform. And so this really became more mainstream conversation with TikTok and the issues around it potentially being shut down in the US. That was kind of the mindset shift and eyes opening for many creators, especially within the influencer subset, of realizing: we need to make sure that we have a way to reach the audience we’ve built if the individual platform that we’ve committed to over the last year or three years or so is no longer available. We need a way to continue that relationship outside of that one platform controlling it. Ken Suzan: Franklin, we have a few minutes left and a number of topics. So I’m going to switch gears and talk about a few issues. First, a major emerging topic in your paper is the evolution of protecting kids online. With state-level age-gating laws like the CAADCA and the recent FTC updates to COPPA, how should platforms navigate the significant tension between strict age verification mandates and the privacy and First Amendment rights of their users? Franklin Graves: Man, that is a whole discussion to unravel. It is a consideration that we’re seeing happen again, going back to the geopolitical nature of everything. Countries like Australia and certain countries in Europe and now even individual states in the US are trying to look at ways, and some of them have already put into place minimum age requirements before you can even sign up for an account with a social media platform. One of the things I’d just highlight quickly here is that one of the tensions is around how you verify someone’s age online and still maintain the ability to be at least pseudonymous. How do you still have a level of privacy, autonomy, and protection when it comes to having to provide something like a driver’s license or have parental consent tied and connected to an account managed by a parent in a situation where maybe it’s not appropriate or not beneficial to the child in that manner? But then maybe there are counterbalancing factors that outweigh that. All of that comes down to the technicalities of how it’s actually implemented and maintaining the sense of openness and freedom that we’ve had on the internet to date. And then the other element there is, since a lot of the internet that we think of today is more so through mobile applications, is it something that the mobile operating system providers and app store providers should be thinking about? So whether that’s the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store, where does that initial age verification need to fall? Is it at the platform level? Is it the app store or mobile device management level or something else? Yeah, there’s a lot to discuss there. And a lot of the issues we’re seeing with how the internet is changing in terms of being able to browse a website without disclosing personal information that might not have been required before is largely stemming from a focus on protecting children online. Ken Suzan: It sounds like, Franklin, we could have another episode covering lots of issues connected with that one topic alone. Franklin Graves: I would absolutely agree with that. There’s a lot going on there. And again, it’s different across the world. And so I know you all have a global listener base. And so there’s a lot of nuances to that whole discussion too, that are worth exploring. Ken Suzan: Last question for today’s episode is regarding the right of publicity. With the explosion of AI-generated synthetic media, digital replicas, and voice cloning, the right of publicity is taking center stage. What are the biggest legal risks for brands partnering with influencers right now? And how can creators protect their most valuable asset, their likeness? Franklin Graves: That’s a great question. I think we’re seeing kind of a throwing-spaghetti-against-the-wall-to-see-what-sticks approach right now by a lot of different parties, whether it’s trademark attorneys, whether it’s general entertainment attorneys or whoever. For example, we’ve seen Taylor Swift filing trademarks to protect certain sounds of her voice and phrasing that she uses. It’s a difficult area because in the realm of generative AI with deep fakes and virtual avatars, that is where it gets tricky, because traditional IP laws are just not able to fully cover that spectrum. It’s a piecemeal approach, but even then it doesn’t fully cover it. So for example, I’m based in Tennessee and a couple of years ago we had the Elvis Act that updated our right of publicity law to add voice and to explicitly reference artificial intelligence. And so that’s the kind of effort we’re probably going to continue to see: efforts to develop some framework around protecting what is essentially a privacy right, in a manner that doesn’t restrict generative AI systems from continuing to develop and operate the way they’re operating now, while layering in those protections so that in the US at least a First Amendment right doesn’t necessarily get squashed, and those traditional well-recognized efforts to not overregulate a technology in its early stages are respected. Franklin Graves: And so I think a lot of what we’re seeing is just a need to update laws. The SAG-AFTRA debate and the strikes that happened around maintaining control of your performance and any iterations of that, or building upon that by a media company that might come later, it’s all on the table right now and still being discussed, still being worked out. I think in the short run, a lot of times if it’s in a brand deal, the key question is: if you are using generative AI to enhance in some way the final deliverable for the campaign, who has control over that? Who has final say and sign-off on how that likeness or that digital replica or that person’s voice is represented? And even outside of the brand space, we’ve seen actors like James Earl Jones signing over certain aspects like their voice and allowing it to continue to be used in these manners powered by generative AI as Darth Vader. And I think I saw something that Boy George was even starting up an AI company that allows musicians, the original recording artist, to rerecord new versions of their masters so that they don’t miss out on that revenue. It’s powered by generative AI, by taking their voice now, which is significantly different than it was back in the 80s, and using generative AI to make it sound closer to the original, but all based on their current performance. So I think it’s still an evolving area. And what’s interesting too is on the platform side, we’re seeing the early stages of platforms like Google starting to acknowledge and rely on the license grant contained in their terms of service for YouTube, which grants them broad rights to use the content to run their platform. So all that to be said, it’s still early stages. I’m very interested to see where we go from here in the future, especially from a global perspective as well. Ken Suzan: Franklin, I could spend hours talking to you about this. You’re such a knowledgeable person on these topics. Maybe in a few years, will we connect again and talk further on AI and all the things that are yet to be developed? Franklin Graves: Thank you. Yeah, it doesn’t have to be another decade. Maybe we can cut it to half a decade, given the pace at which technology is going now. Ken Suzan: Sounds good, Franklin. Thanks again for being on the IP Fridays podcast.

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This Day in Legal History: The Watergate BurglaryOn this day in 1972, at roughly 2:30 in the morning, a security guard at the Watergate office complex on Virginia Avenue in Washington named Frank Wills noticed that the latches on a stairwell door had been taped over and called the District police. The police arrested five men inside the offices of the Democratic National Committee on the sixth floor: James McCord, Bernard Barker, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez, and Frank Sturgis. McCord was the security coordinator for the Committee to Re-Elect the President. Two days later, the FBI traced a $25,000 cashier's check found in Barker's bank account to the Committee to Re-Elect's finance chairman. The burglary itself was a third-rate one — bad lockpicking, surveillance gear that did not work, men carrying address books that linked them to the White House — but the legal consequences took two years to play out and rewrote large parts of American constitutional law in the process.The Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, chaired by Sam Ervin of North Carolina, conducted public hearings in the summer of 1973 that produced the disclosure of the White House taping system. The Saturday Night Massacre in October 1973 — Nixon's firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox and the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus — produced the legal scholarship that became the modern law of presidential removal and the Ethics in Government Act of 1978's independent-counsel framework. United States v. Nixon in July 1974 produced the doctrine that executive privilege is qualified rather than absolute and must yield to a demonstrated need in a criminal proceeding, a holding that is still the foundational separation-of-powers case the Court returns to whenever an administration claims that internal deliberations cannot be subpoenaed.The articles of impeachment voted by the House Judiciary Committee in late July 1974 produced the modern template for impeachment-as-constitutional-remedy that has been deployed four times since. Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. The constitutional residue of what began with five men and a roll of tape in a Watergate stairwell is in the Federal Election Campaign Act amendments, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Inspector General Act, the Presidential Records Act, the post-Saturday-Night-Massacre statute book that defines what limits an administration faces when it tries to use the criminal-justice system politically. Fifty-four years on, the question of how much of that residue has held up is, as the saying goes, the question.U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman of the Eastern District of Wisconsin on Tuesday denied former Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan's post-trial motion to vacate her December 2025 conviction for felony obstruction of a federal proceeding. Dugan had been charged after she let Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, who had appeared in her courtroom in April 2025 on a state misdemeanor, and his attorney leave through a side door of her courtroom after Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers had assembled in the public hallway to arrest him on a federal civil immigration warrant. A jury found Dugan guilty of obstruction and acquitted her of the lesser concealing-an-individual count.Her post-trial motion pressed two principal arguments. The first was that the Fourth Circuit's recent decision in United States v. Edwards — which addressed the scope of 18 U.S.C. § 1505 obstruction as applied to interference with administrative agency proceedings — applies to ICE warrant service and so the trial court should have given a narrower jury instruction. The second was that her conduct was protected by the doctrine of judicial immunity for acts taken on the bench. Judge Adelman rejected both. On Edwards, the court held that the Fourth Circuit's reasoning addresses a different statutory provision and a different agency context, and that Dugan's case is governed by Seventh Circuit precedent on the obstruction statute she was convicted under.On judicial immunity, the court held that the doctrine is a civil shield against private damages liability and does not bar federal criminal prosecution for affirmative conduct in aid of evading federal law-enforcement officers. Dugan's team has announced that the case will go to the Seventh Circuit. Sentencing is now back on the calendar. The appellate question that will dominate the briefing is the one Judge Adelman teed up: whether a state judge taking administrative action in the courthouse — guiding a litigant to a back exit — falls inside or outside the federal obstruction statute's reach when the action is calculated to defeat federal law-enforcement service. That issue has not been squarely decided in the Seventh Circuit. The case is going to be the vehicle.Ex-Judge Loses Bid To Undo ICE Obstruction Conviction | Law360A Maryland federal judge on Tuesday denied SCOTUSblog co-founder Thomas C. Goldstein's post-trial motion for acquittal or, in the alternative, a new trial on the twelve counts on which a jury had convicted him in February — tax evasion, assisting in the preparation of false returns, willful failure to pay over employment taxes, and false statements to mortgage lenders. The case is one of the more striking falls in modern Supreme Court practice. Goldstein had argued for years before the Court and was, for two decades, one of the most visible private SCOTUS practitioners in the country, with SCOTUSblog itself becoming the standard public-facing reference for Supreme Court news.The criminal case grew out of his recreational high-stakes poker, which prosecutors used to build out a pattern of unreported gambling income, gambling debts paid out of law-firm funds, and gambling losses claimed as business expenses. The post-trial motion principally argued that the trial court's jury instructions on willfulness improperly conflated the negligence standard with the higher mens rea Cheek v. United States requires in federal tax-evasion prosecutions, and that the court had wrongly excluded evidence going to Goldstein's claimed reliance on his accountants' advice. The court rejected both. On the willfulness instruction, the court found the instruction tracked the Fourth Circuit's pattern instruction on Cheek and made clear to the jury that a good-faith misunderstanding of the law was a defense. On the accountant-reliance evidence, the court held that the offer of proof was insufficient to establish that Goldstein had actually relied on professional advice in the particular omissions the indictment turned on, as opposed to relying on his own judgment. Sentencing is now the next event.The federal sentencing guidelines on the tax counts alone, with the loss amount the jury found, point to a substantial custodial term. Watch for an appeal that focuses on the willfulness instruction; that is the cleanest reversible-error vehicle in the record.SCOTUSblog Founder Goldstein Denied Acquittal Or Retrial | Law360A Delaware federal judge on Tuesday denied Guardant Health's post-trial motion to vacate, reduce, or stay enforcement of the $83.4 million jury verdict TwinStrand Biosciences won against it in late 2023 for willful infringement of diagnostic-sequencing patents covering duplex-sequencing technology used in liquid-biopsy cancer-screening assays. The court also declined to enhance the award under 35 U.S.C. § 284, even though the jury had found willfulness, reasoning that the multi-factor Read v. Portec analysis the Federal Circuit has refined in Halo Electronics and its progeny cut both ways here: Guardant's pre-suit notice and continued use of the accused technology supported some enhancement, but its defenses on infringement and validity, while ultimately rejected, were not objectively reckless.The decision is notable for two doctrinal reasons. First, it reflects how district courts are continuing to deploy Halo's discretion-based framework in the post-pandemic-era diagnostic-patent landscape, where the gap between objectively defensible defenses and reckless infringement is being drawn case by case in a way that is making certworthy issues for the Federal Circuit and, eventually, the Supreme Court. Second, it underscores the $83.4 million is significant but not transformative: the broader competitive question in the diagnostic-sequencing space is whether Guardant can design around the asserted claims fast enough to keep its cancer-screening assays on the market without paying a recurring royalty to TwinStrand. Guardant has indicated it will appeal to the Federal Circuit. Both the underlying infringement findings and the no-enhancement ruling are likely to be appealed in parallel — Guardant on infringement and validity, TwinStrand on the refusal to enhance. The verdict stands for now.Del. Judge Upholds $83.4M Patent Verdict Against Guardant | Law360My Bloomberg Tax column this week argues that the IRS's disclosure of taxpayer address information to ICE should be understood less as a narrow immigration-enforcement controversy and more as a tax-data governance failure.I argue that Section 6103 does not make IRS data impossible to share, but it does make confidentiality the default and disclosure the exception. That distinction matters because a statutory exception should not become a bulk-transfer mechanism whenever another agency wants access to IRS records. The IRS holds unusually sensitive information because taxpayers are legally compelled to provide it, so any interagency disclosure should require necessity, precision, security, and auditability on a record-by-record basis.The TIGTA report is troubling because the IRS apparently built an automated matching process that was vulnerable to bad ICE inputs, inconsistent formatting, malformed records, and weak matching rules. ICE also had unresolved safeguard issues and missed corrective-action deadlines before the data transfer. In my view, that combination means the problem was not simply that data moved; it was that protected taxpayer information moved through a process that treated matching quality and backend security as implementation details rather than core privacy protections.The broader point is that bad data inputs are not just a programmer's inconvenience. If the IRS relies on another agency's messy file to decide whether protected tax information can be disclosed, the quality of that file becomes part of the taxpayer-confidentiality analysis. Loose input standards and crude matching rules effectively expand the statutory exception beyond what Congress authorized.My proposed fix is straightforward: before the IRS discloses taxpayer information, requesting agencies should have to provide clean, structured, validated data; legally certify the need for each record; meet defined match-confidence thresholds; submit ambiguous cases for manual review; and accept strict limits on use, retention, and auditing. The column's central line is that Section 6103 exceptions should operate like locked doors, not loading docks.IRS Sharing Taxpayer Info With ICE Is a Data Governance Issue This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

Every patent has a family, and sometimes the most important rights aren't in the patent you're looking at, but in its siblings, parents, or long-lost cousins. In this episode, we talk about how to trace a patent's relatives through continuation, divisional, and priority filings, and why that family tree can reveal hidden risks, future enforcement threats, or strategic opportunities. If you've ever wondered how one invention turns into an entire web of patents, this episode shows you where to look and why it matters.   Connect with Adam Diament E-mail: adiament@nolanheimann.com   Website: https://www.nolanheimann.com/legal-team/adam-diament   Phone/Text: (424)281-0162   YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5cTADZzJfPoyQMjnW-rtRw Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trademarkpatentlaw/   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-diament-j-d-ph-d-180a005/   Amazon Book Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B005SV2RZC/allbooks?ingress=0&visitId=831aff71-513b-4158-ad73-386ede491e93

A government-issued patent is supposed to be a shield for innovation. But in today's AI economy, it may be more like a temporary passport into a legal war zone. In this episode of The Valley Current®, host Jack Russo unpacks the growing divide between the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the federal courts. While the PTO is rolling out a more founder-friendly approach to AI and software patents, judges continue striking many of those same patents down as abstract ideas. The result is a fractured two-track system where patents are easier to win but harder to defend. For startups, investors, and tech builders racing to secure an edge in artificial intelligence, the stakes could not be higher. Is America fueling the next wave of innovation or issuing paper assets destined for courtroom collapse? Jack Russo Managing Partner Jrusso@computerlaw.com www.computerlaw.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackrusso "Every Entrepreneur Imagines a Better World"®️  

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 17:20:00 +0000 https://jungeanleger.podigee.io/3185-sportwoche-otv-spitzentennis-podcast-maximale-zwischenwoche-mit-starkem-sandro-kopp-man-darf-auch-auf-die-fussball-wm-schauen fa8016de7c924381fbc0966f94062e0d Woche 24 ist zwischen French Open und Wimbledon, aber die Fussball-WM ist losgegangen. Im gemischten Ranking WTA und ATP bleiben vier Frauen auf 1-4. win2day-Player der Woche ist Sandro Kopp. SportWoche ÖTV-Ö Top10 seit Jänner unverändert zusammengesetzt: Julia Grabher, Sinja Kraus, Anastasia Potapova und Lili Tagger (alphabetische Reihenfolge) bei den Damen sowie Sandro Kopp, Filip Misolic, Lukas Neumayer, Sebastian Ofner, Jurij Rodionov und Joel Schwärzler bei den Herren sind WTA/ATP-übergreifend die Top10 aktuell. In welcher Reihenfolge, das wird im Podcast verraten. WM-Song: http://www.audio-cd.at/music https://mumak.me https://www.win2day.at https://www.audio-cd.at/oetv-spitzentennis http://www.sportgeschichte.at/oetv Inside In, der ÖTV-Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/7KNsgeD8XyXTsAgCFKfI7Y https://www.oetv.at Quelle Rankings: Live-Rankings von live-tennis.eu Die Marke, Patent, Rechte und das Archiv der SportWoche wurden 2017 von Christian Drastil Comm. erworben, Mehr unter http://www.sportgeschichte.at . Der neue SportWoche Podcast ist eingebettet in „ Wiener Börse, Sport, Musik (und mehr)“ auf http://www.audio-cd.at und erscheint, wie es in Name SportWoche auch drinsteckt, wöchentlich. Bewertungen bei Spotify oder Apple machen mir Freude: http://www.audio-cd.at/spotify , http://www.audio-cd.at/apple . Du möchtest deine Werbung in diesem und vielen anderen Podcasts schalten? Kein Problem!Für deinen Zugang zu zielgerichteter Podcast-Werbung, klicke hier.Audiomarktplatz.de - Geschichten, die bleiben - überall und jederzeit! 3185 full no Christian Drastil Comm. (Agentur für Investor Relations und Podcasts)

"Midlife is a perfect time for you to think about where you've been & where you want to go,” says Margie Lachman, PhD.  Lachman is professor of psychology at Brandeis University and director of the Lifespan Lab. A leading expert on adult development and aging, Lachman is one of a small group of scholars who study midlife from a lifespan developmental perspective. Her honors include research awards from the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Gerontological Society of America. Lachman was a member of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Midlife Development, which launched the landmark Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study. She is a coinvestigator on MIDUS and several other projects exploring cognition, health, and well-being in midlife and later adulthood.  00:00 - Why midlife is actually prime time 04:37 - The hinge moment & the pivot point 08:08 - Looking back vs. looking ahead 11:16 - The midlife crisis myth, explained 14:24 - Stability, identity, & personality change 18:42 - Traits of people who thrive in midlife 22:55 - What to do in retirement 26:53 - No one wants to look older 29:00 - Emotional regulation gets better with age 31:20 - Resilience, optimism, and sense of control 35:52 - Giving vs receiving in midlife relationships 38:36 - The U-shaped happiness curve is overstated 41:32 - Cognitive peak in midlife 40:36 - How your mindset can be anti-inflammatory 44:30 - Exercise as a panacea for health  Referenced in the episode:  Buy Lachman's book here: For more about the MIDUS study, visit: https://midus.wisc.edu/ Patent holder study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733322001500  We hope you enjoy this episode, and feel free to watch the full video on YouTube! Whether it's an article or podcast, we want to know what we can do to help here at mindbodygreen. Let us know at: podcast@mindbodygreen.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Martin Soler shares where hoteliers should focus as technology and AI reshape the industry. Recorded ahead of HITEC 2026, Martin explains why strong data foundations matter more than the latest AI tools, how to evaluate technology vendors through the lens of integrations and APIs, and what hotel leaders should prioritize today to prepare for what's next. If you're trying to make smarter technology decisions in a rapidly changing environment, this conversation offers a practical starting point.Read Martin's newsletter on SubstackYou may also enjoy: AI Only Works for Hotels in This Order: Data, Intelligence, Action - Stephen German, ActablYour AI Tools Won't Save You. Your Data Will. - GB Sharma, Mosaic HospitalityWhy Our Approach to Hotel Data Earned a Patent and Prepares Hotels for AI - Clark Brayton, Joseph McGroarty & Pritesh Patel, ActablFinding Gold in Your 'Data Attic': How Margaritaville's Chief Data Officer Unlocks Hidden Opportunities A few more resources:If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestionsIf you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

Voice Of GO(r)D is very happy to bring you an in depth discussion with Roleigh Martin, a lifelong data systems analyst and inventor, who has written an as yet unpublished book which will be of great interest to many of my listeners.”The Forgotten Half of The Patent Clause” advertises itself as a ‘constitutional law litigation strategy and a citizen's playbook' and Mr Martin joins the show to explain his thesis on how two words in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, ‘time limited', have been left out of the equation within the only monopoly the Constitution grants, patents for new products. With time limitations being abandoned in the understanding and execution of patent law, Roleigh explains that 58% of our economy are effectively protected from the free market competition that the founders had envisioned for America when they wrote the Constitution. Amongst that 58% includes the manufacture of cars, trucks, and other types of equipment, and a series of past judicial rulings has vaporized the market for remanufacture of patent expired equipment which should, constitutionally, pass into the public domain. This situation is, in part, why we see the prices of cars and trucks have become totally untethered from reality, and way out of the budgets for most people to purchase them, a problem that has created a drag on the economy and radically increased the cost of living for everyone. This problem with abandoning the time limitation on patents has combined with the wicked incursion of the regulatory state into every facet of life, and turned every new vehicle into an expensive surveillance liability that most people wouldn't purchase - if they had a choice.Roleigh goes through the history of a number of cases that brought us to this problem, and then a number of more recent cases, which, when combined with the 2024 Chevron Deference ruling, have created an opportunity to correct this unconstitutional incursion into our economy, and give competing manufacturers access to expired patents as originally envisioned in the Constitution.I sure would like to buy an inexpensive brand new version of a 1983 Ford F-150 or a 1999 Peterbilt rather than a wildly overpriced and larded down with unnecessary surveillance and automation tech 2026 model, wouldn't you?Roleigh's book shows us how we might re-orient industry towards making these offerings a legal reality, and you will enjoy this conversation greatly.You can find Roleigh on Twitter, and read this summary of his idea and his book -https://x.com/RoleighMartin/status/2042726307931287738You can also read over 30 Twitter Articles he has published explaining various aspects of his proposal -https://x.com/RoleighMartin/articlesHow I initially found Roleigh was through this article he wrote connecting truckers to his larger idea -https://x.com/RoleighMartin/status/2039522355702100013I've been honored to be asked to write a foreword to Roleigh's book, and as soon as he figures out a publisher and gets it out into the universe, the listeners of my podcast and readers of this Substack will be amongst the first to know.https://autonomoustruckers.substack.com/I am always open to questions and comments, and especially look forward to any you might have regards this episode and Mr Martin's ideas.Send them here - gordilocks@protonmail.comAnd if you enjoyed the show, tell a friend and send it to them! Word of mouth is the best advertising, and the only type I can afford.Roleigh quite liked my own book, End of The Road - Inside The War on Truckers and if you have yet to avail yourself of a copy, please visit my publishers website, where you can find options for a hardcover, e-reader, or audiobook narrated by me.https://creedandculture.com/books/end-of-the-road-inside-the-war-on-truckers/Thanks for listening!

National Inventor Club Founder Brian Fried went LIVE for a powerful discussion on one of the biggest decisions inventors face: Should you license your invention or manufacture it yourself?If you had an invention idea and were trying to figure out the smartest next step, this session was for you. Brian drew on his extensive experience in both licensing and manufacturing, with products featured on QVC, in Target, Walmart, catalogs, online retailers, and more. During the live session, he broke down the real differences between these two paths and what inventors needed to know before investing serious time or money.In this LIVE session, attendees learned:The difference between licensing and manufacturingThe pros and cons of each pathWhat companies look for when evaluating productsWhat inventors often get wrongHow to choose the best route based on your goals and budgetManufacturing realities most inventors are not prepared forHow to protect yourself and your invention along the wayWhether you were just getting started or already moving forward with your idea, this session helped clarify your options and avoid costly mistakes.About Brian Fried Brian Fried is The Inventor Coach™. A serial inventor with 15 issued U.S. patents, Brian has lived every stage of the invention journey from idea to patent to licensing deal to retail shelf. His products have been featured on QVC and sold in major retailers including Target and Walmart. He is the founder of the National Inventor Club with over 15,000 members worldwide, a three-time author on invention commercialization, and host of the Got Invention Show. Brian is the creator of uinvent.ai, an AI-powered platform built specifically for inventors, and the Inventor Smart Community App. He provides licensing representation, manufacturing guidance, and commercialization coaching to inventors at every stage. He is an Alibaba Ambassador, serves on their SME Advisory Committee and International IP Enforcement Team, and is the Official Inventor Liaison for Licensing International. He has testified before Congress on patent programs and spoken at USPTO Inventor Day, SCORE, and major industry events nationwide.Watch the episode here: https://youtube.com/live/6R-1PLallzw-----------------------Become a member today @ https://nationalinventorclub.com. Unlock Your Invention's Potential with Inventor Smart! Inventor Smart Community - The Ultimate APP for Inventors to connect, collaborate, network, and drive invention ideas forward! Join social networking, participate in group chats, events, visit the library, and find the support you need! Download the Inventor Smart Community app on Google Play or Apple App Store or here http://inventorsmart.app Join us today! Have a great invention idea? Do you want to know if your idea will make you money? If you're just getting started, need help with product development, engineering, prototyping, finding a product licensing agent, or with bringing your invention idea to reality manufacturing, schedule a call with Brian Fried, The Inventor Coach @ https://brianfried.com

This episode is sponsored by Actabl. Learn more about its new product, Altitude, here. For years now, AI has promised hotel leaders something it hasn't delivered: the ability to ask a question and get an answer you can actually trust. Today, that changes with the launch of Actabl Altitude.In this episode, I sit down with Stephen German, Actabl's SVP of Product, to tell the story behind it. We get into why most AI answers fall apart the moment you check them, what it really takes to trust a number enough to hand it to your CFO, and why the foundation under the AI matters more than the AI itself.Stephen makes a distinction that reframes the whole conversation. Most AI is probabilistic, so ask the same question twice, and you can get two different answers. When you're dealing with forecasts and P&Ls, you need deterministic results, the same right answer every time, with logic underneath that knows the difference between your primary forecast and your locked one. That's the line between an interesting demo and a tool you can run a business on.We also talk about who this is really for. Above-property leaders, the regional VPs and COOs, have been underserved by hotel tech for a long time. Altitude lets them have a conversation with their data, follow the thread at the speed of thought, and dig into a problem without waiting days for three different teams to pull reports. It's the always-on AI analyst that hotel leaders have wanted and never had, until now.In this episode, you'll hear:Why you can't trust most AI outputs yet, and what it takes to fix thatThe CFO test: Would you hand this answer over and say, "I know all of this is right"?Why your data has to be normalized, and the apples-to-apples problemThe questions every leader should ask their technical team about AI reportingIntroducing Altitude and the problem it was built to solveA conversation with your data: following the thread without losing the plotWhy above-property leaders have been underserved, and why that ends hereThe data pyramid: spending less time finding answers and more time acting on themLearn more about Actabl Altitude here.Listen to prior episodes in this series:AI Only Works for Hotels in This Order: Data, Intelligence, Action - Stephen German, ActablWhy Our Approach to Hotel Data Earned a Patent and Prepares Hotels for AI - Clark Brayton, Joseph McGroarty & Pritesh Patel, ActablIs Your AI Saving You Time? (Jerimi Ford, Actabl) A few more resources:If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestionsIf you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

A photo day recap -- we had so much fun! And let's keep things nice on social media... Holly tries to explain Spencer Pratt to her husband (it's didn't go well), an in-car toilet patent has us perplexed, and are Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce getting married at Madison Square Garden?!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Join us for a timely webinar examining the latest updates to the United States Patent and Trademark Office's examination policy under Director John Squires, with a focused look at how these changes are reshaping patent prosecution. Our panel will break down key shifts in examination practice—including updates to patent eligibility—and applicant strategies emerging in response, offering practical insights for navigating this evolving landscape. Designed for practitioners, in-house counsel, and policy observers alike, this discussion will highlight what matters most for day-to-day prosecution.Featuring:Dr. Julie Burke, Founder, IP Quality Pro, LLCNoel Egnatios, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Legal Officer, DivXEli Mazour, Of Counsel, Foley & Lardner LLPClint Mehall, Partner, Davidson Kappel LLC(Moderator) John M. Rogitz, Managing Attorney, Rogitz & Associates

Assa Abloy AB v. CPC Patent Technologies Pty Ltd.

Join the Conversation at 303-477-5600 or text to 307-200-8222. Monday - Friday from 3 pm - 6 pm MT. https://RushToReason.com HOUR 1 Unmasking COVID: Explosive Debates, Hidden Truths, and the Fight for Medical Freedom Host John Rush kicks off an electrifying hour with Dr. Kelly Victory and Steve House, diving headfirst into the hottest topics in health and freedom. From vaccine skepticism to the battle for medical transparency, the trio unpacks explosive new data and challenges the official COVID narrative. Are hidden truths finally coming to light? Tune in as they debate what the public should really believe—and reveal why some studies aren't making headlines. No topic is off-limits: vaccine safety, cancer fears, childhood health, rising autism rates, Big Pharma profits, and the evolution of vaccine policy all come under fire. Government agencies and industry incentives are put in the spotlight as the guests expose what's really shaping our healthcare decisions. Things get even more heated as the group tackles a wild bioethics controversy—are environmental activists going too far with proposals involving Lone Star ticks and alpha-gal syndrome? Plus, they break down sensational headlines about norovirus, call out fear-driven media, and urge listeners to use common sense when evaluating health scares and political spin. HOUR 2 Innovation Under Siege: Patent Wars, Gated Towns, and High-Stakes CO Headlines Host John Rush and guest Randy Landreneau of U.S. Inventor ignite Hour 2 with a high-stakes warning: America's broken patent system is putting the next generation of inventors—and the country's future—at risk. Can small innovators survive in a world where Big Tech bulldozes their patents and China races ahead? Find out what's truly at stake for American innovation. Then, the conversation heats up as John uncovers the drama behind Bow Mar's controversial plan to gate off the town. Is it genuine neighborhood safety, or a public-access powder keg ready to blow? Next, John exposes how new rules from California could slash your aftermarket tire choices and drive up costs for Colorado drivers. From catalytic converters to winter tires, he reveals how these copycat regulations threaten everyone on the road. The hour wraps up with breaking news on Denver International Airport's CEO retiring, the airport's massive economic clout, and John's inside scoop on what's next for one of the nation's busiest hubs. Guest Timestamps 1:13 — Randy Landreneau — https://www.usinventor.org

In Part 2, Joey Romero and Peter Nieves take a deeper dive into AI agents, intellectual property, and the legal challenges businesses face when adopting artificial intelligence. From AI-generated content and data ownership to liability, privacy concerns, and patent protection, Peter explains how entrepreneurs can harness AI's power while safeguarding their business, clients, and proprietary systems. In this episode: What AI agents are and how they differ from traditional AI tools. The legal risks of AI-powered automation, including privacy, confidentiality, and liability concerns. Who owns AI-generated content and why copyright protection remains a challenge. Data scraping, AI training models, and the lawsuits shaping the future of AI. How businesses can protect confidential information when using AI tools. Practical ways to leverage AI safely while minimizing legal exposure. Patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret considerations for AI-driven businesses. Key intellectual property mistakes entrepreneurs should avoid when building AI-powered systems. Why professionals who learn to use AI effectively will have a competitive advantage.Learn more about Nieves IP Law Group:

Even with the Bayh‑Dole framework in place, moving a federally funded discovery into the market still depends on licensing, capital and timing. A new report highlights where those steps break down and how researchers and entrepreneurs work through them. Here to share their own journey through the innovation ecosystem are Dr. Eric Fossum and Dr. Sabrina Kemeny.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

[powerpresss] My co-host Ken Suzan and I are welcoming you to episode 175 of our podcast IP Fridays! Today's interview guest is Bruce Dearling, patent attorney and partner at Hepworth Browne in the UK, and we talk about how non-technical features must be considered when assessing inventive step of patents at least according to recent decisions of the UK supreme court and the Unified Patent Court. Profile of Bruce Dearling UK Supreme Court Emotional Perception AI Limited UPC Abbot vs Sinocare But before we jump into this interesting interview, I have news for you: On May 20, 2026, the Swiss Federal Council adopted the fully revised Patent Ordinance, which will enter into force on January 1, 2027, together with the revised Patent Act. In the future, the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property will prepare a mandatory search report for each application; applicants can choose between a partially examined version and a full examination that assesses novelty and inventive step. The full examination costs an additional 300 Swiss francs, and renewal fees will increase by a total of eight percent over the 20-year term. On May 19, 2026, Asus entered into a licensing agreement with the Wi-Fi multimode patent pool managed by Sisvel, thereby ending all ongoing infringement proceedings. Sisvel bundles standard-essential patents in the pool from, among others, Atlantia, ETRI, and Mitsubishi Electric. On May 18, 2026, the UPC Local Chamber in Düsseldorf rejected Align Technology's application for a preliminary injunction against its Chinese competitor Angelalign. Angelalign may continue to sell its clear aligners within the UPC jurisdiction. Our partners Dirk Schulz, Ulrich Storz, and Wanze Zhang, together with Arnold Ruess, successfully represented Angelalign. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced midweek that, since October of last year, it has invalidated or is seeking to invalidate approximately 10,500 trademark applications and registrations in eleven administrative orders. Reasons include forged attorney signatures and the fabrication of non-existent filing requirements. This stems from ongoing abuse of the U.S. trademark system, primarily by non-U.S. applicants, which can lead to conflicts with validly registered trademarks for legitimate businesses. On May 12, 2026, the British Court of Appeal overturned a lower court decision that would have required Nokia to grant interim licenses for video coding patents. The court found that Nokia's license offer to the Taiwanese manufacturers Acer and Asus had already been made on RAND terms. In May, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a brief in the ongoing Corteva v. Inari litigation, expressing antitrust concerns regarding certain patent practices in the field of plant breeding. This marks the first time the agency has actively intervened in a biopharmaceutical patent dispute with implications for seed innovations. Episode 175 of the IP Fridays podcast was a conversation I will not forget quickly. My guest Bruce Dearling, partner at Hepworth Brown in the UK and a patent attorney for 36 years, took a case through every level of the British court system up to the Supreme Court and, in doing so, fundamentally changed patent law for AI inventions in the UK. The case is called Emotional Perception, and its effects reach well beyond British borders. Below I summarize the key points from our conversation. The full episode is available at IP Fridays. A. What Is the Emotional Perception Case About? The underlying invention concerns artificial neural networks. Specifically, it relates to a method of closing what is called the semantic gap at the output of a neural network. That sounds abstract, but the idea is straightforward: a neural network always produces an output that does not fully correspond to what a human would actually expect or feel. Closing that gap brings the system closer to human perception and human expectations. Bruce Dearling drafted this application himself and filed it at the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO). The Office rejected it as excluded subject matter, characterizing it as essentially a computer program as such. The legal basis for that rejection was the Aerotel decision from 2006. The case then went to the High Court, which found in favor of the applicant. The Court of Appeal reversed that decision. Then the UK Supreme Court stepped in and changed everything. B. The Aerotel Test and Its Flaws Since 2006, the Aerotel test had been the standard British method for assessing whether an invention falls within the excluded categories under patent law. It was a four-step approach: construe the claim, identify the actual contribution the invention makes to human knowledge, ask whether that contribution falls solely within excluded subject matter, and finally check whether the contribution is technical in nature. The problem Dearling described in our conversation is that Aerotel reverses the logical order of the analysis. You start with the contribution and only then ask about the exclusions under Article 52 EPC. The UK Supreme Court described Aerotel in its judgment as “unsound law” and overturned it. The EPO’s Technical Boards of Appeal had previously called Aerotel “disingenuous,” which at the time led to a public dispute between the British courts and the Boards. With the Emotional Perception ruling, that conflict has now been resolved in favor of harmonization with the EPO. C. What the UK Supreme Court Decided The Supreme Court made two central findings. First, the exclusion of computer programs “as such” is overcome as soon as a claim includes any piece of hardware. It does not matter whether that is a processor, a memory module, or any other component. The threshold is deliberately low. Dearling described this as the “any hardware” approach, which aligns fully with the EPO’s position following G1/19. Second, and in Dearling’s assessment the more important finding: when assessing inventive step, the invention must be considered as a whole. The Court introduced what it called an “intermediate step,” an analytical stage in which the interactions between all features of a claim are examined before the question of inventive step is addressed. Non-technical features cannot simply be struck out if they contribute to the overall technical effect of the invention. D. Inventive Step: The Intermediate Step This is the heart of the judgment. In EPO practice, Dearling said, it happens regularly that examiners strike through features they consider non-technical and thereby fail to assess the invention’s inventive step correctly. A recent Technical Board of Appeal decision, T 1249/22, already criticized this approach: a claim directed at a technical solution to a problem can be patentable even if the underlying problem is non-technical in nature. Dearling recalled a remark made by a Board of Appeal member at a hearing he attended years ago: “We understand that examining divisions can operate with a degree of mental laziness and that it’s too easy to throw too many things out of the basket when considering the issues of inventive step.” That quote stayed with him because it names a structural problem that the intermediate step now addresses directly. The British method for assessing inventive step is the Pozzoli test, which differs from the EPO’s problem-solution approach. The Supreme Court explicitly retained Pozzoli because the problem-solution approach, in its view, is structurally infected with hindsight reasoning: you already know the invention, you work backwards to formulate an objective technical problem, and then you ask whether it would have been obvious for the skilled person to arrive at precisely that solution. Dearling sees this as a source of unfairness toward genuine inventions. E. Alignment with the Unified Patent Court In April 2025, the Court of Appeal of the Unified Patent Court issued a decision in Abbott v. Sinocare (APP_000000901/2025, judgment of 17 April 2025). Dearling pointed out that this decision uses language and reasoning strikingly similar to the UK Supreme Court’s Emotional Perception ruling of February 2025. That is significant because the UPC is bound neither by UK courts nor by the EPO. The overlap suggests voluntary convergence. Dearling reported a conversation with a person close to the EPO, whom he did not name, who used the word “permissive” to describe the UK Supreme Court’s approach and indicated that the EPO might move toward it. Whether and how quickly that happens remains to be seen. What is clear is that the UPC, as the new European patent court, is setting its own standards, and the question of how to handle non-technical features in inventive step assessment is now being asked at multiple levels simultaneously. F. Implications for the EPO and Practice The EPO is not directly bound by the ruling. It is an administrative body, not a court. Dearling is nonetheless optimistic that change is coming. On one hand, external pressure is building: when the UK Supreme Court and the UPC articulate similar principles, convergence becomes hard to resist. On the other hand, Article 27.1 TRIPS requires all contracting states to make patents available in all fields of technology. Examiners routinely striking non-technical features from AI claims and rejecting them on that basis sits uncomfortably with that obligation. For the underlying application in the Emotional Perception case, the ruling has a pointed consequence. The Supreme Court did not grant the patent itself; it referred the matter back to the UKIPO for reconsideration under the intermediate step. The Office’s subsequent response was, in Dearling’s words, unconvincing. He suspects the Office is attempting to reintroduce the Aerotel test through the back door. As a last resort, he has not excluded a judicial review, a procedure that does not simply challenge the substantive decision but holds the Comptroller General of Patents to account for whether the Office is deliberately circumventing the Supreme Court’s direction on the intermediate step. That is, as Dearling put it, “a nuclear option,” but one he would not rule out if the evidence in the file already suggests the Office is in contempt of court. There is also an international dimension. Singapore’s Intellectual Property Office launched a public consultation shortly after the ruling, asking whether Singapore should adopt the Emotional Perception approach into national law. That is British soft power operating in real time within the Commonwealth. G. Three Takeaways for Patent Practitioners At the end of our conversation I asked Bruce Dearling to distill the most important practical points. His first takeaway: make sure the claim contains hardware. This applies not only to UK and European applications but is simply good drafting hygiene. Without hardware in the claim, the application remains exposed. The second takeaway concerns the description. Anyone filing an AI invention needs to explain clearly which function is achieved by which piece of hardware, circuit, or software. Not as boilerplate, but as a complete technical account that describes the real-world effects. Dearling’s experience is that practitioners who write the claim first and fill in the description afterward run into trouble. The third takeaway emerged from the conversation itself: how the EPO assesses inventive step for AI inventions is not a settled question. It is worth following the development of UPC case law and any shifts in EPO practice closely. Anyone advising on AI patent applications today needs to know these arguments. H. Conclusion The UK Supreme Court’s Emotional Perception ruling is not a British footnote. It has declared the Aerotel test dead, introduced the intermediate step that brings non-technical features back into the inventive step analysis, and set off a convergence movement that is already visible at the UPC and still pending at the EPO. For everyone working in AI patent practice, whether in prosecution, examination, or counseling, this ruling is required reading. Rolf Claessen: Our interview guest on IP Fridays podcast is Bruce Dearling. He has been in the IP field and a patent attorney for 36 years and is partner at Hepworth Brown in the UK. Thank you very much for being on the podcast. Bruce Dearling: My pleasure, Rolf. Thank you for inviting me. Rolf Claessen: All right. We just met at the INTA annual meeting in London. And you talked about the UK Supreme Court case where you were involved. And the core questions were whether non-technical features would be considered when assessing inventive step of patents. Can you briefly summarize this case? Bruce Dearling: It’s a bit more than that. It started — I actually wrote the case. And I prosecuted it through the patent office. The patent office rejected the case for being excluded subject matter. So pretty much the excluded subject matter provisions in the UK are nearly identical. They’re as near as practical to the language of the EPC, so those of the European Patent Office — Article 52.2. But again, they apply as such. The actual technology relates to artificial neural networks. And the invention related to a very clever way of what is termed closing the semantic gap at the output of the neural network. So that means that in a neural network, there is always a discrepancy between the output of the neural network in terms of what it’s telling you you should be thinking essentially, and what reality is. So if you can close the semantic gap, then you align the neural network or the artificial intelligence system to better reflect human knowledge or human reactions and human expectations. So that’s really what the invention is about. There’s no point in going into too much detail with it — that’s the way it is. It’s very clever. So the UKIPO rejected this because they said it was essentially a computer program excluded from patentability as such. And they used a decision which is called Aerotel, which has been around since 2006. And that decision has caused considerable consternation and tension between the EPO Technical Boards of Appeal and the UK courts. Aerotel was described as being essentially disingenuous by the EPO Technical Board of Appeal. And the UK courts pushed back and said, you don’t know what you’re talking about. So that’s where it fell apart. So that’s where they rejected it for essentially being a computer program as such, possibly with a bit of business methods thrown in as well. But let’s leave that for the time being. So the case then went to the High Court and at the High Court, we won. The judge said, actually, it’s not a computer program. Neural networks aren’t computers. They’re not programs themselves. There’s more to them than that. And the invention as claimed is not excluded from patentability as such. The UKIPO obviously weren’t very happy about that because they liked their Aerotel case and so they appealed it. And they appealed it on several grounds, including a new one, which was that it was a mathematical method. The Court of Appeal decided that the UKIPO was right and that we were wrong, so we lost the case. So we then went to the Supreme Court. Well, actually, they denied us an ability to go to the Supreme Court. The court said no appeal. We went — actually, no, I think there is a bigger issue here — because we realized, or I realized at that point, that the work that we were doing was much broader than this. It requires real consideration of what an invention is at a fundamental level. So not only exclusions, but how inventive step is applied. And these issues were built into the case from the very beginning. And they sort of — I wouldn’t say crept up on the court as we went through — but they became more and more prominent to the extent that ultimately, when we made an application to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court went, yeah, we’ve got some issues here. We want to hear the full arguments on why this is not excluded from patentability, why Aerotel is potentially bad and how we more or less try to align ourselves with the European Patent Office. So that’s essentially what happened. And the Supreme Court hearing was last July. It took them the thick end of eight months to come out with a decision, which was issued in early February, at which point the entire legal landscape in the UK changed because they said we were right. The Patent Office doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Aerotel is bad. It’s unsound. That’s what they described it as — unsound law. It needs to be removed and we’re going to harmonize with the European Patent Office. So before I — I’m just going on a bit of a rant here, standing on my soapbox telling you what you already know. But the Aerotel test essentially was — it was a four-step test, past tense. So you firstly had to construe the claim. That’s pretty straightforward. Then you actually had to identify the actual contribution. This is what they said — identify the contribution. Really in this aspect, you’re asking what, as a matter of substance rather than form, the inventor has added to human knowledge. So that’s what they said the contribution was. And then they said, the next step in Aerotel was to ask, well, does that contribution fall solely within the excluded subject matter field or realm? And then they said, well, if you get through that question, then you check the actual contribution or the alleged contribution to see whether it’s technical in nature. So that’s the Aerotel test as it was. And what the Supreme Court in their unanimous final decision said was that Aerotel at best jumbles up the order. It reverses the logical order of the analysis by starting with the contributions and then addressing the Article 52 exclusions. And then finally it goes back to what the technical nature of the invention is about. So they really went, no, we don’t like any of this stuff. It’s bad, it’s stupid, it puts the cart before the horse. So, in the intervening period between finding the case and actually seeing it progress all the way to the Supreme Court, we obviously had the G1/19 decision from the EPO Enlarged Board. And they basically said that they are going to validate any hardware as the approach. And that’s essentially what the UK also went with. The UK Supreme Court said we’re going to say that the threshold of patentability — or the exclusion to patentability — is simply overcome by the inclusion in a claim of any piece of hardware, whether it’s a processor or a piece of memory or whatever. It doesn’t matter. Any hardware makes the invention a technical invention. So it’s a really low threshold to consider. And they then went, well, actually, if we now align and harmonize with the European Patent Office sensibly, then we need to look at how we assess inventive step, which is the other thing that we raised with the Supreme Court. In fact, we probably raised it at other times and in all the other instances as well, but it came to a head at the Supreme Court. So the Supreme Court then also went a bit further and said, well, actually, whilst we do like the global approach to assessing inventive step for all fields of technology — whether it’s chemistry or biotech or electronics or software or AI — we use a test called Pozzoli. So that isn’t problem-solution. We don’t like problem-solution. We think it’s not codified in the European Patent Office. It’s just a mechanism that the EPO has come up with to try to objectively assess inventive step. We don’t particularly think that’s appropriate. We like our approach called Pozzoli. That’s it. So we’re going to say with Pozzoli, however, in order to actually understand — particularly in the context of mixed inventions having technical and non-technical features — it’s necessary for the examiner to undertake the so-called intermediate step, where you have to look at the interactions between features within a claim. The invention is defined by the claim. That’s what the act says. That’s what everyone understands. It’s the invention defined by the claim. So you look at the claim features and then you have to understand the interactions that take place. And even if they are between technical and non-technical features, if they bring about an overall technical effect when you consider the invention as a whole, then your claim should be good and you can assess it for classical inventive step. So that’s really where we’re at. There’s a lot to unpack there already. It’s probably a podcast in its own right, but that’s the positive history of where we’re at. And I can keep going if you wish me to for a second and talk about why I think this is — we’ll just contrast it quickly with the problem-solution approach at the EPO and COMVIK. So for inventions in the computer-implemented field, they use COMVIK and the problem-solution approach. The Supreme Court said, as I said, they don’t like problem-solution. I think the problem-solution issue is that it is also inherently pre-baked with hindsight because you have to look at the invention and then step back and exclude those features which are common. And then you formulate a problem based on the function that the claim achieves. And then you’re asking whether or not it would be obvious for a skilled person to arrive at the claimed invention, having been given that hindsight-developed problem. So COMVIK is not great by any means. And we know from a practical perspective that examiners are only too willing to look at a claim and simply line through features which they believe are non-technical, whereas they don’t actually look at the interaction of those features in the context of the claim as a whole. There is also a decision — very recent one actually, about a year ago — T 1249/22, where the Technical Board of Appeal told the examiners and the examining division, you cannot do this. It’s okay to have a claim directed towards an invention in a non-technical field, as long as the invention is directed to a technical solution of that problem. I think it’s paragraphs 11 and 12 or 10 of that decision that are worth looking at. But they’re saying that in all fields of technology, it doesn’t matter as long as the technical solution is about technology — therefore, you should be able to obtain a patent as long as there is a realistic and appropriate technical effect. Be careful actually, Bruce — I don’t mean technical contribution, I mean technical effect. There’s a reason for that distinction. Rolf Claessen: The non-technical features are nevertheless used to assess inventive step in the UK now after this decision, right? Bruce Dearling: Yes, that is the intermediate step. The decision says you must look at the invention as a whole. It’s the important thing. There are a couple of issues that arise out of this. The first one is that you have to provide context for the invention. The Supreme Court never provided any specific guidance about how we deal with the intermediate step or what the exact test is, which is in some respects fine. It seems to be fairly clear that you just have to engage your gray matter — your neurons — to work out what is going on in the real world. And once you work out what’s going on in the real world, what the benefits are, then you look at whether or not the actual implementation of the invention fundamentally has a technical flavor to it, which is not just coding, not just simple coding, but it does something smarter. There’s a real technical impetus. There’s a technical effect. Now that actually brings me onto something I’ve postulated or said. I think the intermediate step will follow something like what I’ve termed the holistic character test, which essentially is: work out what’s going on in the real world. Then once you’ve worked out what’s actually being achieved, what the benefits are, what the invention’s concerned with, then you ask the question, how am I achieving it technically? And how is there a technical effect? How does the technical effect arise? That brings out a couple of issues. The first one is that it’s actually about the word “contribution” because it depends on how the word is used. So if you look at head note one in COMVIK, it uses the word “contribute” — how the non-technical feature contributes to the invention. So that’s an additive inclusive concept. The UK IPO historically, and arguably at the moment today whilst they’re trying to retrain their 400 examiners — which this has caused them to have to do — their idea of contribution is this backward-looking concept. So technical contribution and technical effect, I think — although we mix them up and interchange them — are distinct. Technical contribution: you’re looking backwards. Technical effect is what you look at when you look forward into what’s going on. So this is subtle — it’s really subtle, but it’s important. And once you realize that you are actually looking for the technical effects, then you’re on much safer ground. It’s much more objective in terms of the assessment. This might be somewhat contentious, because it’s the way I’m looking at this, but I’ve been working on this a long, long time and thinking about it for probably decades, worryingly so. So technical contribution and technical effects are probably not the same, where they are interchangeably used to mean the same thing within existing decisions. Rolf Claessen: And in the beginning you said, now that Aerotel is dead basically, it’s more harmonized with the EPO’s approach. But what I take from the discussion now is that maybe — especially in view of the problem-solution approach — it’s not fully harmonized with the EPO’s approach at the moment, right? Or did the UK Supreme Court get something wrong, or was that a desired outcome from your point of view that this is not so completely harmonized with the EPO? Bruce Dearling: Well, the EPO — the any-hardware solution is fully harmonized, no doubt. So it’s now a question of inventive step under Article 56 or Section 3 of the Act. The EPC nowhere mandates the use of problem-solution. And we know that there are many different ways of actually assessing inventive step, including the concrete elaboration test from last year and problem-of-invention approaches. So there are numerous ways of assessing inventive step. So the UK says, “Pozzoli — we like Pozzoli.” Interestingly, I had a discussion with someone I probably can’t mention. They’re saying that the UK approach may actually be more permissive now. It might even influence how the EPO operates. So they may move away from COMVIK towards more of a Pozzoli approach, which basically says this: You identify the notion of the skilled person — step one. You identify the common general knowledge of that skilled person — step one B. You identify the inventive concept of the claim in question, where you construe it if you can’t work out what it is. You then identify what the differences are. And then you ask the question, is it obvious to the skilled person, given knowledge of the common general knowledge? This is entirely not artificial because, as I said beforehand, when you look at problem-solution, you are formulating a problem by backtracking from what the claimed invention is to a situation where you say, well, these are the common features and I’m going to project a problem to try and solve. Now that is already tainted with hindsight reasoning. It’s not safe, it’s not thoroughly objective. There is an inherent problem with this which sees good inventions cast by the wayside. Although it’s a preferred mechanism, it’s not fully baked. There are situations where examiners are inherently lazy, or they just simply use something like the requirements specification argument, which is just factual. It just demonstrates that they can’t be bothered to actually argue it properly or think about what the invention is. Sorry to any examiners listening to this, but this is just my personal view, that sometimes there are problems. I’m reminded of a quote from an EPI hearing I was at a long time ago, where the Legal Board of Appeal member said: “We understand that examining divisions can operate with a degree of mental laziness and that it’s too easy to throw too many things out of the basket when considering the issues of inventive step.” Now that one has stayed with me because you think — did someone just say that? And the answer is yes, they did. But it just goes to show that there is some tension between the TBA and the examining divisions, and they don’t always get it right. Rolf Claessen: So there might be a small difference now between the UKIPO’s future approach of assessing inventive step and the EPO? Bruce Dearling: Yeah, it might do. But the other interesting thing here — and thank you for pointing this out, I hadn’t entirely caught up with it, I’ve been traveling beforehand and I missed some of the UPC case law. So the UPC case law — in, was it — yeah, we talked about that. Rolf Claessen: Yeah. There was a decision in April, Abbott versus Sinocare. Bruce Dearling: Yeah, 901 of 2025. So a Court of Appeal decision from the UPC. It was APP_000000901, I believe, 2025. Decision 17th of April, hearing 27th of March. The UPC is not bound by — it’s a court. The European Patent Office is not a court, it’s an agency that administers and looks after the administrative rule of law. So the fact that this decision came out from the UK Supreme Court in February, and you see almost identical language used in the UPC decision, suggests that there is some alignment here, or some convergence in thought. Now, whilst the UPC decision also references G1/19 and uses problem-solution, there is enough — you’ve got to bear in mind that high-level courts do look at each other’s decisions. And this is really a question of influence and the desire to converge. So the fact that they’ve done this at this time is quite interesting. Again, I can’t quote someone directly from the EPO, although I would love to. They were saying — at a very high level — and they used the words “converge UPC practice towards UK Supreme Court practice on interpretation of the law.” So this may actually be happening in real time. Again, it would be wrong to actually refer to anyone by name, but it’s an observation that when I looked at the case, I can see why this is going ahead. And I can see why the judiciaries — they want to maintain independent judicial controls. They won’t reference the UK Supreme Court decision, not least because we’re not in the UPC. But if you look at the arguments in sections 106 and 107 of the UK Supreme Court’s Emotional Perception decision and head note one, you go — wow, this is very close. Rolf Claessen: Very close and nearly identical wording. Yeah. And the UPC also now uses non-technical features for assessing inventive step. Is that a problem for the EPO that has historically been aggressive in throwing out non-technical features for inventive step analysis? Bruce Dearling: Well, I think they really need to get to the situation — I don’t know — this holistic character test that I’m sort of proposing, where you really have to think about what the invention is achieving, and then look at how it’s technically being achieved. And then if you look at that again in the context of that other decision I mentioned — T 1249/22 — it says something like, in the case of an invention that amounts to a technical implementation of a non-technical method, provided the non-technical method does not contribute to the technical character of the invention. The board validated the approach of identifying the non-technical method and then goes through and says it’s patentable. There are decisions like this which suggest that examining divisions have to give it a bit more thought, because the Technical Board will realize that to satisfy the WTO requirements — which pretty much everyone is bound by — Article 27.1 TRIPS, which requires that you protect all fields of technology. And that means whether it’s data processing or business methods, because business methods can be patentable so long as they are implemented on a technical basis. That essentially seems to be what T 1249/22 is saying, although it doesn’t explicitly say “allowing business methods.” The exclusion is only “as such.” So does this decision, in combination with the Supreme Court case and the movement of the UPC, say: well, actually, let’s look at this properly? It requires objective assessments, not just superficial “let’s strike through that feature because I don’t like it, it looks non-technical.” Rolf Claessen: So are you hopeful that the EPO is adjusting and will reshape their case law in view of the UPC decision and the UK Supreme Court decision? Bruce Dearling: It’s a bit unfortunate that the corresponding UK case at the EPO was dropped by the applicants, because it was heading towards an examination hearing at the examining division. It would have gone to the TBA, and I’m sure it would then have gone from the TBA to the Enlarged Board. I’m pretty sure that’s the case. There is another case from the same client which will probably argue the same thing because the specs are almost identical. It’s just lagged in time. So is it going to change? I hope so, because I think the EPO have got it wrong — more often than not in this field. Well, maybe not more often than not — they get it wrong more times than they should do. Would I like to see it changed? Yes, I would, because I want the examiners to actually think about the technology as opposed to just — oh, it’s not — I don’t want to engage the gray matter. That serves no one. That doesn’t serve technology. That doesn’t serve industry. These patent rights are there for a reason. They are property rights. I’m referring to the award of the 2025 Nobel Prize for Economics — they are a core driver for society’s development. So the 2025 Nobel Prize was for something called creative destruction — the replacement of old technology with new — and it’s based on the patent paradigm. So all this stuff is coming to a head now. It’s just a question of how quickly the EPO actually catch up, and maybe they have something to catch up on. It’s just understanding that the examiners have to start to think. As I said, we’ve got the issues at the UKIPO where they’re going to have to retrain 400 examiners. Rolf Claessen: Yeah, right. Bruce Dearling: The Emotional Perception case wasn’t granted by the Supreme Court. They referred it back to the patent office for consideration under the intermediate step. So the patent office produced a response that I would describe as — I’d say arguably — not well reasoned, which I’ve filed the response to, which basically says you don’t really know what you’re talking about. What really worries me a bit is that I think they’re trying to introduce the Aerotel case through the back door. It’s backsliding. It’s a mechanism for trying to apply it in a different way or a different context, which would be wrong. I think they believe that the applicant will appeal this if they get a bad decision — they will appeal it back to the courts again via the High Court, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court route. I say maybe not. I say maybe the client will file what they call a judicial review, which is a nuclear option. That’s when you actually hold the Comptroller General of Patents to account and get full discovery of whether or not there’s internal documentation showing that they are deliberately circumventing the direction of the Supreme Court on the intermediate step. This is basically holding them to account and saying: if you’re not applying the intermediate step appropriately, you are in contempt of the law. So judicial review is a really serious thing to do, but it’s certainly something I would not exclude from consideration. We’ll see what happens. It’s not saying we’re just going to go through the courts and make them decide on this. We’re going to say you’re wrong. And there’s already enough evidence in the files to suggest that they are probably in contempt of court and they’re not applying the intermediate step appropriately. They may not know any better at the moment — they need to be guided — but the consequences for them are potentially severe. Rolf Claessen: I have another question for you. You were the instructing attorney — do you think the decision was perfect? What argument that you made was the most underappreciated by the court? And where do you think the judgment got it wrong, or was it all perfect? Bruce Dearling: No, it got 90% or 95% correct. The intermediate step is right. That’s the most important thing in the decision — it’s the intermediate step. The any-hardware thing — that’s logical, that makes some sense — but if people say “if the any-hardware rule is the important bit,” no it isn’t. It’s the intermediate step. That’s the important thing. Where do they go wrong? I think they went wrong because — and you’ve got to bear in mind that unlike German courts, I’ve got to be careful about how I express this — generally, as I understand it, and correct me if I’m wrong, but the judiciary in Germany on patent cases are generally more technically able. They’re normally technically qualified. I look at the Supreme Court justices and the Court of Appeal justices — we had one who was a humanities undergrad, one was a chemist. Good luck with trying to argue complex artificial neural network technologies, which are difficult even for me to understand. And I’ve been working in the field. They’re hard to understand. They require real understanding, real appreciation. They could say, well, actually we don’t need to look at the technology — but frankly, if you’re looking at the statutes and exclusions to patentability and asking what a computer program is, then you need to understand what these technical terms really are. And if you can’t, then the judgment is potentially flawed. Their finding that the neural network is a computer program is, I think, technically obtuse. You know that the Singaporean government — the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore — released about six weeks ago a consultation note to the Singaporean profession and population, asking: is the Emotional Perception case right, and do we need to adopt it into Singaporean national law? So this is direct soft power from the UK Supreme Court changing Commonwealth legislation and statutes. We’ll see what happens. But from what I’ve seen of a draft response from the attorneys, they’re saying essentially: we agree any hardware is right, the intermediate step is right. The assessment of the neural network as a computer program is wrong, or it just doesn’t make any sense. And I’ve made the same comments before in SIPA, in the relevant round in March. There’s a disconnect. I mean, it’s like they equate a computer program with being able to be run on an analog computer. Now, an analog computer has no central processing unit. An analog computer just has resistors and transistors and capacitors. So if they’re saying that an analog computer can run a program — that’s essentially what they’re saying in part of the judgment. Where is the program in an analog computer? And if they’re saying it’s in the values of the resistors and the capacitors, then that has implications for any circuit we’ve got — it’s potentially a computer program — which is just madness, because it doesn’t sit well with the legislation and decisions we’ve looked at over the last 50 years. This is a real problem. It may be a storm in a teacup because you can overcome the objections by having any hardware, but it’s an argument they shouldn’t have been making. It seems to be abstract legal argumentation which has little credibility in my personal view, although it’s now law. It may be that someone can take that, have an argument with the Supreme Court, get them to fix this. The other thing is the EPO looks at a neural network as a mathematical method, and the UK now says it’s a computer program. Neither is right. The EPO is wrong as well. If you look at the actual decision which they regularly quote — the Vicom case — if you actually read the claim and look at the case, you see that it doesn’t make a huge amount of sense. A neural network has applied mathematics in it. It can be based on a computer program because it’s required to set up the learning objectives and the loss function. Mathematical processes — it tweaks the weighting factors of neurons over the course of the training epochs. But at the end of the day, if the function performed by the neural network is new and it’s directed towards a technical implementation which is technically relevant, then it shouldn’t fail for being a mathematical method. And I think the EPO guidelines actually say that. Even recommendations — the UK court said that a recommendation is not technical. Well, actually it is, because it’s data processing, and you’ve got to work out how does the data processing work to provide an improved recommendation? Again, it goes back to the T 1249/22 decision. There’s a whole raft of these things which are left not entirely resolved. There’s enough here to keep someone busy for a few more years. Rolf Claessen: Right. So I have a question for you now that we’ve talked about the decision of the UK Supreme Court and the UPC — the Unified Patent Court — with very, very similar wording. What do you say are the three most important takeaways for patent practitioners in the US, in Europe, in the UK, before the EPO? Are there any things that you really want patent practitioners to take away from our discussion here? Bruce Dearling: Yeah, okay. So first: make sure the claim has some structure in it. You need to have any hardware. That’s number one — in terms of claim drafting. In terms of the description, you really have to understand what the invention is about. And you’ve got to make sure that you explain what function is achieved by what piece of hardware, kit or software. And if you do that — don’t nickel-and-dime this by writing the claim first — I would suggest that you run into problems. You need to understand what the invention is about. And you need to make sure that the description is complete and full to describe the functionality and the effects that are achieved in the real world. And if you can do that, then you’re on a much sounder basis — much, much stronger. There’s a much stronger foundation for this. So that’s two things. Is there a third one? That’s me being a bit cheeky, but I suppose I know what’s going on. Rolf Claessen: Yeah, but maybe the third takeaway is that maybe the EPO will rethink the way — at least how AI inventions are assessed for inventive step. Bruce Dearling: Well, as I said to you before, it could be that that’s the case. I don’t want to repeat myself again. The word “permissive” was used in a conversation I had with respect to the UK Supreme Court approach. COMVIK fundamentally still breaks with me and has done for years, because the way it’s set up and the way it’s applied distorts fundamentally what the invention is about. And until such time as that distortion is removed, there is a problem of objectivity versus subjectivity. And I think that’s really what the EPO has to grapple with. It’s not an easy thing to deal with, but maybe there are things going on. Bruce Dearling: It’s not an easy thing to deal with. I don’t know who’s going to argue it. It would have been useful for me to still have the original case up and running at the EPO because these arguments would have been fleshed out. I’m pretty sure they would have been referred to the Enlarged Board. We would have got it resolved. So it’s whether or not I can now work this into the existing case to try and get the examining division to — well, they will refuse, I suspect. And then it’ll go to the TBA. And then the TBA will have to look at this, hopefully with the referrals to the Enlarged Board. And then that fixes the problem on a national and international basis. Rolf Claessen: Yeah. Let’s see. [Laughs] Bruce Dearling: No, we don’t know. I mean, you might have a different view. What do you think? Do you think COMVIK is fundamentally right or fundamentally wrong? Rolf Claessen: Well, I’m not so much into AI inventions. I’m a chemist and I usually deal with chemistry inventions. But from the discussion that we had, I think that the EPO might rethink their position. I don’t know. Let’s see. Let’s hope so. Bruce Dearling: Well, they liked it. They liked problem-solution. It’s been with us for 25 years. It suggests that it’s a compromise. It’s not mandated by the European Patent Convention — that’s the point. It’s something they think works. And these things only work until such time as someone comes along and says, actually, you’re wrong, and this is the reason. Rolf Claessen: Let’s see if they choose a different route at least for AI inventions. So Bruce, thank you very much for your insight and for talking about the case that you were involved in with the UK Supreme Court. Where could people reach you if they have more questions about this field — basically patents, AI protection in the UK and Europe — and if they want to ask you more questions about this case? Bruce Dearling: Sure. Through the Hepworth Brown website or my LinkedIn profile, I suppose. The Hepworth Brown website has an email link. I’m trying to post things on it as well to try and provide a bit more context. But if people have fundamental questions on this stuff, then I’m happy to try and answer them. I suppose that I can be considered to be quite knowledgeable in the area. Rolf Claessen: Right. Certainly more than I am. [Laughing] Bruce Dearling: So I was fortunate. As a consequence of the work I’m doing, I was appointed last year to the WIPO Standing Committee on Patents and Privacy. That was discussed for the issues of where WIPO goes and what the direction of the problems are that we have in high-tech areas. So there seems to be some degree of understanding that I might know what I’m talking about. I think I probably do. Rolf Claessen: Thank you, Bruce. Thank you very much for being on IP Fridays. Bruce Dearling: My pleasure. Thank you very much, Rolf.

Someone once held a patent on the swing. A piece of wood. Two ropes. The US Patent Office granted it. How often does that actually happen, and what does it cost when the system gets it wrong? Or, how often is a valid patent claim rejected?Until now, no one knew. Tim Phillips talks to Mark Schankerman of LSE and CEPR, who with co-authors William Matcham spent eight years building the tools to find out. Using natural language processing across a dataset of around one million patent applications, twenty million claims, and fifty-five million examiner decisions, they measure how similar each incoming claim is to the hundred million claims that preceded it, going back to 1976. They find that 81% of initial patent claims fall below the patentability threshold; examiners must negotiate that figure down round by round. And they do a pretty good job. But around a third of all abandoned applications contain at least one valid claim the system failed to protect. You don't see patents that aren't awarded, so those errors have, until now, been invisible.The research behind this episode:Matcham, William, and Mark Schankerman. Forthcoming. "Screening Property Rights for Innovation." Econometrica. Available as CEPR Discussion Paper DP18334 (gated). Current version dated January 2026.To cite this episode:Phillips, Tim, and Mark Schankerman. 2026. “How “well does patent screening work? VoxTalks Economics (podcast). Assign this as extra listening. The citation above is formatted and ready for a reading list or VLE.About the guestMark Schankerman is Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, where his research spans innovation, intellectual property, and the economics of technology. His work has examined how patent rights shape R&D incentives, the market for technology, and the behaviour of innovative firms, with particular attention to the institutions that govern how property rights are allocated and enforced.Research cited in this episodePrior art. In patent law, prior art is any publicly available knowledge that predates a patent application. Examiners are required to search prior art and reject claims insufficiently distinct from it. The concept defines the outer boundary of what can be granted protection; the closer a claim is to prior art, the weaker the case for granting it.Type I and Type II errors in patent screening. A Type I error occurs when an examiner grants a claim that should have been rejected, typically because it is too similar to prior art. This allows the holder to charge royalties and, in the US context especially, to bring litigation. A Type II error occurs when a valid claim is refused or abandoned, depriving the applicant of protection they deserve and reducing future incentives to innovate. Schankerman argues that Type II error is systematically under-discussed in public debate: you can point to a patent that should not have been granted; you cannot point to the invention that was never protected.Structural model. The paper uses a dynamic structural model, meaning it models the actual institutional rules, incentives, and decision sequences that govern patent prosecution at the USPTO. Structural models allow researchers to run counterfactual experiments, asking what would happen if specific rules or incentives were changed, without running those experiments for real. This is the methodological basis for the paper's policy analysis.Patent distance measure. The paper's key methodological innovation is a quantitative measure of how similar a patent claim is to existing claims, constructed using natural language processing. The algorithm is trained on existing patent documents and compares the textual content of each incoming claim against all prior claims, covering roughly a hundred million filings going back to 1976. This produces a scalar distance figure that can be compared against an estimated patentability threshold.Deadweight loss. The standard economic term for the welfare cost created when prices are raised above competitive levels. In the patent context, a wrongly granted claim allows its holder to charge higher licensing fees than the market would otherwise bear, generating a cost for users without a corresponding social benefit.Request for Continued Examination (RCE). A procedural mechanism in the US patent system that allows applicants to re-open a finally rejected application in exchange for a fee. Unlike the European Patent Office or China's patent system, the USPTO places no hard limit on how many times an applicant can return. Schankerman's counterfactual analysis finds that restricting rounds to one substantially reduces screening costs and discourages strategic padding of claims.Unified Patent Court (UPC). A specialised European court that began operating in June 2023. Its remit covers the enforcement of patent rights across participating EU member states; it does not conduct patentability examinations. Schankerman argues that by reducing the cost of enforcement, the UPC raises the stakes of the upstream screening process: a wrongly granted patent becomes cheaper and easier to assert.Amazon one-click patent. Amazon received a US patent on the one-click online purchasing process. Schankerman uses the case to illustrate the core economic argument: the relevant question is not whether an invention is valuable, but whether patent protection was necessary to induce its development. If the invention would have occurred regardless, the grant creates costs without providing the intended innovation incentive.Intrinsic motivation. The tendency for individuals to pursue a task for its own sake rather than for external rewards. Schankerman's model estimates that USPTO examiners exhibit substantial intrinsic motivation and that this is the primary driver of screening quality. In counterfactual simulations, removing intrinsic motivation causes outcomes to deteriorate markedly; removing the credit-based extrinsic incentive system has a much smaller effect.Padding. Schankerman's term for the strategic behaviour in which patent applicants include claims that are broader than what is strictly novel, hoping some will survive examiner scrutiny and expand the scope of their eventual property right. The paper measures the extent of padding directly from the distance data and confirms it is widespread.More VoxTalks Economics episodesPatent pools for generic drugs, Mark Schankerman talks about how diffusion of new drugs is painfully slow in low-income countries. Do patent pools accelerate the process, and how we could still do a better job of licensing life-saving medicines?Related reading on VoxEUPatent screening, innovation, and welfare, Florian Schuett and Mark Schankerman, 6 Nov 2020. Critics of the patent system claim that patent rights are becoming an impediment to innovation, and an instrument to extract rents through patent litigation. This column develops a framework to quantitatively assess the effectiveness of the current US patent system and the welfare impact of reforms.

Joseph Wilson was loosing the battle to Kodak when he discovered the xerography machine. Then he made it sellable. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not so secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Simple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it’s us, but we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients. So here’s one of those. [Handyside Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast. I’m Dave Young and that’s Stephen Semple. Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast. I’m Dave Young and there’s Steve Semple. Welcome. Oh wait, I got stuck making copies of copies. See what I did there? Stephen Semple: You’re so clever. Dave Young: You know what I did there, right? Yeah. Stephen Semple: I saw it, yeah. Dave Young: Today we’re talking about Xerox. Stephen Semple: Talking about copies of copies. Dave Young: Copies of copies of copies. Stephen Semple: Oh, and back in the day there were a lot of copies. A lot of copies. Dave Young: Oh man. I have copier stories. Yeah. Stephen Semple: I bet. I think those of us of our genre- Dave Young: Honestly, so Xerox, and we’re going to learn the story of the Xerox corporation and we’re going to… I don’t know their whole story, but I can tell you this, the photocopier or before there was something else before that. There was carbon paper. Stephen Semple: Yes, yes. Dave Young: But nobody owned a printing press. Stephen Semple: Correct, yeah. Dave Young: And so I would make the case that a photocopier was the first social media meme sharing engine. Stephen Semple: Oh, because we could photocopy our butts and share it the office. Dave Young: No, no, no, no, not your butt. I mean, I don’t know what you do in Canada. Here, I remember as a kid going to coffee, but my dad, small town, small town America, and he went to coffee twice a day with his buddies, 10 o’clock and three o’clock. They’d go down to the local cafe and they’d sit around a table and have coffee, eight or 10 of them. And somebody would always have a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a joke. Stephen Semple: Right. Dave Young: A cartoon, a usually off color story and they’d pass it around and then somebody would take it and make another copy of it and share it somewhere else. But you couldn’t do that if you didn’t have a copier. Stephen Semple: Well, that’s true. Dave Young: So thank you, Xerox. Stephen Semple: For making our lives richer. Dave Young: And now we can just electronically copy stuff and shoot it off as a text and a meme. Stephen Semple: One of the things you’re going to love about this story is it involves a fire extinguisher. So I’ve got your attention. Dave Young: Oh, I am all in. Stephen Semple: You’re all in. And Xerox is still pretty big. They do 7 billion in sales, but back in the early ’70s, Xerox was a monster. It’s estimated that over 10 billion copies a year were being done. Dave Young: 10 billion. Stephen Semple: That’s a lot of copies of copies of copies- Dave Young: Yeah. Once people had it, they were like, “I’m a printer.” Stephen Semple: Of copies. Yeah. Dave Young: I’m a publisher now. Stephen Semple: Yeah. In 1973, they did 3 billion in sales, which would equate to about 20 billion today. And they were close to 90% of the copier market with profit margins close to 20%. That’s just huge. It was one of the most valuable companies in the world. Dave Young: Until there started to be some competitors, Xerox became the generic word for a photocopy. Stephen Semple: Correct. Dave Young: “Give me a Xerox of this.” Stephen Semple: Yeah. So our story starts back with Joseph Wilson in Rochester, New York, which as we also know, is the home of Kodak. And Joseph was the new president of a company called Haloid, which was a Rochester based company doing photographic paper that was founded in 1906. And frankly, they were getting killed by Kodak, which at that point was 90% of the industry. And so Joseph’s trying to make headway in the photography paper business and basically is just like get nowhere. No matter what he does, he just cannot seem to create traction. Dave Young: One of his problems, Stephen? Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Haloid. Stephen Semple: Yeah, maybe. Dave Young: That’s not a good name. Stephen Semple: Yeah, maybe. But what he decides to do is look for new opportunities. He’s actively searching through the National Patent Archive. So meanwhile, we got to think about this. It’s the mid ’40s. World War II has recently ended and the GI Bill is out there and it’s really fueling the growth of service-based industries. Banking, insurance is exploding. White collar is becoming now the thing to do. The American office is now basically the new engine of the US economy, but it’s still pretty primitive and labor-intensive. You think about going back to your whole thing, how did you copy and share information? Things were typically retyped or it was typed with a carbon paper, which meant you had one copy or a single document. Dave Young: Yeah, like a mimeograph sort of a thing maybe. Stephen Semple: Yeah, yeah. Single document could take an hour. And secretaries were manually retyping documents using carbon paper which created smudges or like as you said, the mimeograph machines, which were clunky Dave Young: Or send it, I mean, if you need more of that, you send it off to a printer. You send it off to somebody that can load it up on a printing press. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And for the people who don’t remember mimeograph machines, because I barely remember them, they stank. Dave Young: They smelled wonderful. Stephen Semple: Oh God, they were foul. They were this like, oh my God. Dave Young: The teacher would come in with a stack of stuff and hand it out and everybody would smell it. You just put it up your face and inhale. Stephen Semple: It was instead of glute. Dave Young: Weird, weird purple-y ink. I don’t even know how it worked, but yeah. Stephen Semple: So anyway, so Joseph is searching through patent archives and he comes across this invention by Chester Carlson, who’s a physicist who has got really bad arthritis and was looking for a better way to make copies. And Carlson had created, I got to read this, created an electrophotographic apparatus for dry writing. A process he turned xerography. Dave Young: Xerography, yes. Stephen Semple: There we go. Dave Young: And Haloid finally has a better name. Stephen Semple: Exactly. But the prototype was clumsy. It was large. It had been rejected by lots of people, but it caught Wilson’s eye. He could see the potential to revolutionize the office. And so it’s 1946 and he makes this big gamble. He purchases the patent for $10,000. Dave Young: Wow, okay. Stephen Semple: At that time, Haloid’s annual revenues is just a little over 100 grand. Dave Young: All right, man. Stephen Semple: So that’s a big bet. Dave Young: Huge. Stephen Semple: And the challenge was he had to turn this clumsy prototype into a viable commercial product. And there were a lot of challenges including the high heat from the fuser. It’s basically a toaster oven inside of a unit that bakes toner onto paper. Dave Young: Yeah. It puts a hydrostatic image of whatever’s on the paper on a blank piece of paper and little tiny particles of toner stick to that image and then you bake them in. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: The little tiny microplastic things. Stephen Semple: And yes, it can catch fire. More on this later. Dave Young: Yeah. That’s why when you’re done making a bunch of copies, it all comes out warm. Stephen Semple: Yeah, exactly. So to raise money, Wilson sold some personal stock. He downsized a factory, did a bunch of things, raised about $12 million, which would be equivalent to about 140 million today and put it into development. So in 1954, after nine years of development, he has the first copier. It weighs 650 pounds. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: And it’s called the Xerox 914 because it used 9×14 paper. Dave Young: 9×14, that’s a choice. Stephen Semple: Right. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: So in addition to the $12 million that they invested, they’ve also got millions of dollars in debt. Dave Young: I’m stuck on the 9×14, Stephen. I’m thinking it’s the size of an accounting ledger, something like that. Stephen Semple: I didn’t look into why that size or… Because again, a lot of times what becomes standards change. Dave Young: Yeah. But see, that’s why you do what you do on this podcast and I do what I do. I’d have gotten stuck researching this into the 9×14 and followed that off into the woods and it would be a whole different podcast. Stephen Semple: It would be. It would be probably better. Dave Young: Oh, I don’t know about that. Anyway, I interrupted you again. Stephen Semple: So they’ve invested all this money. They’re millions in debt. They finally got a prototype and they basically say, “Okay, here’s what we got to do. We got to find a production partner to make this happen because we’re not going to produce this thing.” Dave Young: 600 pounds, yeah. Stephen Semple: Because that’s not what we do. So Wilson approaches IBM who basically at that point is a rising tech leader. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: And a lot of people don’t realize how old IBM is. I’ve got a picture of an old IBM cheese cutting machine. Dave Young: Yes, yeah. Stephen Semple: They were around forever. But anyway- Dave Young: I did a college internship at IBM. Stephen Semple: Oh, did you really? Wow. Dave Young: Where they made copiers. Yeah, I got copiers. Stephen Semple: Oh yeah. Oh, this comes back. Dave Young: Yeah, yeah. Stephen Semple: So IBM’s being run by Thomas Watson Jr. and he rejects the idea because basically it’s going to be about a $10,000 price tag and it’s going to fill a room all just for copying. He thinks this is a really, really bad idea. So Wilson doubles down, mortgages everything to make it themselves and they’re still facing these huge challenges. They meet a guy who works with equipment manufacturer AMF who’s developed this brand new sales strategy that he’s using for selling bowling alley equipment. Dave Young: Oh, is this the lease purchase? Stephen Semple: Yes, sir. Yes. So this is this brand new idea. What they decide to do is to lease the Xerox 914 for $95 a year and it would include 2,000 copies plus a nickel for each additional copy. Dave Young: Okay. So they’re selling copies, not machines. Yes, yes, yes. Stephen Semple: Right. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Here’s where it gets funny. It’s September 1959. The Xerox 914 makes its public debut in Manhattan. And during the demonstration, the machine bursts in the flames. Dave Young: Perfect. I’ll take three. Stephen Semple: Well, here’s the funny thing is it becomes this spectacle. It attracts onlookers and in fact the event is a resounding success. Dave Young: Yes, because the smart people will go, “Oh, they’ll fix that.” Stephen Semple: Right. Dave Young: Look, the copies came out, but they’ll fix the fire thing. Stephen Semple: Here’s what they did. Instead of re-engineering the device, remember, this is the late ’50s. The world’s a different place. Instead of re-engineering device, Wilson’s team ingeniously packages it with a fire extinguisher that they rebrand as the scorch eliminator. Dave Young: Hell yeah. Stephen Semple: Honest to God, I cannot make this up. The scorch eliminator. Oh, instead of re-engineering it, we’ll just give everybody a free fire extinguisher. Dave Young: That’s fantastic. I love that. So you could fill the paper tray with dough and pizza would come out the other end. These guys are geniuses. Stephen Semple: It’s a year later. It’s the 1960s and the machine is now available nationwide and it’s like a resounding earth-shattering success. Dave Young: Stay tuned. We’re going to wrap up this story and tell you how to apply this lesson to your business right after this. [Using Stories To Sell] Dave Young: Let’s pick up our story where we left off and trust me, you haven’t missed a thing. Stephen Semple: It’s a year later. It’s the 1960s and the machine is now available nationwide and it’s like, a resounding earth-shattering success. Production basically started at 50 per month and quickly went to 100 a day. At the end of the first year, they leased 200,000 [inaudible 00:14:32]. Dave Young: Well, this whole story, this is proof of what a good idea it was. Stephen Semple: Oh, absolutely. Dave Young: People don’t care if it catches fire as long as I get some copies out of it. Stephen Semple: Yeah. And the copier room becomes a new social hub. It becomes the way we share jokes. Dave Young: You want to make sure it has some overhead sprinklers. Stephen Semple: Well, you’ve got the scorch eliminator. You’re good. The company gets officially renamed Xerox Corporation and really it launches the information revolution. The stock quadruples, revenue soared at 250 million. Now, remember IBM? Dave Young: Oh yeah, they come around. Stephen Semple: The guys who rejected the idea. So the number of copies being made annually in the United States surges from 20 million to over 9 billion with Xerox basically dominating. And IBM, remember, took a pass, but they decided to enter the business in the early 1970s. They create their own copier. Now- Dave Young: They figured out that they were the biggest customer of Xerox. Stephen Semple: Yeah, essentially. Yeah. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Now, Joseph had a choice at this point. He knew they were leveraging his technology, but he also knew that it would be hard for him to win on legal grounds alone. So what he decided that he needed to do was to out innovate them. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: And so what Joseph Wilson envisioned was an office of the future because he saw computers coming. Remember, this guy was a visionary. He saw computers coming. Dave Young: Oh, yeah. I love this guy. Stephen Semple: But the problem, computers were large, difficult to use, but he was like, “I saw what happened with the photocopier, it went from being massive to small. Computers, same thing’s going to happen.” Dave Young: Yeah, yeah. Stephen Semple: So he decided to invest the equivalent of $20 million to establish PARC, the Palo Alto Research Center. Now, he hired a top computer scientist from ARPA, Robert Taylor, and gave him a clear mandate, “Pull together the brightest folks and create the next technological revolution.” The goal was for it to be this visionary think tank to leapfrog everybody. Here’s what they created. Gary Bernier and I did another podcast on this, which talked about this failure of Xerox. And there’s something I didn’t realize until doing this research, which kind of filled in a blank. So I actually recommend people go back and listen to that podcast. But here’s what they created, networking, the mouse, and the graphical user interface. If Xerox had developed that today, Xerox would be the giant of the industry. Could you imagine? Dave Young: Did they also figure out printing to like laser printing? Stephen Semple: I’m not sure whether it was laser printing- Dave Young: I’m sure who- Stephen Semple: But they did invent the whole idea of what you see is what you get, like that whole idea that the screen… But I’m not sure whether it was laser or not. Dave Young: Basically, when I was at IBM, that’s what they were making, were photocopiers that were also laser printers. You could go photocopy something by standing at the machine or you could send a document to it and have it printed. Stephen Semple: And so here’s the interesting thing because I’d always wondered why did these things not get to market? And here’s what actually happened. Before these things were finally created in terms of prototype level, Wilson died and the executives who were basically under him took over and they didn’t have the vision and they saw the paperless office as cannibalizing their business. Kind of like Kodak. Remember Kodak developed all the stuff for digital cameras and went, “Oh, well, we can’t do this because it’s going to cannibalize our business.” Dave Young: Yeah. WYSIWYG, mouse. That’s not the business. Stephen Semple: Right. Well, and remember we did an episode a little while ago where we were talking about the iPhone and the brilliance of Steve Jobs. He was willing to cannibalize their own business to make that happen. When you’re unwilling to cannibalize your own business, you got a problem. This is the same thing that killed Kodak. It’s the thing Jobs overcame to create the iPhone. So speaking about Jobs, the idea for the Mac came from a visit at PARC. In 1979, Jobs negotiated a tour of PARC in exchange for allowing Xerox to invest in Apple’s pre-IPO stock. And basically Jobs saw all this stuff, saw the mouse, saw the graphical user interface and went, “Holy crap, this is the future. This is the future.” So again, when Gary and I did this episode talking about Xerox and the failure of Xerox and the success of, har, Palo Alto, I never realized the timing of the death of the founder. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: And it explains so much in terms of the execs not getting the idea. He would’ve. Joseph would’ve. Dave Young: Oh, I think so. Yeah, for sure. Stephen Semple: He would’ve been all over it. And Xerox would be a different company today. Dave Young: Yeah. Pretty amazing. Stephen Semple: But the things that I really loved on this is, again, Joseph was looking, he saw this world trend. He was in the photo paper business and he saw this whole idea of a copier, but also greater than that, it wasn’t just the idea of the copier. He saw what was the importance of the office and what was going on in office space. And the other part that I loved, and then proactively went looking for innovative ideas. And the part that I really love the most is they didn’t let the fire stop them. Dave Young: I do. Yeah, that’s so great. I don’t know. Yeah, some people say that’s a negative, but here’s a fire extinguisher. Stephen Semple: Right. Now granted, it was the late 50s, early 60s, different era. Dave Young: Here’s the thing, Stephen, offices can be kind of boring. And if you can introduce the prospect that there’s going to be a fire down in the copy room every now and then, there’s something to talk about while you’re standing around the water cooler. So when I worked for- Stephen Semple: It’s a whole different thing of lighting a fire under people’s ass. Dave Young: Oh yeah, yeah. I keep an emergency bag of marshmallows in my desk drawer in the hope that the copier catches fire. I did my college internship at IBM. It was a paid internship. So I can legitimately say I worked for IBM back in the day. It was back in the day when they actually manufactured stuff. IBM made machines. Now they just… I don’t even know what they do. They consult? Do they- Stephen Semple: There’s still a lot of IBM technology in the backgrounds, like with servers and things along… How much they manufacture versus just license, that I don’t know. Dave Young: So they’re a software and consulting company and felt all of that. But in 1984 they were still manufacturing, I worked for their Boulder, Colorado plant and it was 5,000 people working there. Stephen Semple: Amazing. Dave Young: And they made floppy drives and printers and printer/copiers. So you could buy a photocopier/printer the size of a large deep freeze and they’d install it. And I think they probably same thing, probably same business model. You’d pay by the copy, you’d rent the machine. One of the coolest things was that they had a laboratory at that facility. And in the laboratory, they had a copier lab where they had Xerox and Canon and all the other competitors, they had machines installed. They would call Xerox and say, “Hey, we need a machine, bring it here, install it in the lab and we want the usual maintenance agreement. So you got to send a Xerox guy to come maintain this thing.” And they would run that machine all day long making test patterns. They would print test patterns all day long and then evaluate them, put them under the microscope, see where that machine was performing and how it performed against theirs. I mean, it was kind of a cool lab. Who does that? Stephen Semple: So the other thing I just want to add on Xerox before we finish off, because I forgot to mention this as one of the lessons and this is actually probably the most important lesson. And that is, they looked at the guy selling bowling alley equipment and did the leasing. That was brand new, but they did an interesting twist to it that I think can be overlooked in terms of the real power of what they did. Because sure, leasing made it easier to purchase, but there’s two additional things that they did that made it easy to purchase 2,000 copies included. Which meant immediately if you’re going, “I’m leasing this for 100 dollars a year, 2,000 copies. Oh, that means my copy is so many cents a copy.” Dave Young: And if I never make another copy, yeah. Stephen Semple: Right away I’m saving money. So it allows for the financial justification becomes really easy. But here’s the other thing that becomes wild is, when I put the machine in, I’m not saying to people, “Hey, be careful how much you use this.” My goal is I want 2,000 copies to happen. Once I create the habit of people creating copies, it’s now embedded in the business. Dave Young: And then you have bean counters that tell you… Yeah. Stephen Semple: Well, could you imagine how different it would be is if it was less money, $50.05 a copy, you’d be telling everybody, “Now be careful how often you copy.” Dave Young: Yeah, but even then they were. Stephen Semple: Right, no, but the point is it allowed the habit. It allowed the habit to happen. It was just because you wanted to use up the 2,000, 2,000 copies. So anyway, I just think there was brilliant, especially for brand new technology, a brilliance in terms of how they structured that lease. Dave Young: They found an interesting business model to copy- Stephen Semple: They did. Dave Young: In a completely unrelated field. Stephen Semple: They did. Dave Young: And that’s the benefit of getting outside of your category to look for innovation. Stephen Semple: And then put a twist on it that eliminated friction of using that equipment because the first 2,000 copies were free. Anyway, I just thought it was brilliant. I just wanted to point that out. Dave Young: Yeah. I love, what was his name again, Wells? Stephen Semple: Joseph Wilson. Dave Young: Wilson. Well, I know there’s a W in there. Joseph Wilson. Stephen Semple: Yeah, Joseph Wilson. Yeah. Dave Young: All right. It was a good he didn’t name it Wilsonography. But I love it. I love the Xerox story. Thank you, Stephen. Stephen Semple: All right. Awesome. Thanks, David. Dave Young: Thanks for listening to the podcast. Please share us, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and leave us a big, fat, juicy five star rating and review at Apple Podcasts. And if you’d like to schedule your own 90 minute empire building session, you can do it at empirebuildingprogram.com.

0:00 Intro 1:40 Dieser neue Tesla schlägt das Model 3 im Verbrauch um 40%!! 12:04 Kritische Infrastruktur: Tesla und SpaceX bauen das neue Internet 20:54 Jetzt wird sogar Ferrari elektrisch! Papst testet, während Tesla diese wichtige Patent anmeldet 31:21 Outro Ihr könnt meine Arbeit mit dem Tesla Welt Podcast unterstützen indem Ihr folgende Partnerlinks benutzt: Davids Tesla Referral Code: https://ts.la/david63148 - AUTOZENTRUM SCHMITZ: Fairer Tesla An- & Verkauf beim größten Tesla Autohändler: https://www.autozentrum-schmitz.de/ - HANKOOK: Hier geht's zum Gewinnspiel & zu den besten Reifen für E-Autos: https://www.hankook-promotion.de/tesla-welt - SHOP4TESLA: Erhalte 10% Rabatt mit dem Code "teslawelt" auf jetzt alle Produkte: https://www.shop4tesla.com/?ref=TeslaWelt - HOLY: Erhalte 10% Rabatt mit dem Code "TESLAWELT" auf alle Produkte: https://de.weareholy.com/?ref=teslawelt - CARBONIFY: THG Quoten Prämie. Transparent und fair : https://carbonify.de/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=Teslawelt - Der Tesla Welt Merchshop: https://teslawelt.myspreadshop.de/ - Elon Musk Biografie von Walter Isaacson: https://amzn.to/3sETBBi - Deutsche Version: https://amzn.to/45HZfkF - Die mit - gekennzeichneten Links sind Affiliate-Links. Es handelt sich hierbei um bezahlte Werbung. Ein Kauf über einen Affiliate-Link unterstützt den Kanal und für euch entstehen dabei selbstverständlich keinerlei Mehrkosten! Für direkte Unterstützung werdet Tesla Welt Kanalmitglied und erhalte exklusive Vorteile: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK0nQCNCloToqNKhbJ1QGfA/join - oder direkt per PayPal: an feedback@teslawelt.de Folgt mir gerne auch auf X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/teslawelt Musik: Titel: My Little Kingdom Autor: Golden Duck Orchestra Source Licence Download(MB)

As Washington debates how to protect America's lead in artificial intelligence, some independent inventors are warning that national security begins with the patent system.

In this episode, Chris McDowell, Chief Information Security Officer at Actabl, and Justin Call, Chief Legal Officer at Actabl, unpack the growing AI risk that many hotel leaders still underestimate. They explain how people across hospitality are already uploading confidential guest and operational data into public AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude, why privacy and compliance rules still apply once that data enters an LLM, and why AI adoption needs to be treated as a business risk decision, not just a productivity upgrade.Chris and Justin also break down what strong AI governance actually looks like inside a hotel organization, how technical guardrails matter more than policy documents alone, and why the quality and normalization of your data will determine whether AI delivers meaningful value at scale. The conversation also explores how hotel leaders should evaluate technology partners handling sensitive data, and why trust, security, and accountability are becoming core parts of the guest experience itself.Also see: Why Our Approach to Hotel Data Earned a Patent and Prepares Hotels for AI - Clark Brayton, Joseph McGroarty & Pritesh Patel, ActablActabl's patent announcementHotelData.com A few more resources:If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestionsIf you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

How do companies legally compete against patented products without getting sued?That question sits at the center of some of the largest business battles in modern history.In this episode, we break down how businesses legally navigate around patents through design modifications, licensing agreements, engineering alternatives, patent litigation strategies, and competitive innovation.Many entrepreneurs mistakenly believe patents create permanent monopolies over ideas or industries. In reality, patents protect very specific invention claims — and businesses constantly search for legal ways to innovate around them.We explore:✅ What patents actually protect✅ What “designing around” a patent means✅ Why licensing agreements dominate major industries✅ How patent challenges work✅ Why patent expiration changes markets dramatically✅ Famous patent wars involving Apple, Samsung, Tesla, and pharmaceutical companies✅ The growing controversy around patent trolls✅ Why startups need intellectual property awareness earlyOne of the most important lessons in this discussion is understanding that patents are both legal tools and competitive business strategies.Large corporations build massive patent portfolios not only to protect innovation but also to negotiate leverage within industries. Startups increasingly face patent risks as technology markets become more crowded and competitive.The conversation also explores the ongoing debate surrounding modern patent systems.Supporters argue patents encourage innovation by rewarding inventors with temporary exclusivity and creating incentives for expensive research and development.Critics argue some companies weaponize patents to suppress smaller competitors and slow innovation.The balance between protecting inventors and encouraging competition remains one of the most complex issues in modern business law.We also discuss how industries like:Artificial intelligenceSoftwareAutomotive engineeringBiotechnologyPharmaceuticalsConsumer electronics…are heavily influenced by patent strategy and intellectual property disputes.For entrepreneurs, one of the biggest takeaways is this:Understanding intellectual property early is no longer optional.Patent mistakes can become extraordinarily expensive, especially once products scale publicly.At the same time, businesses that understand patent strategy often discover opportunities competitors miss entirely.Because modern innovation is not simply about inventing something first.It's about:✔️ Strategic differentiation✔️ Legal awareness✔️ Competitive positioning✔️ Long-term executionAnd honestly, somewhere right now, two engineers are probably arguing over whether changing one hinge technically avoids a billion-dollar lawsuit.

Have a great idea or invention? Discover how patents can help protect your intellectual property and build business value. In this episode, we discuss the fundamentals of patents, and what entrepreneurs need to know before sharing their innovations with the world.Whether you're launching a startup, developing a new product, or seeking investors, understanding patents can be a powerful competitive advantage.Jeff Holmanhttps://www.intellectualstrategies.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/holman/My Men Richard/Richard Lesperance⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠richard.lesperance@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linkedin.com/in/richardlesperance⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@mymenrichard⁠

Today, we dive into the Biblical Angel in UFO files, review government officials' statements, and the scary truth of what this could all mean… WELCOME TO Camp!

In this episode, Joe McGroarty, Clark Brayton, and Pritesh Patel of Actabl share why hotel data has been broken for decades, how their team built the patented normalization layer that fixes it, and why getting this right matters more in an AI-enabled world. You'll hear what's actually happening when revenue isn't easy to report on across your portfolio, the three questions to bring to your next tech partner meeting, and why context, not volume, is what makes AI answers trustworthy.Connect with the guests:Joseph "Joe" McGroarty on LinkedInClark Brayton on LinkedInPritesh Patel on LinkedInResources mentioned:Actabl's patent announcementHotelData.comProfitSword by ActablHotel EffectivenessAlice by ActablTranscendent by ActablThis episode is sponsored by Actabl. A few more resources:If you're new to Hospitality Daily, start here. You can send me a message here with questions, comments, or guest suggestionsIf you want to get my summary and actionable insights from each episode delivered to your inbox each day, subscribe here for free.Follow Hospitality Daily and join the conversation on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.If you want to advertise on Hospitality Daily, here are the ways we can work together.If you found this episode interesting or helpful, send it to someone on your team so you can turn the ideas into action and benefit your business and the people you serve!Music for this show is produced by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

Today, I'm talking with Tom Patterson, founder of Tommy John, the underwear brand that turned a frustrating problem into a 9-figure business. Tom started the company after getting tired of undershirts constantly coming untucked while working in medical sales. What began as a simple fix turned into one of the biggest direct-to-consumer apparel success stories of the last 15 years. In this conversation, we break down how Tommy John bootstrapped its way to over $100M in revenue before taking meaningful outside capital, why Howard Stern and Kevin Hart became game-changing growth channels, and what founders misunderstand about building premium consumer brands today. Tom also shares lessons on raising capital, balancing wholesale with direct-to-consumer, building a company with your spouse, and why experience can actually become a disadvantage in fast-changing markets.   Key Takeaways (01:27) Leveraging Howard Stern's Audience (03:08) Pioneering Podcast/Radio Marketing (04:25) Starting Tommy John with $100 and a Sketch (07:27) How Useful is a Patent? (11:12) Evolve and Innovate (13:49) AI's Future In Product Development (15:04) How to Defend Against Knockoffs  (18:01) Wholesale Vs DTC Margins Explained (21:33) Why Women Became 30% of Sales (26:26) How Tommy John Financed Growth (30:47) Kevin Hart's Unexpected Partnership (33:08) The Kobe Bryant Deal That Fell Apart (36:05) Selling A Minority Stake (38:20) Running A Business With Your Spouse (42:36) Experience Can Be Your Worst Enemy (44:38) Handing Off The CEO Role (46:53) Avoiding The Post-Exit Crisis (48:24) Lifestyle Businesses Are Changing (50:23) The Truth About Raising Venture Capital (52:06) Advice For New Entrepreneurs   Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/879q12wejtw     Let's Connect: Website | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitter | Facebook

Patents are often treated like business lottery tickets. Inventors dream about billion-dollar exits, licensing empires, and passive income streams that magically appear after receiving government approval paperwork. But the reality of patent value is far more complicated — and far more interesting.Some patents become worth millions or even billions of dollars. Others quietly expire with little commercial impact. So what actually determines whether intellectual property becomes a valuable strategic asset or simply an expensive framed document hanging in an office?This episode explores the business truth behind patent valuation and why commercialization matters far more than most entrepreneurs realize.We break down the core factors that influence patent value, including market demand, licensing opportunities, competitive advantage, enforceability, timing, and scalability. You'll learn why investors often care less about the patent itself and more about the business ecosystem surrounding the invention.We also discuss one of the biggest misconceptions in entrepreneurship: the belief that obtaining a patent automatically guarantees protection or financial success. In reality, patents are legal tools — and like any tool, their effectiveness depends on how strategically they are used.The conversation explores how major corporations use patents defensively and offensively, how startups leverage intellectual property during fundraising, and why some businesses intentionally build massive patent portfolios to influence competition.Historical examples from technology, pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing reveal how intellectual property has shaped entire industries. From Apple versus Samsung to billion-dollar drug patents, patent disputes have become central to modern business strategy.We also examine the darker side of patent systems, including litigation risks, patent trolling, rising legal costs, and the challenges small companies face when competing against corporations with enormous legal resources.Another major theme involves timing. Some inventions arrive before markets are ready. Others appear too late to establish meaningful competitive advantages. Understanding market readiness often matters just as much as technical innovation itself.For entrepreneurs, inventors, startup founders, and investors, this discussion provides practical insight into evaluating intellectual property realistically rather than emotionally.Because while patents can absolutely become valuable assets, they are rarely valuable in isolation.The businesses that generate the greatest returns are usually the ones that combine innovation with execution, commercialization strategy, customer demand, and operational discipline.This episode is especially relevant for technology companies, startups, medical innovators, software founders, and businesses exploring licensing opportunities or intellectual property growth strategies.Whether you are considering filing your first patent, evaluating acquisition opportunities, or trying to understand how intellectual property influences company valuation, this conversation offers a grounded and strategic perspective.By the end, you'll better understand why some patents become global business weapons while others quietly disappear into legal archives.And perhaps most importantly, you'll understand why intellectual property is ultimately about business strategy — not just legal paperwork.To chat about this one-on-one, grab a free consult at strategymeeting.com

What if the key to getting a criminal to confess was... a glowing, blinking skeleton in a dark room? Welcome back to WTF Wednesday, little skeletons! This week we're digging up one of our favorite weird-but-true stories that deserves a second listen.We kick things off in the roaring 1920s — a decade absolutely packed with infamous crimes. From the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and the unsolved Wall Street Bombing of 1920, to serial killer Albert Fish (aka the Brooklyn Vampire, the Gray Man) and the Black Sox scandal of 1921 — the '20s were wild.But the real star of today's episode? Helene Adelaide Shelby, a woman so fed up with retracted confessions that on August 16, 1927, she filed a patent for an "Apparatus for Obtaining Criminal Confessions and Photographically Recording Them." What was this apparatus, exactly? A small dark chamber. A hidden interrogator speaking through a megaphone. And a life-sized skeleton with glowing red blinking eyes designed to terrify suspects into confessing their deepest, darkest secrets.Yes. A crime skeleton. She patented a crime skeleton.Sadly, Helene's invention never made it off the drawing board — and the 1961 Supreme Court ruling on coerced confessions probably would have had something to say about it anyway. But we fully stan her energy.We wrap up the episode with 10 hilarious real cop stories pulled from Reddit — featuring horse semen, a stiletto heel where it absolutely should not be, a self-proclaimed "earth ninja," Chuck Norris, Big Macs, and the most relatable donut panic you'll ever hear.

You've been told surveillance technology keeps you safe, that racial gerrymandering protects minorities, and that Christianity is dying in America—all lies designed to keep you compliant while they build the control grid. Matt Shea exposes the smart dust tracking system with patent 666, the redistricting earthquake that will cost Democrats 14 seats because racial gerrymandering was their only path to power, the SPLC indictments revealing how the deep state weaponized "civil rights" groups against patriots, and why the UFO disclosure push is demonic deception that stops cold when you invoke the name of Jesus. ____________ VERITY METALS Convert your 401k or IRA into physical gold to protect your retirement from a volatile stock market and inflation. Your gold can be safely stored at a location of your choice, including your own business. CALL: 888-328-6703 https://converttogold.com ____________ FOLLOW US Website: https://patriotradio.us X: https://x.com/RepMattShea Instagram: https://instagram.com/patriotradious Facebook: https://facebook.com/patriotradious Telegram: https://t.me/patriotradious YouTube: https://youtube.com/@patriotradious Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/patriotradious Podcast: https://mattshea.podbean.com #live #patriotradious #news #truth #america  

In this episode of The CX Tipping Point Podcast, Martha Dorris spoke with Charles Thomas, the 2025 Customer Experience Trailblazer, whose leadership has transformed how the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office delivers digital services to the public. From launching the Trademarks program to leading USPTO's enterprise-wide customer experience strategy, Charles has championed a user-first approach that makes trademark protection and innovation more accessible for entrepreneurs, attorneys, and business owners nationwide.We discuss how customer journey mapping, usability testing, and strategic research helped USPTO surpass key satisfaction goals, achieving more than 80% customer satisfaction and trust scores across its digital services. Charles also shares insights from leading the development of Trademark Center, the modernized platform simplifying trademark applications for more than 500,000 users each year.Tune in to hear how human-centered design, thoughtful innovation, and a commitment to public service are helping reshape the future of government digital experiences.Thank you for listening to this episode of The CX Tipping Point Podcast! If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing, rating, and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your support helps us reach more listeners!Stay Connected:Follow us on social media:LinkedIn: @DorrisConsultingInternationalTwitter: @DorrisConsultngFacebook: @DCInternationalResources Mentioned:Citizen Services Newsletter2024 Service to the Citizen Awards Nomination Form

Episode 196 - Brock Kolls shares a new tool on his website for provisional patent applications. Brock Kolls: https://gr8bigideas.com/ Discount Code - jumpstart Product QuickStart: Noah McNeely https://productquickstart.com 'opu probiotics by Tiffany Krumins: https://www.opuprobiotics.com Slightly Annoying Co-Host: Steven Julian https://www.infinitywmg.com/  Podcast Producer: Jodey Smith https://www.jodeysmith.com/ 

Episode: 1569 Alkahest, the universal solvent.  Today, we look for the universal solvent.

In this episode, Keith sat down with Michael Fors, inventor and owner of the Liquid Jazz Experience, to explore how a simple ritual turned into a patented product.What started as a weekly wine night with friends evolved into something much bigger. Over time, Michael began to notice a small but consistent problem. Great wine often needed time to open up, but real moments do not wait.That observation led to an idea. And that idea eventually became Liquid Jazz, a decanter designed to bring wine to life in minutes.In this conversation, Michael shares:How a 26-year tradition became the foundation for a productThe moment of insight that came from watching ocean wavesWhat it really takes to turn an idea into a patentThe challenges of bringing a product to marketWhy not every idea should become a businessThis is a story about paying attention, solving real problems, and knowing when to take something seriously.Connect with Michael Fors: Website: https://liquidjazzexperience.com/pages/about Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liquidjazzexperience/ Subscribe for more founder insights and hit the bell for notifications! Follow us on our channels for exclusive startup content and behind-the-scenes insights from interviews like this one. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3cFpLXfYvcUsxvsT9MwyAD?si=f5a14e779777487d Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/liftoff-with-keith-newman/id1560219589 Substack: https://keithnewman.substack.com/ Newman Media Studios: https://newmanmediastudios.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/liftoffwithkeith For sponsorship inquiries, please contact: sponsorships@wherewithstudio.com#StartupStory #ProductInnovation #FounderJourney #Entrepreneurship #DesignThinking #ConsumerProduct #Innovation #BusinessStory

When Alice came down in 2014, much of the patent prosecution bar reacted with denial. Most practitioners hoped the USPTO, the Federal Circuit, or Congress would clean things up — and that adding some magic language to claims and specifications would eventually be enough.Eli Mazour and Ngai Zhang, separately, came to a different conclusion: there had to be a new, better way to obtain strong patents in the post-Alice world. They started comparing notes more than a decade ago, eventually converged on a shared approach, and now implement these strategies together at Foley & Lardner.On this episode of Clause 8, Eli and Ngai walk through what they actually do — their unique strategies for avoiding and overcoming Section 101 issues, why it's difficult for other attorneys to implement these strategies, and how they think their practice will be impacted in the age of AI.In this episode:* Why relying only on art unit prediction tools & wordsmithing is a losing strategy for § 101* Why claim 1 shouldn't be your broadest claim* How taking features out of independent claims helps advance prosecution - and how the strategy also leaves clients routinely surprised by how broad their issued claims end up* Examiner interviews as hostage negotiations: Ngai's framework based on Chris Voss's Never Split the Difference* Differing approaches that Ngai and Eli have on whether to push for an explicit on-the-record agreement before ending an interview* AI as a collaborator for patent drafting and prosecution* The importance of human interactions and communication for patent prosecution even in the age of AIWatch the full episode and read the companion post on Voice of IP: https://voiceofip.com/Subscribe to the Clause 8 YouTube channel for bonus content: https://www.youtube.com/@clause8

The MacVoices Live! panel reviews the latest on the evolving legal battle between Apple and Masimo, highlighting recent rulings favoring Apple while leaving key issues  like blood oxygen features and damages unresolved. Chuck Joiner, David Ginsburg, Web Bixby, Guy Serle, Jim Rea, Jeff Gamet, Marty Jencius, Brian Flanigan-Arthurs and Eric Bolden also explore whether AI-driven devices could challenge the iPhone, and how ecosystem lock-in, user habits, and app ecosystems figure into the equation.  MacVoices is supported by NordLayer. Secure your network & stay compliant with one toggle-ready platform. Get an exclusive offer: up to 22% off NordLayer yearly plans plus 10% on top with the coupon code: MACVOICES10 at NordLayer.com/macvoices. Try it risk-free—14-day money-back guarantee. Show Notes: Chapters: 0:00 Introduction to Apple–Masimo legal developments 0:12 Status of Apple Watch blood oxygen limitations 1:32 Legal implications and ongoing appeals 3:46 Trade Commission vs. court cases explained 5:19 Apple's position and potential damages 7:05 Patent dispute and financial stakes 10:15 Transition to AI and smartphone discussion 11:45 AI impact on iPhone relevance 12:27 OpenAI phone speculation and ecosystem lock-in 15:03 Market stability and barriers to entry 18:20 Privacy concerns and user behavior 19:49 Blackphone and niche security devices 23:07 iPhone battery issue anecdote and tips Links: The new iPhones have a problem turning back on after the battery runs out - 9to5Mac https://9to5mac.com/2026/04/26/iphone-turned-off-dead-how-to-turn-back-on/   Massimo's Apple Watch ban complaint dismissed by U.S. District Court https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/04/25/massimos-apple-watch-ban-complaint-dismissed-by-us-district-court   iPhone gets more important as every AI improves, Perplexity CEO says https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/04/23/iphone-gets-more-important-as-every-ai-improves-perplexity-ceo-says   The iPhone is ‘not getting disrupted' at all by AI, says Perplexity CEO - 9to5Mac https://9to5mac.com/2026/04/23/the-iphone-is-not-getting-disrupted-at-all-by-ai-says-perplexity-ceo/ Guests: Web Bixby has been in the insurance business for 40 years and has been an Apple user for longer than that.You can catch up with him on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but prefers Bluesky. Eric Bolden is into macOS, plants, sci-fi, food, and is a rural internet supporter. You can connect with him on Twitter, by email at embolden@mac.com, on Mastodon at @eabolden@techhub.social, on his blog, Trending At Work, and as co-host on The Vision ProFiles podcast. Brian Flanigan-Arthurs is an educator with a passion for providing results-driven, innovative learning strategies for all students, but particularly those who are at-risk. He is also a tech enthusiast who has a particular affinity for Apple since he first used the Apple IIGS as a student. You can contact Brian on twitter as @brian8944. He also recently opened a Mastodon account at @brian8944@mastodon.cloud. Jeff Gamet is a technology blogger, podcaster, author, and public speaker. Previously, he was The Mac Observer's Managing Editor, and the TextExpander Evangelist for Smile. He has presented at Macworld Expo, RSA Conference, several WordCamp events, along with many other conferences. You can find him on several podcasts such as The Mac Show, The Big Show, MacVoices, Mac OS Ken, This Week in iOS, and more. Jeff is easy to find on social media as @jgamet on Twitter and Instagram, jeffgamet on LinkedIn., @jgamet@mastodon.social on Mastodon, and on his YouTube Channel at YouTube.com/jgamet. David Ginsburg is the host of the weekly podcast In Touch With iOS where he discusses all things iOS, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch, and related technologies. He is an IT professional supporting Mac, iOS and Windows users. Visit his YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/daveg65 and find and follow him on Twitter @daveg65 and on Mastodon at @daveg65@mastodon.cloud. Marty Jencius, Ph.D.,is a counselor educator and technology pioneer who has spent 30 years bringing emerging tech into his field — from founding one of the first professional listservs (CESNET-L) to podcasting, virtual reality, and now AI and AR. He is the founder of ThePodTalk.net, where he produces Vision ProFiles, The Old Mac Gang, A.I. Productivity Workflow, The Tech Savvy Professor, 15 Minute Bytes, The Neo Notebook, and Fade to Chat: Golden Age Cinema. He is also a regular panelist on MacVoices Live!, In Touch with iOS, and The Mac Show. Find him on Bluesky and Mastodon. Jim Rea built his own computer from scratch in 1975, started programming in 1977, and has been an independent Mac developer continuously since 1984. He is the founder of ProVUE Development, and the author of Panorama X, ProVUE's ultra fast RAM based database software for the macOS platform. He's been a speaker at MacTech, MacWorld Expo and other industry conferences. Follow Jim at provue.com and via @provuejim@techhub.social on Mastodon. Guy Serle, best known for being one of the co-hosts of the MyMac Podcast, sincerely apologizes for anything he has done or caused to have happened while in possession of dangerous podcasting equipment. He should know better but being a blonde from Florida means he's probably incapable of understanding the damage he has wrought. Guy is also the author of the novel, The Maltese Cube. You can follow his exploits on Twitter, catch him on Mac to the Future on Facebook, at @Macparrot@mastodon.social, and find everything at VertShark.com.   Support: Become a MacVoices Patron on Patreon      http://patreon.com/macvoices      Enjoy this episode? Make a one-time donation with PayPal Connect: Web:      http://macvoices.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/chuckjoiner      http://www.twitter.com/macvoices Mastodon:      https://mastodon.cloud/@chuckjoiner Facebook:      http://www.facebook.com/chuck.joiner MacVoices Page on Facebook:      http://www.facebook.com/macvoices/ MacVoices Group on Facebook:      http://www.facebook.com/groups/macvoice LinkedIn:      https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuckjoiner/ Instagram:      https://www.instagram.com/chuckjoiner/ Subscribe:      Audio in iTunes      Video in iTunes      Subscribe manually via iTunes or any podcatcher: Audio: http://www.macvoices.com/rss/macvoicesrss      Video: http://www.macvoices.com/rss/macvoicesvideorss

The MacVoices Live! panel reviews the latest on the evolving legal battle between Apple and Masimo, highlighting recent rulings favoring Apple while leaving key issues  like blood oxygen features and damages unresolved. Chuck Joiner, David Ginsburg, Web Bixby, Guy Serle, Jim Rea, Jeff Gamet, Marty Jencius, Brian Flanigan-Arthurs and Eric Bolden also explore whether AI-driven devices could challenge the iPhone, and how ecosystem lock-in, user habits, and app ecosystems figure into the equation.  MacVoices is supported by NordLayer. Secure your network & stay compliant with one toggle-ready platform. Get an exclusive offer: up to 22% off NordLayer yearly plans plus 10% on top with the coupon code: MACVOICES10 at NordLayer.com/macvoices. Try it risk-free—14-day money-back guarantee. Show Notes: Chapters: 0:00 Introduction to Apple–Masimo legal developments 0:12 Status of Apple Watch blood oxygen limitations 1:32 Legal implications and ongoing appeals 3:46 Trade Commission vs. court cases explained 5:19 Apple's position and potential damages 7:05 Patent dispute and financial stakes 10:15 Transition to AI and smartphone discussion 11:45 AI impact on iPhone relevance 12:27 OpenAI phone speculation and ecosystem lock-in 15:03 Market stability and barriers to entry 18:20 Privacy concerns and user behavior 19:49 Blackphone and niche security devices 23:07 iPhone battery issue anecdote and tips Links: The new iPhones have a problem turning back on after the battery runs out - 9to5Mac https://9to5mac.com/2026/04/26/iphone-turned-off-dead-how-to-turn-back-on/   Massimo's Apple Watch ban complaint dismissed by U.S. District Court https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/04/25/massimos-apple-watch-ban-complaint-dismissed-by-us-district-court   iPhone gets more important as every AI improves, Perplexity CEO says https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/04/23/iphone-gets-more-important-as-every-ai-improves-perplexity-ceo-says   The iPhone is 'not getting disrupted' at all by AI, says Perplexity CEO - 9to5Mac https://9to5mac.com/2026/04/23/the-iphone-is-not-getting-disrupted-at-all-by-ai-says-perplexity-ceo/ Guests: Web Bixby has been in the insurance business for 40 years and has been an Apple user for longer than that.You can catch up with him on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but prefers Bluesky. Eric Bolden is into macOS, plants, sci-fi, food, and is a rural internet supporter. You can connect with him on Twitter, by email at embolden@mac.com, on Mastodon at @eabolden@techhub.social, on his blog, Trending At Work, and as co-host on The Vision ProFiles podcast. Brian Flanigan-Arthurs is an educator with a passion for providing results-driven, innovative learning strategies for all students, but particularly those who are at-risk. He is also a tech enthusiast who has a particular affinity for Apple since he first used the Apple IIGS as a student. You can contact Brian on twitter as @brian8944. He also recently opened a Mastodon account at @brian8944@mastodon.cloud. Jeff Gamet is a technology blogger, podcaster, author, and public speaker. Previously, he was The Mac Observer's Managing Editor, and the TextExpander Evangelist for Smile. He has presented at Macworld Expo, RSA Conference, several WordCamp events, along with many other conferences. You can find him on several podcasts such as The Mac Show, The Big Show, MacVoices, Mac OS Ken, This Week in iOS, and more. Jeff is easy to find on social media as @jgamet on Twitter and Instagram, jeffgamet on LinkedIn., @jgamet@mastodon.social on Mastodon, and on his YouTube Channel at YouTube.com/jgamet. David Ginsburg is the host of the weekly podcast In Touch With iOS where he discusses all things iOS, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch, and related technologies. He is an IT professional supporting Mac, iOS and Windows users. Visit his YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/daveg65 and find and follow him on Twitter @daveg65 and on Mastodon at @daveg65@mastodon.cloud. Marty Jencius, Ph.D.,is a counselor educator and technology pioneer who has spent 30 years bringing emerging tech into his field — from founding one of the first professional listservs (CESNET-L) to podcasting, virtual reality, and now AI and AR. He is the founder of ThePodTalk.net, where he produces Vision ProFiles, The Old Mac Gang, A.I. Productivity Workflow, The Tech Savvy Professor, 15 Minute Bytes, The Neo Notebook, and Fade to Chat: Golden Age Cinema. He is also a regular panelist on MacVoices Live!, In Touch with iOS, and The Mac Show. Find him on Bluesky and Mastodon. Jim Rea built his own computer from scratch in 1975, started programming in 1977, and has been an independent Mac developer continuously since 1984. He is the founder of ProVUE Development, and the author of Panorama X, ProVUE's ultra fast RAM based database software for the macOS platform. He's been a speaker at MacTech, MacWorld Expo and other industry conferences. Follow Jim at provue.com and via @provuejim@techhub.social on Mastodon. Guy Serle, best known for being one of the co-hosts of the MyMac Podcast, sincerely apologizes for anything he has done or caused to have happened while in possession of dangerous podcasting equipment. He should know better but being a blonde from Florida means he's probably incapable of understanding the damage he has wrought. Guy is also the author of the novel, The Maltese Cube. You can follow his exploits on Twitter, catch him on Mac to the Future on Facebook, at @Macparrot@mastodon.social, and find everything at VertShark.com.   Support:      Become a MacVoices Patron on Patreon      http://patreon.com/macvoices      Enjoy this episode? Make a one-time donation with PayPal Connect:      Web:      http://macvoices.com      Twitter:      http://www.twitter.com/chuckjoiner      http://www.twitter.com/macvoices      Mastodon:      https://mastodon.cloud/@chuckjoiner      Facebook:      http://www.facebook.com/chuck.joiner      MacVoices Page on Facebook:      http://www.facebook.com/macvoices/      MacVoices Group on Facebook:      http://www.facebook.com/groups/macvoice      LinkedIn:      https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuckjoiner/      Instagram:      https://www.instagram.com/chuckjoiner/ Subscribe:      Audio in iTunes      Video in iTunes      Subscribe manually via iTunes or any podcatcher:      Audio: http://www.macvoices.com/rss/macvoicesrss      Video: http://www.macvoices.com/rss/macvoicesvideorss

If you're an inventor or entrepreneur riding the high of securing a U.S. patent, this episode is your reality check—in the best possible way. Because while a U.S. patent is a powerful asset, it's also geographically limited. And in today's global economy, that limitation can become a major vulnerability if not addressed early.We dive into one of the most misunderstood aspects of intellectual property: international patent protection. Many inventors assume their rights extend automatically beyond U.S. borders. Unfortunately, that's not how the system works. Patent rights are territorial, meaning your protection only exists in the countries where you've actively filed and secured it.So what are your options? We break down the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), a system designed to simplify the process of seeking protection in multiple countries. The PCT doesn't grant you a “global patent,” but it does give you valuable time—typically up to 30 months—to evaluate where your invention should be protected.We also explore direct national filings, which involve submitting patent applications individually in each country of interest. While this approach can be more immediate, it often comes with higher costs and complexity due to varying legal requirements.Beyond the mechanics, we talk strategy. How do you decide which countries matter? Should you prioritize manufacturing hubs? Consumer markets? Competitor hotspots? The answer depends on your business model—and getting it wrong can be costly.We also tackle common pitfalls, like missing critical filing deadlines or over-investing in markets with little return. And we discuss enforcement challenges, because securing a patent is one thing—defending it in a foreign legal system is another.This episode is packed with insights to help you think beyond borders and approach your intellectual property like a global business asset.Whether you're just starting out or preparing to scale internationally, understanding how to protect your invention worldwide is essential.To chat about this one-on-one, grab a free consult at strategymeeting.com

The latest In Touch With iOS with Dave he is joined by Jill McKinley, Eric Bolden, Marty Jencius, Vision Pro sparks debate with real-world medical breakthroughs and Hollywood use cases while critics call it "doomed." Meanwhile, MacBook Neo demand surges, Apple expands AI and iCloud features, and MacStock 2026 heats up with major announcements. The show notes are at InTouchwithiOS.com  Direct Link to Audio  Links to our Show Give us a review on Apple Podcasts! CLICK HERE we would really appreciate it! Click this link Buy me a Coffee to support the show we would really appreciate it. intouchwithios.com/coffee  Another way to support the show is to become a Patreon member patreon.com/intouchwithios Website: In Touch With iOS YouTube Channel In Touch with iOS Magazine on Flipboard Facebook Page BlueSky Mastodon X Instagram Threads Summary In Episode 420, Dave and the panel dive deep into the evolving Apple ecosystem, starting with the latest visionOS 26.5 beta and broader conversations around the future of Apple Vision Pro. Despite headlines suggesting Apple may be "giving up," the panel pushes back—highlighting real-world use cases in healthcare and filmmaking that suggest the opposite. A standout story includes Vision Pro being used in cataract surgery, enabling real-time collaboration and 3D visualization—showcasing its growing role in enterprise and medical environments. In parallel, Hollywood is embracing the device, with directors like Jon Favreau leveraging Vision Pro for immersive shot composition in virtual IMAX environments. The conversation shifts to Apple's broader ecosystem updates, including beta releases across iOS, macOS, and watchOS, which remain relatively quiet ahead of WWDC. Meanwhile, the MacBook Neo continues to generate buzz with strong demand and shipping delays, reinforcing its early success. AI continues to dominate discussion with tools like Perplexity's Comet browser, YouTube's conversational search experiments, and Google Photos' upcoming wardrobe AI feature. Apple also enhances iCloud with improved web-based search functionality—closing the gap with competitors. Additional topics include Apple Pay transit expansion, App Store subscription changes, MagSafe's uncertain future, and excitement around upcoming Apple TV+ content like Ted Lasso Season 4. The episode wraps with a preview of MacStock X, featuring appearances from industry voices including David Pogue and a special Ecamm Creator Camp. Topics and Links In Touch With Vision Pro this week.  visionOS 26.5 Beta 4 Release Notes Apple Has Given Up on the Vision Pro After M5 Refresh Flop Apple Vision Pro Used in World-First Cataract Surgery Latest 'Star Wars' movie cut unnecessary costs by using Apple Vision Pro Apple wins Patent for Bridge Emitters & Sensors to Keep AR Glasses Aligned Over Time Beta this week.  Apple Seeds Fourth iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5 Betas to Developers Apple Releases Fourth watchOS 26.5, tvOS 26.5 and visionOS 26.5 Betas In Touch With Mac this week Fourth macOS Tahoe 26.5 Beta Now Available for Developers MacBook Neo Still Seeing Extended Delivery Estimates at Apple, But Amazon and Walmart Have Stock Other Topics Perplexity just gave its Comet AI browser an upgrade for iPad users with these features YouTube Tests AI-Powered 'Ask YouTube' Conversational Search Feature  iOS 26.4 adds convenient new iCloud feature, here's how to enable it  Google Photos to Get AI 'Wardrobe' Feature Apple Introduces App Store Monthly Subscriptions With 12-Month Commitmenth Apple May Reconsider MagSafe Future on Upcoming iPhones ProClip USA   News Apple Shares 'Ted Lasso' Season Four Streaming Date and Teaser Trailer Watch The Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix Live On Apple TV This Weekend Apple Q2 2026 Earnings Call: Date, Time, and What Could Move the Stock Apple Pay for Transit Now Works in These 12 U.S. Cities Announcements Macstock X is here celebrating its 10th anniversary ! Dave, Chuck, Jeff, Marty, and Jill are all speaking this year!. With Three Full Days of expert-led Presentations and Workshops, Macstock's sessions are crammed full of productivity-enhancing content. NEW this year is a partnership with sponsor Ecamm. Ecamm Creator Camp: Mac Edition on July 9, 2026 there are only 100 tickets available for the bundle. There are 2 passes available: Macstock weekend pass July 10,11,12, 2026 or the Macstock Ecamm Bundle starting July 9 (only 100 tickets available)  Come join us. Register HERE and use our offer code INTOUCH to save $50 Our Host Dave Ginsburg is an IT professional supporting Mac, iOS and Windows users and shares his wealth of knowledge of iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV and related technologies. Visit the YouTube channel https://youtube.com/intouchwithios follow him on Mastodon @daveg65, , BlueSky @daveg65  and the show @intouchwithios   Our Regular Contributors Jeff Gamet is a podcaster, technology blogger, artist, and author. Previously, he was The Mac Observer's managing editor, and Smile's TextExpander Evangelist. You can find him on Mastadon @jgamet Pixelfed @jgamet@pixelfed.social and Bluesky @jgamet.bsky.social‬ Podcasts The Context Machine Podcast  Retro Rewatch Retro Rewatch His YouTube channel https://youtube.com/jgamet Marty Jencius, Ph.D., is a professor of counselor education at Kent State University, where he researches, writes, and trains about using technology in teaching and mental health practice. His podcasts include Vision Pro Files, The Tech Savvy Professor and Circular Firing Squad Podcast. Find him at jencius@mastodon.social  https://thepodtalk.net  Eric Bolden is into macOS, plants, sci-fi, food, and is a rural internet supporter. You can connect with him by email at eabolden@mac.com, on Mastodon at @eabolden@techhub.social, on his blog, Trending At Work, and as co-host on The Vision ProFiles podcast.   Jill McKinley works in enterprise software, server administration, and IT A lifelong tech enthusiast, she started her career with Windows but is now an avid Apple fan. Beyond technology, she shares her insights on nature, faith, and personal growth through her podcasts—Buzz Blossom & Squeak, Start with Small Steps, and The Bible in Small Steps. Watch her content on YouTube at @startwithsmallsteps and follow her on X @schmern. Find all her work at http://jillfromthenorthwoods.com  Chuck Joiner is the host of MacVoices and hosts video podcasts with influential members of the Apple community. Make sure to visit macvoices.com and subscribe to his podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @chuckjoiner and join his MacVoices Facebook group. Guy Serle is one of the hosts of the new The Gmen Show along with GazMaz and email GMenshow@icloud.com  @MacParrot and @VertShark on X  Vertshark on YouTube, Google Voice +1 Area code  703-828-4677

Crystal investigates an anomaly in Google search data that predicted neural interface technology disclosures by two years.What We Cover:• Georgia Tech's peer-reviewed hair follicle sensor research (published PNAS, April 2025)• Federal contract analysis: microneedle manufacturing scale-up 2020-2025• Google Trends investigation: “moving hair” search clustering with vestigial body part queries• Geographic analysis: Aarau, Switzerland and the Interneuron consortium• Supply chain documentation: 3M, Vaxxas, Vaxess government contracts• Patent landscape: neural interface applications of microneedle technology• Charles Lieber connection: injectable mesh electronics and the i-BRAIN timelineKey Sources:        •       Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences        •       US Patent Database        •       Federal procurement records (USAspending.gov)        •       Google Trends data analysis        •       Peer-reviewed neurotechnology literature#neurotechnology #supplychainanalysis #biomedicalengineering #searchtrends #microneedleresearch #georgatech #swissresearch #patentanalysis #governmentcontracts #datatechnology Reach out to share your story:moremorgellons.com

Les, Kurt, and Jason didn't forget about you because they took their fish oil pills, and they're here to talk about Hallmark's I'll be Seeing You! But first, Les talks about his epic birthday bash featuring celebrity appearances! Plus, Kurt recaps the Michael movie and Jason and Les are disappointed about the lack of Rebbie, Janet, and Randy (plus can we get a little justice for Tito?). And, Kurt has some Blac Chyna news you may have heard in an earlier episode. Then it's time to open up your tree poppers to take in I'll Be Seeing You starring Hallmark staple Tyler Hynes (can he get it? Vote on Threads @lifetimeofhallmarkpodcast) and two-time Tony award winner Christine Ebersol. This movie features a lot a lot of people getting into strangers' vans, but it's all part of the high-pressure super cutthroat world of patent law.    Bluesky: lifetimeofhallmark Facebook : lifetimeofhallmark Instagram : lifetimeofhallmarkpodcast Threads: lifetimeofhallmarkpodcast TikTok: lifetimeofhallmarkpod Theme song generously donated by purple-planet.com  

First, Joe asks-do you flag your email? Next, Jack brings us an amazing new & innovative product! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Your pipeline isn't broken; your buyers just don't trust you. Learn how today's AI chaos, attention metrics, and trust recession are derailing conversions and get a practical playbook to turn trust into your brand's winning edge!And don't forget! You can crush your marketing strategy with just a few minutes a week by signing up for the StrategyCast Newsletter. You'll receive weekly bursts of marketing tips, clips, resources, and a whole lot more. Visit https://strategycast.com/ for more details.==Let's Break It Down==05:27 Erosion of trust over time09:42 Rethinking marketing and customer trust10:29 Building team alignment16:27 Understanding your ideal customer profile19:13 Understanding audience challenges and solutions21:29 Using customer interviews to uncover truths25:41 Ethical marketing as an advantage28:54 Short term pressure on marketers32:12 Talking about NPS scores==Where You Can Find Us==Website: https://strategycast.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strategy_cast/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/strategycast==Leave a Review==Hey there, StrategyCast fans!If you've found our tips and tricks on marketing strategies helpful in growing your business, we'd be thrilled if you could take a moment to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Your feedback not only supports us but also helps others discover how they can elevate their business game!

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AI isn't coming… it's already here, and it's already reshaping how we work and build wealth. Nicole's prediction: the winners of the next decade will be the techno-optimists, the people who learn to leverage AI to make more money, scale their time, and outsource distractions. Today, Nicole is partnering with Eva Cicinyte to show you exactly how. Eva is the founder of GNOMI, an AI news agent designed to help people understand what matters in real time. Eva and Nicole break down why traditional news is broken beyond repair, how AI might actually be our best weapon against deepfakes, and why Eva built a feature that gives everyday investors access to the kind of real-time market intelligence that used to be reserved for Wall Street pros. Then, Eva and Nicole get raw about what it really takes to build a company while building a family. Eva reveals why she kept her pregnancy a secret and shares the story of the conference call she refused to hang up, even as she went intp labor. Try GNOMI and start with Finance Mode Check out Nicole's financial literacy course The Money School  Find a Financial Advisor or Financial Coach from Nicole's company Private Wealth Collective Watch video clips from the pod on Money Rehab's Instagram and Nicole Lapin's Instagram Here's what Nicole covers with Eva:  00:00 Are You Ready for Some Money Rehab?  01:10 Why Traditional News is Broken  03:35 How Eva Turned an Unconventional Background Into a Superpower  10:00 The GNOMI Origin Story  13:42 Why Every Founder Should Vibe Code  15:02 GNOMI vs. ChatGPT: What's the Actual Difference?  20:15 Real-Time Financial News You Can Use  30:20 When You Need a Patent and What They Actually Cost  34:08 Raising Millions From One Investor  37:15 Will AI Kill Traditional News?  38:00 The Pregnancy She Kept Private  47:33 Raising Daughters in an AI World  52:30 Women in AI  54:18 The Future of News 55:00 Eva's Tip You Can Take Straight to the Bank

Babylist is selling $500M a year to parents… and its NYC store has an influencer studio.Walmart's making all of its price tags digital… Surge Pricing in Aisle 6?Larry Fink wants social security to invest in stocks… because risk is the only option.Plus, the most viral makeup is $400… and must be serenaded by kelp music.$WMT $BLK $SPY Buy tickets to The IPO Tour (our In-Person Offering) TODAYNew York, NY (4/8): https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0000637AE43ED0C2Los Angeles, CA (6/3): SOLD OUTGet your TBOY Yeti Doll gift here: https://tboypod.com/shop/product/economic-support-yeti-doll NEWSLETTER:https://tboypod.com/newsletter OUR 2ND SHOW:Want more business storytelling from us? Check our weekly deepdive show, The Best Idea Yet: The untold origin story of the products you're obsessed with. Listen for free to The Best Idea Yet: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/NEW LISTENERSFill out our 2 minute survey: https://qualtricsxm88y5r986q.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dp1FDYiJgt6lHy6GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Linkedin (Nick): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/Linkedin (Jack): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ About Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today's top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, The Best One Yet is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.