msnbc.com

ITC Bans Motorola Devices That Infringe on Microsoft Patent
PC Magazine
By Chloe Albanesius Microsoft was handed a legal victory on Friday after the International Trade Commission (ITC) ordered an import ban on Android-based Motorola devices that infringe on a Microsoft-held patent. The patent in question covers technology …
Motorola Gadgets Barred From Entering US Over Microsoft Patent FightHuffington Post
ITC says Motorola violates a Microsoft patent on its Android devicesThe Seattle Times
ITC Rules in Favor of Microsoft Over Motorola MobilityWall Street Journal
Wired News -msnbc.com
all 99 news articles »

patents – Google News

On April 26, 2012, WIPO celebrates World Intellectual Property Day.  The theme of World IP Day this year is “Visionary Innovators”.  Behind every great innovation, either artistic or technological, is a human story – a tale in which new pathways open as a result of the curiosity, insight or determination of individuals.

The Wright Brothers’ boyhood fascination with flight leads to a flying machine and travel by air. Louis Pasteur’s inquisitive mind advances the science of disease prevention. Tu Youyou’s dogged analysis of herbal remedies results in a malaria treatment that saves millions of lives. Steve Jobs’ ambition to make digital technology simple and accessible to everyone gives rise to personal computing and – three decades on – a new paradigm for the delivery of entertainment.

The list of visionary innovators is long. It is a catalogue of human ingenuity and creativity. It includes the many artists, writers and musicians who changed the way we see and hear things: Rembrandt and Turner, Picasso and Kandinski, each reshaping our perceptions of light, shape and form; Chekhov and Tagore, Neruda and Mafouz, their writing giving new insights into the human experience; Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, Hendrix and Rostropovich – musicians who challenge the status-quo, and endure.

Why not use World Intellectual Property Day 2011 to fully explore and utilize IP protections for your business?

What you can do

Related posts:

1. World Intellectual Property Day 2011: Designing the Future
2. Celebrate World Intellectual Property Day
3. World Intellectual Property Day 2008 – Celebrating Innovation

Patent Baristas

Newsday

For Steve Jobs, Patents Kept Beauty Of Design Alive
NPR
12:00 pm ET Steve Jobs filed more than 300 patents, now on display at the Smithsonian's S. Dillon Ripley Center in Washington, DC Steve Jobs filed more than 300 patents, now on display at the Smithsonian's S. Dillon Ripley Center in Washington, …
Steve Jobs patents at SmithsonianNewsday
Apple Loop: The Week In ReviewForbes

all 211 news articles »

patents – Google News

On September 16, 2011, President Obama announced that his Administration would release a National Bioeconomy Blueprint as part of his commitment to supporting scientific discovery and technological breakthroughs to ensure sustainable economic growth, improve the health of the population, and move toward a clean energy future. The 2012 National Bioeconomy Blueprint has two purposes: to lay out strategic objectives that will help realize the full potential of the U. S.  bioeconomy and to highlight early achievements toward those objectives.

Technological innovation is a significant driver of economic growth, and the U.S. bioeconomy represents a growing sector of this technology-fueled economy.   According to the USDA, U. S. revenues in 2010 from genetically modified crops were approximately $ 76 billion.  Beyond agriculture, based on the best available estimate, 2010 U. S. revenues from industrial biotechnology—fuels, materials, chemicals, and industrial enzymes derived from genetically modified systems—were approximately $ 100 billion.

The growth of today’s U. S. bioeconomy is due in large part to the development of three foundational technologies: genetic engineering, DNA sequencing, and automated high-throughput manipulations of biomolecules.

The National Bioeconomy Blueprint describes five strategic objectives for a bioeconomy with the potential to generate economic growth and address societal needs.

1.  Support R&D investments that will provide the foundation for the future U. S.  bioeconomy.

TCoordinated strategic programs and targeted investments will accelerate progress in biological research and technology areas, and this in turn will drive discovery for an American bioeconomy.

Expand and Develop Essential Bioeconomy Technologies – Multiagency collaborations for emerging foundational technologies such as synthetic biology, biology-related information technologies, proteomics, and others are being fostered in order to grow the bioeconomy.

Integrate Approaches across Fields – The Administration will prioritize additional multidisciplinary efforts to enable biological research at the boundaries of fields, such as physics, chemistry, engineering, computer sciences, and mathematics, that support the bioeconomy.

Implement Improved Funding Mechanisms – Creating or modifying funding mechanisms to support creative, high-risk/high-reward research can enable researchers to pursue daring—and potentially groundbreaking—research that may be constrained by typical funding mechanisms or approaches.

2.  Facilitate the transition of bioinventions from research lab to market, including an increased focus on translational and regulatory sciences.

Accelerate Progress to Market – To capitalize on the promise of the newly reauthorized Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, agencies should evaluate and update SBIR programs. Some relevant objectives include reducing application response times, hiring/training program staff to enhance relevant in-house experience, and increasing the use of industry experts as peer reviewers to evaluate industry proposals.

Enhance Entrepreneurship at Universities –  Integrating entrepreneurship and industry involvement into the university research experience will facilitate the path from research to commercialization and help innovative ideas reach the marketplace. Innovative programs that enhance entrepreneurial activities at universities are needed to help academic discoveries become commercial realities.

Utilize Federal Procurement Authority – To drive the creation and growth of new bioeconomy markets, Federal agencies should prioritize procurement of biobased and sustainable products where appropriate and cost-effective.

3.  Develop and reform regulations to reduce barriers, increase the speed and predictability of regulatory processes, and reduce costs while protecting human and environmental health.

Moving forward: Improved regulatory processes will help rapidly and safely achieve the promise of the future bioeconomy.

Improve Regulatory Processes and Regulations – To reduce costs and impediments to investments but without compromising safety and efficiency, attention should be given to application review times, sequential reviews by multiple agencies should be coordinated to allow parallel reviews, and specific guidance should be issued in response to stakeholder needs.

Collaborate with Stakeholders – Federal agencies should focus on building new, and augmenting existing, stakeholder collaborations to inform efforts, streamline processes, and reduce costs and response times, while preserving safety and ensuring substantive benefit to public

4.  Update training programs and align academic institution incentives with student training for national workforce needs.

Employer-Educator Partnerships – Foster increased industry participation in the development of programs and in training students at all levels for the future bioeconomy workforce.

Reengineer Training Programs – Incentives for academic institutions to enhance entrepreneurship and restructure training programs would better prepare the future bioeconomy workforce, whether individuals are bound for careers in industry or academia.

5.  Identify and support opportunities for the development of public-private partnerships and precompetitive collaborations—where competitors pool resources, knowledge, and expertise to learn from successes and failures.

Catalyze Public-Private Partnerships – Federal agencies are encouraged to broadly pursue opportunities for effective public-private partnerships in health, energy, agriculture, and manufacturing to leverage Federal investments and industry investments and expertise.

See the complete National Bioeconomy Blueprint 2012 here.

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Patent Baristas

When it comes to product marketing, everyone thinks they are an expert, but few can produce results. Why is this so? Most of the problem comes from marketing books, seminars, and courses that detract from the heart of marketing: translating features into benefits. Much of today’s marketing is based on product hype . However, the simple truth of the matter is that people buy things to gain pleasure or avoid some sort of pain. It is critical to understand this as it is the supporting motivation for every purchase no matter how little or large it may be. Think about the last two items you purchased. Why did you buy them? You can boil every purchase down to gaining pleasure or avoiding pain.

That being said, there are four key tips to better connect with your customers:

1) Use terms your customer can relate to, not industry jargon.

This point is illustrated eloquently by Jay Cross of the popular online marketing blog PronetAdvertising.com. In his article “Speak Your Customer’s Language”, he stresses that marketers often become so entrenched in their fields that they believe everyone else knows as much as they do.

“As businesspeople we develop tunnel vision regarding our products. The better parts of our days are spent actively working in our fields. We are more experienced and well-read than most ever care to theorize about. This leads us to use super-specialized language that doesn’t always click with customers. I was as guilty of this as anyone. When I did anti-spyware I was guilty of calling my product a “data-driven Internet security solution” or “gateway threat prevention.” And while these terms do apply in a certain context of knowledge (say, a rival CEO’s), they are outside of the realm of a typical customer’s knowledge base. Now that I’m out of that market I can see it with fresh eyes, including the much simpler terms the common man describes it with.”

The solution to this problem is to discuss your products with people outside your company and outside your market. This is the only true way to learn the outsider’s perspective. Once you get an idea of what this is, you can apply it to the packaging and marketing of whatever product you have to offer.

2) Focus on benefits, not features.

This is one of the most oft-made mistakes in all of marketing. To an extent, this is understandable. When you have spent months or years toiling to create a new product, you are naturally excited about all the little things that make it tick and want to describe them to your customers. The problem, as with the last tip, is that the customers do not share this context of knowledge or enthusiasm. So what is the difference, precisely, between features and benefits?

A feature is what something IS. For example, a 50 number speed dial, or a 6 CD changer.

A benefit is why someone CARES. For example, fewer keystrokes and less hassle changing CDs.

Sadly, Entrepreneur.com notes that “not one in ten companies understands the difference” between features and benefits when it comes to preparing marketing campaigns or materials. For this reason, many well-intentioned marketers stress features over benefits and the bottom line suffers as a result. If you want put your marketing efforts into hyper drive, go over everything you put out with a fine-toothed comb and make sure benefits are top, front, and center. You will be amazed at how much of a difference this makes.

3) Write at a fifth-grade level. Really.

This might sound like we are demeaning your customers, but rest assured that this is not the case. It is simply a fact that most buyers respond better to simple language than complex language. In his book “Meaningful Marketing”, Eureka! Ranch founder Doug Hall notes a study proving this to be so. “Whether it’s the lack of reading done by most adults after high school, the immense information overload people experience, or a little of both, consumers simply shut down when confronted with lengthy tomes. The solution? Read your marketing material to a child in late elementary or middle school. Do they understand your product? If not, what did you need to tell them before they did? Incorporate what you learn into your marketing and you will be astounded at the results.”

4) Know whether your customers are right-brained or left-brained

Most of us are familiar with the idea of diving people into categories of right-brained or left-brained. Right-brained people are supposedly more emotional and impulsive while left-brained people are apparently more logical and deliberate in their decisions. In most cases your customer base will be a mixture of both, but one group tends to outweigh the other. You should make it a point of determining whether most of your customers are right-brained or left, as this can significantly amplify your marketing efforts. For example, left-brained customers will expect fliers and copy with lots of facts, product comparisons, and a clear demonstration of value for the money spent. While this is important to right-brainers too, you are more likely to win their business with enthusiasm and energy.

Running a product marketing campaign with these items in mind will help increase conversion rates on most marketing.

Eric Corl

Eric Corl is the Founder and CEO of IdeaBuyer.com, a marketplace for new technology and products that gives inventors the opportunity to showcase their intellectual property to consumer product companies, entrepreneurs, retailers, and manufacturers. You can email him atEricCorl@IdeaBuyer.com. You can visit the site by clicking here >New Technology and Products, Patents for Sale

Idea Buyer > Patents and Ideas for Sale and Licensing, Intellectual Property