The tablet wars are on again. Amazon is reportedly planning to release a 10 inch Kindle Fire to compete with Apple’s iPad head-on. Perhaps this is in reponse to Apple’s plans to release a 7 inch mini iPad that will compete head-on with the original Kindle Fire.
Here is a summary of the rumors around the upcoming 10 inch Kindle Fire:
1. The larger Kindle Fire is codenamed “Hollywood” as was reported by BGR already a year ago, before the original Kindle Fire even launched.
4. Amazon could price the 10 inch Kindle Fire at around $299 to compete with the iPad, according to this report.
Meanwhile, the iPad mini is quickly becoming a reality, despite Steve Jobs’ repoted opposition to the project, as suppliers announce that they are preparing to ship the smaller panels. The cost of the iPad mini could go as low as $199, to really be able to compete with the original Kindle Fire. Thus, it seems that the end of 2012 will see a new round of tablet wars between Amazon and Apple.
I think that more competition can only be good for the consumer, so let the games begin.
Some of you may have noticed that if you try to go to the Google Patents homepage, you are now automatically redirected to the main Google Home Page. In fact, without much warning, Google decided to integrate Google Patents with its main Google search engine.
Google calls it part of its “Spring Cleaning in Sping” in its official blog. Here is what they say about Google Patents:
We’re redirecting the old Patent Search homepage to google.com to make sure everyone is getting the best possible experience for their patent searches. Over the past few months, we’ve been making updates and improvements to the Patent Search functionality on google.com—not only are you able to search the same set of U.S. patents with the same advanced search options, the new experience loads twice as fast as the old Patent Search homepage, contributes to a unified search experience across Google, and sports Google Doodles as well. The team looks forward to including patents from other countries soon, and will be rolling out additional features to Patent Search on google.com in the future.
This is part of an initiative by CEO Larry Page to streamline the services offered by Google. Some of the other services that have also been shut down are Google Flu Vaccine Finder, Google Related, Google Sync for Blackberry, Google Talk’s mobile web app and One Pass. For a complete list of services that have been affected, read here.
The good news is that Google Patents is not gone altogether, and the Advanced Search Page is still active, as Google explained in their blog, cited above. It is also encouraging that Google plans to add additional features, such as the addition of patents from other countries. In a previous blog post, I reported that Google is now archiving US patent file histories from public PAIR. Hopefully, Google will continue to expand its patent-related services. Keep checking back for updates!
I attended the AIPLA Annual Meeting in Washington DC in October, 2011. The AIPLA New Lawyer’s Committee asked me to write about my experience as a first time attendee, for their newsletter Business Casual.
I have an iPhone 4 and did not upgrade to the iPhone 4S with Siri because I was hoping that the new iPad would come with the personal assistant. Unfortunately, Apple chose not to install Siri on its latest version of the iPad, perhaps to force others like me to go ahead and upgrade our iPhones if we want to get Siri. In any case, since the iPhone 5 is rumored to come out in the Fall, I now plan to wait until then to upgrade my iPhone. In the meantime, I started researching what alternatives there were to Siri that I could use on my iPhone 4, and I came across Dragon Go!
Dragon Go! is a free app that is developed by Nuance Communications. There are iOS and Android versions of the app. To use Dragon Go! just tap the record button on the screen and ask away. For example, you can ask it “What is the weather like today around here?” and it will connect you to Accuweather and will show you the weather in your area. It will use you phone’s GPS to determine your location. If you ask “What is the capital of Switzerland?” it will connect you to Ask.com and will give you the answer (Bern, in case you were wondering). Once you get your answer, Dragon Go! allows you to share it on Facebook, Twitter, or by email.
Below is a list of some of the sites and services that Dragon Go! connects with. You can see them on the Dragon Carousel, so you can also swipe directly to the site that you want to interact with.
I recently interviewed Drew Smith, the developer of the MPEP Plus iPad App. He had sent me a free copy of the app to try out, and I decided that rather than write a review, it would be interesting to interview him to find out about how he decided to become an app developer while still in law school.
1. How did you come up with the idea for your MPEP Plus iPad App?
My firm does a good amount of international work through foreign agents, and I initially planned to make a database of global patent laws and procedures. My thinking was that it’d be extremely useful to have quick access to, say, rules on novelty in Brazil, without having to search the web and click through a lot of clutter. But while simple to code, the app became a little problematic, interestingly enough, because of IP issues. Many foreign governments hold copyrights on their government works. I found a good number of English translations of foreign-language laws, but many of those were the result of someone’s creative translation. After a while, my app was so gutted of information that it was essentially just the sites of USPTO and WIPO, with poor auto-translations of a handful of government works. I refocused the app to only provide the MPEP and supporting materials. The “PLUS” was my personal joke about my app being better–as if the MPEP, the bible of the industry, is somehow inadequate!
2. There are already other MPEP apps on the market–how is yours different?
After I released the first version of this app, I looked to see what had already been done. Surprisingly, there are very few apps that focus on the MPEP, despite the fact that every patent attorney and agent uses it. I wanted to incorporate things that make the iPad fun, such as touch gestures, animation, and vibrant colors. I like to think that the use of public-domain patent drawings add a touch of humor, and that the patent-retrieval system is an intersting twist on just punching in a number. If you’re going to make a program for such a powerful platform, why subject users to page after page of black text?
3. You are a patent agent and are about to be admitted to the NY bar, right? How did you become interested in becoming an app developer?
Yes, I’m an agent for about one more week, until I’m sworn in as an attorney. I’ve always liked programming, probably because it’s in my blood. My dad got his undergraduate degree in applied math, which was computer programming when computers were the size of a small car. Later, in the mid-1980s, he was one of the first attorneys to use a computer in his law practice, then started his own software company in the 90s, and put out his own iPad app, Form 14, in January. (It calculated child support using Missouri guidelines.) I took a programming class in college, but didn’t consider it as a career. Later, as an engineer, I modified pieces of software that were in place at the time. I dabbled in coding a game for the XBox but never made anything worth releasing. When I started in patent law, I realized that I needed something to distinguish myself as a patent professional. There will always be people with better degrees, or better grades, so why would a client pick me? So I’d say I got into iOS programming half for my own enjoyment, and half to show a subset of potential clients that I can handle at least some of their inventive subject matter.
4. Do you have any advice for others who are interested in developing their own apps?
I’d say dream big, but start small. My first app, Dial-a-Patent, was a slightly tweaked calculator from the first tutorial of Paul Hegarty’s iOS development class on iTunes U. I wanted to do amazing things, but I had to keep it in perspective. Also, I’d estimate that learning Objective-C and Xcode took me around fifty hours. That’s just time spent running through tutorials and reading about syntax! That being said, if a person is dedicated enough, once they get past the initial learning curve, integrating functionality is not nearly as daunting. If a person has capital but not time, there are lots of talented programmers out there who would make an app for cheap.
5. Are you currently working on new apps? Any hints?
Since I’ve started developing, I’ve had people approach me with a few non-legal ideas, almost all of which incorporate the most interesting features of iOS: animation, facial recognition, photo integration, geolocation, 3D modeling, RSS feeds, and so on. Unfortunately, because they are for other people or entities, I can’t really discuss them. I’ve considered doing apps for other areas of law, or law students, but don’t have a “hook,” like patent illustration, just yet. The next thing that I’ll release will probably be a patent form app. It would be useful if you need to fill out an IDS, or declaration, and don’t have your computer in front of you. In addition, there will be a couple of other features that I hope will utilize the benefits of the hardware.
6. What are your favorite apps for (a) work and (b) play?
I don’t use too many apps at work, other than my own! But I can say that Penultimate and iAnnotate PDF really helped when I was studying for the patent bar. For fun, the app I’ve used most, hands down, is Hipstamatic. I play a good number of games on the subway, like NBA 2K12 and Final Fantasy Tactics. And apps like HBO Go and Netflix provide a good dose of entertainment at the end of the day.
As reported by Thomas Claburn of Information Week, Aurora Clark from Washington State University, together with collaborators Mooney and Corrales from the University of Arizona, recently published a research article in the Journal of Computational Chemistry describing how they used Google’s Page Rank algorithms to study hydrogen bonding. Page Rank is a link analysis algorithm, developed by Larry Page, which has been patented and is assigned to Stanford University. Google has an exclusive license. You can read the patent here. Page Rank allows Google to assign a degree of “importance” or “relevance” to a web page by determining how many other web pages link to it. The theory is that if many other web pages link to a given page, that page must be very important or relevant. Professor Clark discovered that this same process of measuring and ranking connectivity between web pages could be applied to molecules. For example, water molecules are constantly forming and reforming hydrogen bonds, which in this instance are bonds that form between hydrogen atoms of one water molecule and oxygen atoms of another water molecule.
Professor Clark makes available to other researchers the scripts that she employed in her research, called moleculaR-networks. She used moleculaR-networks to study the effects of a solute on the network of hydrogen bonds in water. A solute is a substance which dissolves in a solvent (here, water) to form a solution. MoleculaR-networks allowed Professor Clark and her team to study the organization of water around the solute, so that the dynamics of solvent shells could be monitored.
Professor Clark explains her research in this video:
I love stories like this that show cross-talk or linkage (!) between different scientific fields, such as computer science and biology or chemistry. It will be interesting to see what other applications will come of algorithms such as Page Rank in molecular design and modeling. Who knows what other algorithms may one day find new and unexpected applications. Will companies such as Facebook or Google branch out into other scientific endeavours? Will they start patenting new processes which have applications in other scientific disciplines? Only time will tell.
The patent file histories of roughly a million and a half patent applications are now available through Google. Google is crawling file histories from Public PAIR on the USPTO website.
Google repackages the documents as zip files. Google has provided detailed information about the format.
For instructions on how to retrieve file histories from Google Click Here.
This new service indicates that Google is investing more resources into its Patent search franchise, spearheaded by Google Patents. Google may be positioning itself to be a real competitor to other services that currently provide patent file histories. The real advantage of Google is, of course, that it provides the service for free. It remains to be seen if Google will continue expanding the type of services it provides, perhaps beginning to offer free patent monitoring services, such as “Google Patent Alerts.”
Many apologies for the recent silence. I have been working on a new blog for the American Intellectual Property Association (AIPLA) Women in IP Committee. I am happy to announce that the blog is up and running. Visit www.womeninip.wordpress.com for news, announcements, articles, book reviews and inspiration!
The blog was officially unveiled at the AIPLA Mid-Winter Institute in Las Vegas this week, during the Women in IP Breakfast that was sponsored by my firm, Drinker Biddle & Reath. The breakfast was a great success, and I really enjoyed the entire meeting. It allowed me to connect with other IP attorneys and to make valuable new friendships and connections.
