prbuckley

Fun fact Strike 3 holding files the 2nd most lawsuits annually in our federal court system (~3000), the US government is #1

Here is a recent interview of Elon speaking about what changes he wants to make at twitter, https://youtu.be/cdZZpaB2kDM.

TLDW: He wants to open source the ranking algos and make the history of each posts ranking transparent.

Amazing that they designed and built this very novel vehicle in 3 months! Built in the 1950's and still being used 50 years later.

I very much agree. The ptab is not a bad idea in principle but unfortunately it operates in a way that favors large companies who can use IPR to out spend small inventors instead of paying a fair license. I am experiencing this first hand with a company that approched me to license a patent that I had. I also had a small company making and selling products with our patented technology. Our company was ~1/100th the size of company licensing our patent. A year into our contract the big company decide it wanted out of the license and has been using the IPR process as a threat and leverage point to try and not pay the agreed royalty. It could cost me 300 to 500k to defend my patents through the IPR process, money I don't have but large company does.

One big problem that never seems to be discussed when talking about the PTAB and IPRs is the collateral damage it causes for small business and small inventors. The big tech companies lobbied to set the rules in their favor. "Patent Trolls" are not the problem they are a symptom of a different more fundamental problem. If you are a small business owner or small inventor the patent system is to expensive for you to use on an even footing with large companies, so you can be put into a situation where you have to work with a "patent troll" just to have the legal resources to play the game. By the way my company built it's own factory to build our products in the USA. We have since had to close our factory down and let all our employees go becuase we have been unable to protect the unique IP of our product, I know of at least 100 companies using the IP we created, and have 3 patents coveeing. As a small business entrepreneur the patent system and the IPR/ptab system has utterly failed me so far.

Edited for spelling.

Is there a copy of the toy category list your wife mentions in the video online anywhere? I would love to read it. Thanks for posting, very helpful!

This story reminds me of the dangers of metal grill brushes. Public service announcement, don't use a metal brush to clean your grill. The metal strands can breakoff and if they get lodged in your food and accidentally swallowed it causes serious health issues and surgeons have a very difficult time removing them. These brushes are actually outlawed in Canada but not in the USA.

Here is an article on why they are dangerous if you want to know more... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/grill-barbecue-metal-brush-dang...

Does anyone know what the status of using kite powered systems for off shore power generation is? I know makani has been working on that for over a decade now, it always seemed like a really promising approach to me but I haven't heard of any commercial applications of it. Here is a link to makani...

https://x.company/makani/about/

This is a cool design. I think the group from University of Maryland developed a single motor single actuator drone back in 2009, here is a link to video...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u23Hqq8QbeE

And article about students involved...

http://eng.umd.edu/news/story/maple-seeds-inspire-robotic-fl...

Here are some articles explaining how IPR's hurt small business's and sole inventors...

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a21181/greatest-a...

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2016/06/26/cuozzo-ipr-death-americ...

and one in particular that explains how Lee's management of USPTO policy has hurt small business patent owners...

"The AIA also allows the Director discretion to stop harassment of patent owners, but Lee has never once used that power despite the fact that at least several patent owners have had seven or eight inter partes review challenges filed against the same patent. The PTAB itself has finally started to consider harassment as grounds to refuse to institute. So bad and lopsided are the PTAB proceedings, that the Federal Circuit has found PTAB decisions to be arbitrary and capricious, and with respect to covered business method (CBM) challenges, the Federal Circuit has slammed the PTAB for creating its own definition and standard while ignoring the statute and regulations. So if Lee was referring to the PTAB and post grant challenges the most honest assessment is that the Office has utterly and completely failed patent owners and the patent system."

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/02/02/michelle-lees-patent-qu...

Good on her for speaking up but I would postulate that minority groups gets talked over by the majority group and that this is not sexism. Should people try to be more mindful of the people around them? Absolutely, but jumping to the conclusion that it is sexism is just counter productive.

Anecdotally as a man any time I am in a group that has a majority of woman the men get talked over by the woman all the time. I grew up in a family that was a majority woman and the same thing happened all the time, I would say generally in social settings where one sex has the majority they tend to talk over the opposite sex and control the conversation. It is human nature. However we can and should be better then that but it is hard.

As a small business owner inventor, and patent owner I think what the parent is talking about is the PTAB and the Inter Partes Review (IPR) process that is very expensive for a patent owner to defend against and. Lee is seen as someone who could place more limits on IPR's but has not. This directly benefits large companies at the expense of small patent holders.

For example, say you as a small time inventor have a valid patent on some great new widget. Big company X starts selling the widget you invented, you approach them and ask if they would license your patent, Big company X can afford to keep filing IPR's against your patent and it will cost you ~$200,000 each time. Big company X can milk you dry and draw things out for years so it becomes much more difficult as a small business to defend and license your patent. Lee seems to have really helped large tech companies at the expense of small inventors.

This is very cool. It reminds me of the classic geometry novel Flatland. If you like thinking about dimensionality I highly recommend it...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland

I am suggesting people will put political pressure on the government to help pay for treatment as part of the solution. As others here have suggested that if drugs were legalized the tax revenue could fund things like this.

Part of the problem of prohibition is that it drives up the potency of drugs which leads to the situation where you get fentanyl instead of heroin. This effect was coined the "iron law of prohibition" by economist Richard Cowan. More powerful drugs lead to stronger addictions and more accidental over doses.

Reference: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition

You know who cares about these addicts, their families, who are the voting constituents of these politicians. The heroin epidemic is the worst in many traditionally republican states. I think you may find there is more bipartisan support for fixing the heroin problem than there is consensus around hot button topics like abortion.

This mistake cost over half a billion dollars!

"An October 2014 report from the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General points to a change in the packaging procedure at LANL that specified organic cat litter, when an inorganic sorbent was likely intended. Investigators traced a series of internal communications in which the specifications for “kitty litter/zeolite clay” were transformed into “kitty litter (clay),” the report says. Combined with inadequate technical review, this resulted in LANL workers filling waste containers with a mixture of nitrate salts and sWheat Scoop, a cat litter that is 100% wheat, according to its manufacturer. “It would have been much clearer if they had said an inorganic zeolite sorbent,” Hobbs says. “It’s been a very expensive mistake, costing at least half a billion dollars.”

This would have sounded crazy to me 6 months ago. However I had a friend who had a traumatic brain injury where the doctors had to remove a portion of their skull temporarily (a couple months) to releive pressure on the brain. The doctors told my friend that his brain function and parts of his personality may be different while parts of his skull was off, and sure enough it was. When they put his skull back together a couple months later his personality shifted. The stated reason the doctor gave had to do with differentials in blood pressure in the brain with and with out the skull entact. This was at a top hospital in San Francisco.

This would have sounded crazy to me 6 months ago. However I had a friend who had a traumatic brain injury where the doctors had to remove a portion of their skull temporarily (a couple months) to releive pressure on the brain. The doctors told my friend that his brain function and parts of his personality may be different while parts of his skull was off, and sure enough it was. When they put his skull back together a couple months later his personality shifted. The stated reason the doctor gave had to do with differentials in blood pressure in the brain with and with out the skull entact. This was at a top hospital in San Francisco.

If you think in longer time frames everyone was a child once and there is immense value to society for children to spend time with their parents. Maybe companies should not be the mechanism to pay for it but we as a society should find ways to help people have strong and healthy families. It makes moral and economic sense.

I recently came across an interesting new approach to store renewable ebnergy by moving large masses on rail cars up a slope. Here is some more information on the approach http://www.aresnorthamerica.com/

I own the ricoh theta s which is a $350 consumer 360 camera and love it. I take it to friends weddings and people lose their minds at how fun the 360 pictures are.

It said she died of a heart attack after contracting bronchitis! Scary to think that something so minor can kill a person at a relatively young age given our medical system.

It seems like there will be three tiers of VR...

High-End VR: Gaming and graphic intensive applications will run on computers wired to special HMD systems. Vive, Oculus and PSVR

Smartphone VR: This will be the GearVR type experience, dedicated VR appstore of content.

Casual VR: Google Cardboard type devices used for viewing 360 photos and video,download content from existing Play store and Apples App Store.

full disclosure we are making and selling things in the casual VR category (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/smartvr-make-your-phone-a...)

How much do you think about a post crowdfunding customer acquisition strategy before launching a crowd funding campaign? It seems like crowd funding can get initial attention but doesn't necessarily make a sustained business.

Hi, Designer of the VR device posted here. The bottom of the viewer is open so you can touch the screen with your thumb. We really wanted to make the most sharable VR device so we focused on simplifying and making it fit into a pocket.

I would love to use something like this to capture a ski day. If I could just turn on a mobile app at the beginning of the day to track my route and then export from the app that would be sharp. Maybe integration with Strava and other such apps?

It looks like Mophies sales peeked in 2013 at $215 million and they have been hush about revenue for past 2 years....

http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2015/0...

The largest surprise to me here is that a small startup could get the judicial system to act in a matter of days to order the execution of a raid! That is impressive.

What drives me crazy about things like this is the law passes Dec 18th and you have to buy equipment by Dec 31st to take advantage of this in 2015. Every year congress waits until the very last minute to set tax code which makes it impossible to actually plan for purchases as a small business.

Lyft "lost $127 million in the first half of 2015 on $46.7 million in revenue, according to the documents. Lyft said last month that it has gained market share in key markets, such as San Francisco, and has a gross revenue “run rate” of $1 billion."

I had no idea lyft was losing 3x the their revenue. That is crazy.