Problems and Prospects of Technology Transfer in Developing Economies

Large-scale industrialisation policies and programs have proved themselves impractical to developing economies due largely to resource constraints. Small and Medium Industries (SMIs) play an important role in the transformation of developing economies. The globalisation of competition and the world economy have direct relation with the ever increasing rate of technological changes, which in turn affect the competitive position of SMIs. Investment in technology is becoming an important weapon not only to achieve competitive advantage and profitability but also to survive in this turbulent and dog-eat-dog global market.

As developing countries lack the necessary resources, expertise, skills and infrastructure, it is unthinkable for them to come up with new ways of producing goods or providing services. It is therefore wise and advisable to adopt the appropriate technology and management know-how that has been innovated and tested in the developed world. The purpose of this paper is to throw some light o n the prospects and problems of technology transfer in developing economies with a special reference to Botswana.

Bangalore scientists break bacteria's resistance to antibiotics

BANGALORE: Ever wondered why doctors increase the dosage of your medicine even when the nature of infection is the same as the previous time? This happens because infection-causing bacteria have mechanisms that resist drugs, just like our bodies resist bacteria.

However, these bacteria have today become so resistant to antibiotics that even increased dosage is having little effect.

While the international research community has pondered over many options to overcome this, a team of Bangalore-based scientists has developed a novel way to attack these bacteria, which gives the organisms little chance of developing resistance.

 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Bangalore-scientists-break-bacterias-resistance-to-antibiotics/articleshow/38102494.cms

INDIAN PO’S DISCRIMINATORY PRACTICES AGAINST NON-PCT INDIAN PATENT APPLICANTS

This piece of writing tries to put our Readers in a better position to understand the mandatory provisions of the Request For Examination (RFE) practice under the Indian Patent Law. In India, the mere filing of an application for an invention does not essentially mean that the applicant is requesting the patent office for examination. An applicant should file an RFE within 48 months from the priority date of the application or from the filing date of the application, whichever is earlier (Rule 24 B, Patent Rules 2003).

Such a request can be made by the applicant himself or by any other interested person (section 11B, Indian Patent Act 1970). If no such request is made within the stipulated period of time then the application is deemed to be withdrawn.

http://www.bananaip.com/sinapse-blog/2014/07/indian-pos-discriminatory-practices-against-non-pct-indian-patent-applicants.html

Sonics Announces Patent Non-Assert Agreement With Qualcomm

MILPITAS, Calif., July 1, 2014  Sonics, Inc. he world's foremost supplier of on-chip network (NoC) technologies and services, today announced that it has entered into a patent non-assert agreement with Qualcomm.

"Sonics is pleased to announce that it has entered into a Patent Non-Assert Agreement with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., effective as of March 24, 2014, regarding U.S. Patents 7,574,629 and 7,769,0271." said Grant Pierce, CEO of Sonics, Inc.  This follows the dismissal by Arteris, Inc. of its claims that Sonics directly and indirectly infringes the patents , which are now owned by Qualcomm.

All remaining claims in the case involving these patents have been dismissed pursuant to a joint motion by Qualcomm and Sonics. Given that Arteris has sold all of its patents to Qualcomm , Sonics believes this provides some additional protection from future claims by Qualcomm and Arteris.

Pierce continued, "As we have said before, Sonics will continue to seek protection for its broad patent portfolio, including patents that were invented and granted in the U.S., as outlined in Sonics' complaint , Complaint for Patent Infringement (Sonics v. Arteris), of November 1, 2011. We are committed to seeing this time consuming process through to its completion."

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sonics-announces-patent-non-assert-agreement-with-qualcomm-2014-07-01

Indefiniteness Standard During Patent Prosecution: In re Packard

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision upholding an examiner’sindefiniteness rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b), invoking the standard from the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure(MPEP).  In re Packard, Case No. 13-1204 (Fed. Cir., May 6, 2014) (per curium) (O’Malley, J., Plager, J., Taranto, J.) (Plager, J., concurring).

This is a case of first impression for the Federal Circuit and goes to the standard for indefiniteness to be applied by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) when examining application claims.

The PTAB applied the standard set forth in MPEP § 2173.05(e), namely, “[a] claim is indefinite when it contains words or phrases whose meaning is unclear.”  Packard appealed, arguing that the PTAB should have applied the “insoluably ambiguous” standard.

http://www.natlawreview.com/article/indefiniteness-standard-during-patent-prosecution-re-packard

Finding Tesla's electric car patents

Tesla has apparently decided to make its electric car patents available to use to encourage development in the technology. This is according to the BBC story Tesla confirms plans to open up electric car patents, which linked to a blog post from the Tesla website with the ungrammatical title

All our patent are belong to you. This is potentially exciting as I regard electric car technology as very important. It means that the fuel doesn't have to be petroleum, and results in quiet cars, which would greatly improve the quality of life in urban areas and for those living near highways.


 Let's look at Tesla's patent specifications. It has 373 US patent applications, where an attempt has been made to secure a patent, and 168 granted US patents. Of these, 76 and 21 respectively were published in 2013-2014.


http://stephenvandulken.blogspot.in/2014/06/finding-teslas-electric-car-patents.html

Mobile Patents Landscape - An In-Depth Quantitative Analysis - 3rd Edition - 2014

Highlights

•  The study looked at over 7 million patents granted in the US and Europe. The analysis focused on the patents granted to 65 technology companies in the mobile space. · 
• The gap between the number of mobile patents granted in the US vs. Europe widened again. US now accounts for roughly 76% of the mobile patents granted in the two jurisdictions. 
• US companies comprise of 50% of the top 50 list followed by Japan, China, and South Korea. · By the end of 2013, approximately 25% of all granted patents in the US were mobile related. In 2001, the percentage was 5%. In Europe, roughly 10% of the patents granted were mobile related.
• Samsung was again the leader in mobile patents granted in 2013 in the US and worldwide. Samsung was followed by IBM, Qualcomm, RIM, LG, Sony, Microsoft, Ericsson, Google, and AT&T for the top 10 companies by mobile patent grants in 2013. · Google made an entry into the top 10 overall mobile patents list for the first time. AT&T did the same for the mobile patents granted in 2013. 
• Despite dwindling market fortunes, RIM continues a healthy patents grant rate and appears in several top 10 categories.
• US Mobile Operators dominate the top 10 operator rankings: Patent top 10 Rankings: AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, Sprint, Verizon, Telecom Italia, Swisscom, T-Mobile, Orange, SK Telecom, and TeliaSonera.
• Mobile Infrastructure Patent top 10 Rankings: Samsung, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, Qualcomm, LG, Intel, Siemens, Fujitsu, NEC, and Panasonic.
• Mobile OEM Patent top 10 Rankings: Samsung, Microsoft, Sony, Nokia, Google, LG, RIM, Siemens, Fujitsu, and Panasonic.
• The top 5 categories for patents grants in the US for 2013 were Telecommunications, Digital Multiplexing, Digital Processing – Data Transfer, Digital Processing – Financial, and Computer Graphics.
• The top 10 filers of mobile patents in the US were IBM, Samsung, Microsoft, Sony, Qualcomm, Nokia, Ericsson, Google, LG, Intel and Apple. It was the first time that Samsung, Microsoft, Google and Apple showed up in the top 10 patent filers list together.
• Facebook’s mobile patent filings increased by 177% YoY.
• Due to the ongoing work in the LTE/LTE-A space, the Multiplex Communications category saw the highest jump in patent filings in 2013.