10.29.2021

EA’s Patent Pledge

 


Electronic Arts, a global game company, 

Electronic Arts (EA) is a gaming company founded by Trip Hawkins, former director of marketing and strategy at Apple. It has become one of the top 100 companies on the Nasdaq by succeeding in various sports games, The Sims, and many games such as Apex Legends. EA has made various efforts to make a positive impact through games. This time, they disclosed their patents so that people with disabilities can enjoy the game.


▲ ea.com (electronic arts homepage)

 

 What is a Patent Pledge?

EA declared a patent pledge last month to allow all developers to use its five patents. A patent pledge is to allow others to use the patented technology, but retain its rights. They can claim their rights if it’s used in a different way from what they want. EA has made this pledge to ensure that there are no barriers to playing the game for players with disabilities or medical problems. The patent-related code can be used by anyone in the world through the sharing site GitHub.

  clipartkorea.co.kr

 

 Five patents published by EA,

The patents disclosed by EA this time are five technologies that help improve accessibility. Among them, the most eye-catching patent is a context-aware communication system in video games (US 11097189). This patent is a system that replaces speech suitable for the situation with a simple operation even in a situation where speech is not possible. In Apex Legends, it is called the ping system, and it has been well received by using this technology to communicate without problems. In addition to this, a total of five patents were disclosed, including a patent for helping people with hearing problems (US 10790919), a patent for helping color blindness (US 10118097, CN 107694092), and a patent for controlling the contrast ratio (US 10878540).


                                                                 ▲ wipsglobal.com

 US patent 11097189,  titled "Contextually aware communications system in video games"


EA's dream that a variety of people should enjoy the game,

EA said that it is essential to meet the needs of a wide variety of people beyond the game, and to this end, it will continue to make a patent pledge. He also hopes that other developers will apply this technology to build a better environment. We look forward to seeing if EA's dream of enjoying games for everyone will come true.

 



10.13.2021

[International IP Briefing] US, UK

 

 US

U.S. Marvel Company going to fight with the original author of Marvel characters in Court.

• On September 24, 2021, the New York Times reported that Walt Disney and Marvel of the United States entered the stage of litigation against the heirs of the character author's estate for character rights in the Avengers series.

The issued characters in the dispute include Iron Man, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Thor, and Ant-Man. This was triggered in August 2021, when Spider-Man's author Steve Ditko's estate manager notified him of the transfer of Spider-Man's rights under copyright law. According to the US copyright law, the author or heir can recover the rights from the publisher after a certain period of time, and as for the above notification, Spider-Man's rights are scheduled to pass from Marvel to Ditko in June 2023. The heirs of other characters notified that Marvel's copyright on the characters would be lost one after another from the first half of 2023, and argued that Marvel should pay a fair price to the creators in order to maintain the character's copyright based on the Copyright Act.


                                                                                       ▲ marvel.com 

In order to invalidate the notice of copyright termination by the heirs, Marvel is demanding a ruling against heirs such as Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and Gene Colan to declare that these characters are not subject to copyright transfer because they are commercial works (Work Made for Hire). Specifically, they claim that these works were created through employment, and therefore the copyright cancellation notice from the heirs is invalid and has no legal effect because the user, Marvel, owns the copyright. On the other hand, the heir's side revealed that all the issued characters were not work-related works, and the creators were all freelancers or independent contractors, and they worked in their own residences and sometimes received a small amount of transportation costs, they are not regular employees.

Walt Disney has been at the center of a number of intellectual property disputes involving characters, including that investing 18 years in a copyright infringement lawsuit related Winnie the Pooh and supporting legislation to extend Mickey Mouse's protection period. In 2014, Marvel settled a lawsuit similar to this one in a tens of millions of dollars settlement with cartoonist Jack Kirby, who sought to reclaim rights to characters like Captain America and Spider-Man. Meanwhile, Marc Toberoff, an attorney who has built a reputation for representing creators who make claims for old television shows, movies and comics in Hollywood, said the lawsuit would correct the legal injustices for the creators.

  

<Source>

https://www.kiip.re.kr/board/trend/view.do?bd_gb=trend&bd_cd=1&bd_item=0&po_item_gb=&po_no=20730

 

 

UK

UK Court of Appeal rejects DABUS' inventorship

• On September 21, 2021, the UK Court of Appeal ruled that the artificial intelligence 'DABUS' cannot be an inventor.

The UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) has rejected for two patent applications which described Dr. Stephen Thaler's artificial intelligence creation machine 'DABUS' as the inventor on the grounds that it did not meet the requirements of Article 13(2) of the UK Patents Act 1977. Dr. Thaler filed a lawsuit against the rejection in the High Court of England, but the court stated that “only a person could make an application for a patent” and the invention of DABUS was not admitted and Dr. Thaler appealed to the Court of Appeal.

                                                             ▲ artificialinventor.com

The British Court of Appeal cited a lower court ruling that DABUS could not be an inventor, but three judges have different kind of opinions as follows;

(1) majority opinion

• (Arnold) Dr. Thaler did not comply with the '(a) inventor identification and (b) derivation of rights' requirements under section 13(2) of the UK Patent Act, and it is reasonable to consider that the application has been withdrawn accordingly. 

• (Elisabeth Laing) I agree with Judge Arnold. Dr. Thaler did not comply with patent law if he actively asserted that the inventor was not a person.

 (2) Minority opinion

• (Birss) Under British law, an inventor is the person who actually invented the invention, and Dr. Thaler is the owner and operator of the creative machine he has created, owned and managed, and is therefore entitled to apply for and obtain patents and rights, so he may be entitled to patents under section 13 of the Act. (2) meets the requirements of Article (2);

Dr. Stephen Thaler said he plans to appeal to the British Supreme Court. 

 

<Source>

https://www.kiip.re.kr/board/trend/view.do?bd_gb=trend&bd_cd=1&bd_item=0&po_item_gb=&po_no=20722

 

 



Technical keywords cloud, SmartCloud upgraded


We reviewed the SmartCloud in the Webzine #6 in Dec. last year. Now, we know, SmartCloud is a feature that uses AI algorithm to identify technology keywords of patents at a glance with a visual chart, classify those keywords from various perspectives, and find out the R&D fields of top applicants for the technology.

The recently upgraded SmartCloud shows that it’s much more convenient than before. Let's take a look right now.

▲ wipsglobal.com > SmartCloud

In the upgraded SmartCloud, you can import data stored in My Folder of the WIPS Global or upload files that you have separately in the computer. You can add the multiple files and analyze them all at once.

▲ wipsglobal.com > SmartCloud

There are two more visual charts, so you can select and use the easy-to-see one among Bubble, Treemap and Word Cloud.


▲ wipsglobal.com > SmartCloud

Added the ‘Keyword Filter’ where you can filter unwanted keywords.

If you click the Keyword Filter icon on the right side of the chart, you can exclude some keywords and re-analyze them. Enter keywords in the box or drag keywords from the chart you want to exclude and run a analysis again.

▲ wipsglobal.com > SmartCloud

I’ve excluded some keywords and reset the search scope. We can see that the analysis screen has changed.


▲ wipsglobal.com > SmartCloud

This time, I tried a comparative analysis of applicants with the smartphone touch screen-related technology. I selected some top applicants and run a comparative analysis by applicant.


▲ wipsglobal.com > SmartCloud

In the upgraded SmartCloud, chart analysis is divided by applicant, showing the distribution of key keywords more intuitively.

SmartCloud, easier and more convenient than before, try it now.






10.06.2021

Samsung Electronics wins a patent lawsuit against NuCurrent

 

Recently, Samsung Electronics won a patent lawsuit related to wireless charging technology against NuCurrent, showing the importance of its patent invalidation strategy.

                                                                  ▲ clipartkorea.co.kr


Why was Samsung Electronics attacked by NuCurrent?

NuCurrent was founded in 2009 by students from Northwestern University and is considered an early pioneer in wireless charging technology. Samsung Electronics had discussed technology alliances with NuCurrent since 2015. However, in 2018, NuCurrent filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung Electronics related to wireless charging technology applied to Galaxy S7 and S8. In response, Samsung Electronics argued that the patents were unpatentable that NuCurrent claimed infringement. In the end, PTAB accepted Samsung Electronics' objection and recognized the patent invalidity.

 A Korean Prior-Art that saved Samsung Electronics,

NuCurrent's patent, US9941729 B2 could be invalidated by citing the patent, KR 10-2013-0045307A of KthePower, a Korean small company. The KthePower’s patent filed in 2013 specifies a configuration of a coil structure related to wireless charging, so it was judged that NuCurrent's patent filed in 2015 was unpatentable. KthePower, a small company in Korea, was founded by former Vice Chairman Lee Ki-tae, who caused Samsung Electronics' "Anycall Myth". During PTAB trial, Samsung Electronics found out the KthePower’s patent and acquired the patent right, and the current right holder is Samsung Electronics.

 ▲ wipsglobal.com

 

The Strategy to Invalidate Patents,

About 29% of U.S. patent lawsuits are conducting PTAB Trials, of which 25% of Petitioner won (2012-2019 Lex Machina). In particular, the field of electronic communication technology, which is rapidly developing, has had the most filings recent years.
In PTAB Trials for IT technologies, more and more East Asian prior-art with high-technology are cited. Especially, Korea ranks first and second in the world in the ICT development index, and has many high-tech and high-quality patents.