Tag: IP

Quantum Computing – $1 Billion in Patent Applications

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

If you search Espacenet using the key words “Quantum Computing” it returns 155,000 results!!  Clearly, I have not read them all this afternoon. At a very low legal fee of ~ $6,500 per patent that is ~one billion dollars’ worth of fees for the patent attorney community.

Alice, Bob and the Cat have served them well. They have made a quantum leap in income. Would you like some dinner?

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Reason suggests that it is not possible to come up with 155,000 totally original ideas and concepts beyond the state of the art. There must be redundancy and perhaps overly zealous patent agents have awarded their national home grown talent with a facile grant. Some of these applications cannot be worth the paper they are written upon.

Never mind the quality measure the tonnage. No wonder there is a forestry problem…

I have long speculated that the whole intellectual property (IP) / patent arena is due for a big clean out / dose of salts. It is overblown and over stuffed. The inventive steps are often really trivial,  and not “quantum leaps” in understanding.

To generate new IP against the petabyte background already filed might be tricky. When I last looked, I thought many so called unique ideas were very derivative and the inventive step even obvious to me as a non-expert pikey in his shed.

Sooner or later there is going to be some big blow out tests in court. Or you can have a Samsung – Apple  –   “we’ll sell you ours if you sell us yours” swapsies.

Were I an investor looking at that very basic survey of landscape I would not be champing at the bit (excuse the pun).

Following the Quantum Thread…

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

As is so often the case the whole world gets to hear about what is going on in the USA. The world, the internet, has a USA based centre of gravity and America likes to tart its wares. The endless self-promotion urge originates there. PR and hype have their home, therein. Understated is not a word in common parlance, not even sotto voce.

As someone who has probably read more patents than is good for them, who has even worked through in detail to understand dozens, it is something of a hobby.

“Old fart in his shed reads patents.”

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Speichergasse 6 Bern

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We have heard a lot about the big American tech companies and their quantum computing (QC) efforts. It is a piss on the street corner type of approach to mark territory. When I last looked in detail at the patent landscape ~2017-8 there were a lot of US patent applications on QC whereas the Chinese were then focussing on quantum communication and key distribution. There were a lot of Chinese applications.

Clearly quantum cryptography is the killer app for quantum computing.

First pass shows that the Chinese are now releasing press notes on their QC chip technologies, there are a few rumblings in Moscow. There are efforts elsewhere like Singapore and South Korea. An issue remains, quantum talent, and for Russia quantum brain drain has been mooted. The USA may worry about training would be Chinese quantum talent.

As mentioned earlier in the blog, I am due to be incapacitated in winter. So I might need somethings to keep me busy.

I wonder has there been any genuine quantum leap innovation since 2017?

What is left of the patent lifetimes?

Is it worth another scooby?

Alice & Bob – Quantum Jobs

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Prompted by the answer to a question on University Challenge, I typed Alice and Bob into the font of paid for promotion previously known as a search engine. The Mecca of product placed wisdom came up with a French quantum start up called Alice and Bob. They have received 100 million series B funding. They also have a fairly extensive job vacancy list. It was a tad French and probably not overly attractive internationally except for those fond of Alice in Paris Francophiles. French job descriptions can be as rigid as a rigid thing. They do not travel well.

Maybe there is a general shortage of quantum savvy job applicants….

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It occurred to me that the Quantum hype has been drowned out by the deafening AI roar. Maybe it has gone submarine like AUKUS.

That Luddite Herr Trump has been threatening the Harvard intellectual property (IP) portfolio. What a great way to ensure the death of US inventiveness and technological superiority, discourage invention and application for patents unless they are handled by MAGA lawyers, toadies and sycophants!! Already the incentive to NOT have an idea whilst at a university is high, because contractually the university owns your IP. Best stifle ideas until you are a free thinker…

Sometimes holes can be difficult to get out of. That can include ways of thinking and playbooks.

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It looks like Herr Trump is going to try again to leverage Ukraine into accepting a fait accompli agreed with Vlad the Impaler in Alaska. This forceful manipulation is an old Trump play. If he keeps alienating people, he may find himself in a hole like increasingly Billy-no-mates Israel. Trump does not understand that “friend” has a different meaning in KGB speak.

Oh look another groundhog…where did that come from….

What is the first rule when you find yourself in a hole?

Human beings can be pig-headed and stubborn. Inventive people do not share the same deal or no deal mentality as realtors. They are easily discouraged and disincentivised. One day the straw goes on the camel’s back, one too many.

Sometimes that tired old play book simply does not work. Thinking the same way that gets you into a problem cannot help to get you out of it.

There is no point in trying to explain this to someone who is vehemently adamant that they know best. Advice is as unwelcome as a dose of antibiotic resistant syphilis.

Some people are obsessed at the notion of a “corporate” solution when none exists. They may get all their ducks in line to present someone with a fait accompli sure that such a thing is irresistible. Even so-called intelligent people like professors can think like this. They can seek within group consensus oblivious that people outside the Olympian Ivory Towers do not think like them. This may not occur.

It is quackers.

People often talk with the monkey and ignore the organ grinder completely…

Anyway…

Has AI killed off the notion of quantum computation?

Where will they put all the server farms?

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Is this what our future looks like?

Fish – Russians – Nuclear Fusion Dream 11-06-24.

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Here is this morning’s dream.

The dream starts with the image of a large yellow-orange fish with a pointy dorsal fin. The fish is thick set and suspended in space. The dream takes a full 360˚ view around the fish in the horizontal plane. It has a slightly extended snout and is a marine animal. I know that the fish represents a singular state of awareness and that it is me. The vision of the fish is maintained for a long time.

Next, I am on board a large grey navy-like ship. I am with a lot of young people and we are discussing some intellectual property. There is a sense of buzz. We are however being chased on board by some Russian secret service men. They chase us around the ship. I jump off the ship and into the water. I swim to shore and land amongst a group of Americans sun bathing on a rock. The Russians catch up. I say to them that I might have something for them by way of invention but if they keep on chasing me it will never manifest.

At this they back off.

I am now in a laboratory setting working with some young anglophone Chinese students. We are constructing what is a small scale nuclear fusion reactor. The work is intricate and the reactor is room sized. I remember in the dream that I wrote down and idea for a laser produced plasma initiated confinement reactor. I am surprised by the juxtaposition of fusion reactor and fish.

Dream ends.

Thunder Cats – Patents – Dream 11-05-23

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Here is last night’s dream it is another out of the blue.

The dream starts in a busy open office environment there are many people milling about. There is a lot of noise and the people are mostly “young guns” wearing grey business suits. It has a feel of the city of London, but it is not there. There is a lot of excitement. 

On a screen in the corner is a camera pointing at a stock board at the London Stock Exchange. One can see a blank board and it is before the exchange opens for the day. An initial public offering has been made by the company and everyone is waiting to see if the share price starts higher than that of the offering.

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I find myself in the midst of chaos. There has been a lot of investment and many people have been employed but I can see nobody who is going to get down and do the hands on work. There are too many suits.  I shout out, “Do we need any more intellectual property? “No”, is the answer.

I ask who is in charge of patents. Amidst all the youngish British men a more mature tall and slim woman puts up her hand. “I am”, she says in a Californian accent. I say to her that we need to talk and could she find us a quiet place.

On the building opposite I can see the Thundercats logo projected. It pertains to the company and we and most especially I have this logo. In the dream I am slightly surprised on one level but not on another.

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The patent lady and I walk off out of the noise and struggle to find a quiet room to the side of the office. Once we are in, I say to her than we need more quiet spaces amongst the bedlam.  Which she agrees with. We sit down and she outlines that there is indeed need for further intellectual property which is more to do with applications and extensions. I ask her how come they recruited so many suits. She shrugs her shoulders and says that it was not her idea. I ask her to scope out in detail more of her ideas concerning applications.

A young man comes running to the door and knocks. “I am sorry to disturb you but there is a man at the front desk who keeps asking for you and he won’t go away.  He says that he knows you.” I say to the patent lady that I will be back and go with the young man to the front desk.

When I get there, it is Prof. TJ. He says that can we go for a walk and have and “off the record” chat. He has come up with an application for the intellectual property and would like to discuss it. He has in mind, using it to buy some shares in the company and joining in. We walk off into an industrial estate and he outlines his ideas.

The dream ends. 

Patents-VCs-Dream-19-02-18

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Here is this morning’s dream. Last night we watched Dragons’ Den on TV and I had another dream of its ilk earlier in the night which I cannot recall.

I arrive at some swanky offices in London and go into reception. It is plush and modern with a glass fronted airy atrium. The security guards at the desk take my name and give me a badge to wear. They direct me to a holding area / outer office. I am suited and booted but with no tie.

The PA greets me. In the holding area there is another man sat. He is clutching documentation and a tablet computer. I tell the lady, who is smartly dressed, that I am here for a 10 o’clock appointment. It is 9:24AM. The other guy is about to go “in”. Knowing that I am, as per usual, early, I ask the PA how the timing and schedule is going. “Is it Swiss?”, I ask. She says, “not quite” with a wink. So, I say that I will pop out for a coffee and come back. She points me in the direction of the canteen. I say I would rather go to a coffee shop; she is unhappy about this as it threatens her scheduling. She doubts I will be back on time.

I head off into town and find a coffee shop. I sit at one table and am joined by three other people. They do not notice me and are deep in heated discussion. I can see that they have a design for a beam steering column to be used in conjunction with a microscope. They are discussing a possible patent application. The younger one is talking the others through the design drawings which are in clear view on the table.

Just as they are about to leave, I say that the design looks OK but that is doesn’t look all that novel to me. Anyone “skilled in the art” might have come up with it, they need to find a better angle or way of doing it. They are a bit shocked.

I look down at my watch it is 9:55AM. I had better leg it back. I get in my car and drive fast through the traffic back to the office.

As I arrive the other guy is coming “out”, clutching his documents. I wish him luck.

I sit in a chair close to the open door which leads to the inner office it is now 10:02AM.

Through the ajar door one of the posh geezers says that I had better come in. In the room there are a number of men (~4-5) dressed in expensive suits and “Rolex” type watches. They are having their coffee refreshed. The first man ushers me towards some chairs facing the men whom I know to be rich VC types. I say that I would prefer to stand. Which I do facing the semi-circle of investors. I have no documentation or IT. Just me. I am very relaxed.

The PA leaves the room and one of the men there says that I should tell them about myself.

I start off on the cancer and tutorial story. I can sense their eyes glazing over and the thought “time waster” starting to manifest. One says, “That explains why we haven’t heard anything from you or about you!”

I then say that I have also been looking at and delving into patents. I know a patentable idea when I see one and I have a couple sketched out. This sparks their interest a little more. The tone and the mood in the room suddenly changes. One of them who is the lead turns to another and mutters something under his breath. I have their attention now.     

At that point I start engaging them in a very relaxed manner. “What kinds of investment opportunities are you (plural) looking for? “

Because thy have been sat all morning listening, they welcome the chance to speak for a bit, so they begin.

The dream ends.