Unicorn Analysis: Instacart

The second unicorn company I'll be talking about is Instacart. To give a brief background of the company, Instacart was founded in 2012 in San Francisco. It is an internet-based grocery delivery service. Users can select items from local grocery stores and a driver will pick them up and deliver them.

Instacart's IP portfolio is extremely small -- it has 0 patents. They seem to be in a unique position in that they're operating in an increasingly on-demand economy, where there are many successful on-demand services like Postmates, Uber, Lyft, SpoonRocket, TaskRabbit, etc. So perhaps the reason their portfolio is so small is because there really isn't anything to patent.

The first competitor is the on-demand food delivery service, Postmates. Postmates started by delivering food from restaurants, but just recently started expanding to grocery stores. However, they actually do not own any patents as well. 

The second competitor is TaskRabbit, which is an online freelance labor service, where you can hire people to run errands and do chores. However, the interesting thing is that they also, do not own any patents. There seems to be a correlation between on-demand services and small (or non-existent) IP portfolios.

The third competitor is Envoy, which is another online grocery delivery service. However, they also do not own any patents. Now I can see a clear correlation between small IP portfolios and on-demand delivery services. 

My recommendation would have been to patent a specific way of delivering the groceries to the user, but now that I see there are 0 patents held by any of its competitors, I'm not sure if there really is anything that Instacart could patent. Nothing they are doing is really proprietary, unless they could find some unique way to engage their drivers with the users, so they could patent it.'

Unicorn Analysis: Nextdoor

The first unicorn company I'll be talking about is Nextdoor. I actually have a personal connection to this company, because I interned there Summer 2014 as a software engineer. To give a brief background of the company, Nextdoor was founded in October 2011, and is a private social network application for neighborhoods. It competes with other community-based social networks such as Facebook, Yahoo Groups, Yelp, etc. However, it differentiates itself via a strict privacy policy -- you must verify you live in the neighborhood to join its network.

Nextdoor's IP portfolio is extremely small. Based off a Google Patents search, the company only has 2 patents: "Providing content to a geographically constrained set of recipients", and "Methods and Systems for a location-based online social network".

The first competitor is the social network giant Facebook, which owns over 1,000 patents (mostly through acquisitions). Compared to Nextdoor's, Facebook's IP portfolio is much larger. However, Facebook's product is more generalized in the sense that it is a general social network, whereas Nextdoor is very specific. However, if Facebook continues to grow its IP portfolio rapidly, Nextdoor could find itself infringing on their patents unwittingly in the future.

The second competitor is Yahoo Groups. Yahoo has been one of the first players in the game for online communities. However, with the rise of Facebook, Yahoo Groups' usage saw a decline. Yahoo! Inc. owns thousands of patents (couldn't get an actual number, but the number is definitely in the thousands). Considering they have way more patents than Nextdoor, Nextdoor faces a similar situation with Facebook in that they could unwittingly infringe on Yahoo's patents. In fact, Yahoo actually sued Facebook in 2012 over 10 patents. If Nextdoor gets much larger, which I think it will, then Yahoo could play a similar game with them.

The third competitor is Yelp. Even though Nextdoor is primarily a social network, its eventual goal to monetize seems to be through integrating local businesses and classifieds. The local businesses model is a direct competitor to Yelp, which it focuses its entire business model around. However, Yelp only has one patent (via Google Patents), while Nextdoor holds two. So numbers-wise, Nextdoor is in a better position than Yelp. However, neither of the two patents that Nextdoor holds are about local businesses, so Nextdoor could be seeing some issues down the road in that area.

To bolster its IP portfolio, I think Nextdoor needs to diversify its patent-holdings. Since they don't seem to have the need to acquire other companies, boosting its IP portfolio through acquisitions doesn't make sense. So the only other way to increase its portfolio is by filing the patents themselves. Currently, their holdings are all very technical -- on the engineering side. Diversifying to have patents about the product itself could be beneficial down the road.

Samsung vs Apple Claim Analysis

In this post, I'll be analyzing one of the claims of one of the patents litigated in the Samsung vs Apple lawsuit. In the case, a panel of appeal judges actually overturned Apple's $120 million victory against Samsung. The case consisted of three patents:

1. 5,946,647 - "System and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data"

2. 8,046,721 - "Unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image"

3. 8,074,172 - "Method, system, and graphical user interface for providing word recommendations"

In this post, I will be focusing on claim #1 in the third patent (8,074,172), which is as follows:

1. A method, comprising:

at a portable electronic device with a touch screen display:

in a first area of the touch screen display, displaying a current character string being input by a user with the keyboard;

in a second area of the touch screen display that is between the first area and the keyboard, displaying the current character string or a portion thereof and a suggested replacement character string for the current character string on opposite sides of the second area;

replacing the current character string in the first area with the suggested replacement character string if the user activates a space bar key on the keyboard;

replacing the current character string in the first area with the suggested replacement character string if the user performs a first gesture on the suggested replacement character string displayed in the second area; and

keeping the current character string in the first area and adding a space if the user performs a second gesture in the second area on the current character string or the portion thereof displayed in the second area.

This claim is all about Apple's revolutionary autocorrect feature, in which the screen will prompt the user for word suggestions when typing on the touchscreen keyboard. In the title of the claim, Apple specifies it can only be used for a touch screen display on a portable electronic device. Under the subpoints, they categorize different areas of the screen in terms of what it will show for its autocorrect feature. In the first point, it says basically that the screen will show the user's typing string in one area. In the second point, it says that there is another area of the screen where it will show the suggested replacement character string for the string that is currently being typed by the user. In the third point, if a user presses space with a suggested replacement character string, then the software will automatically replace the string for you. In the fourth point, if the string will be replaced if there are a series of gestures applied, triggering the autocorrect.

It's cool to see a patent claim for a feature that we all use everyday now. The patent was very easy to read and comprehend, which is something that I believe is crucial for a solid patent these days. 

Marvell Tech Group vs Carnegie Mellon University Claim Analysis

The patent litigation case that I decided to analyze was the Carnegie Mellon University vs Marvell Tech Group case. This case has been going for about 7 years, and resulted in Marvell paying Carnegie Mellon University a settlement of $750 million. This money will eventually go to the the inventors who developed the patents at CMU. This case is centered around 2 patents:

1. 6,201,839 - "Method and Apparatus for Correlation-Sensitive Adaptive Sequence Detection"
2. 6,438,180 - "Soft and Hard Sequence Detection in ISI Memory Channels"

In this post, I will be analyzing Claim 4 of the first patent -- "Method and Apparatus for Correlation-Sensitive Adaptive Sequence Detection" (6,201,839). The claim is as follows:

4. A method of determining branch metric values for branches of a trellis for a Viterbi-like detector, comprising:

selecting a branch metric function for each of the branches at a certain time index from a set of signal-dependent branch metric functions; and

applying each of said selected functions to a plurality of signal samples to determine the metric value corresponding to the branch for which the applied branch metric function was selected, wherein each sample corresponds to a different sampling time instant.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising the step of receiving said signal samples, said signal samples having signal-dependent noise, correlated noise, or both signal-dependent and correlated noise associated therewith.

After reading this claim, it looks like it is focusing on the specific way in branch values are calculated. However, it does specify that this only applies for a Viterbi-like detector. The specific way in which they are calculated are broken down into parts. The first is that there is a specific time in which the branch metric functions are applied. The second is that each function applied for determining the branch metric values must be applied to a plurality of signal samples.

I'm no electrical engineer, but I liked how this claim was somewhat easy for an undergraduate student like myself to understand. I also took away from this that no matter how complicated or dense the subject matter is, it is always a good idea to write it in simple English, such that people can deduce the meaning of the claims from the given material.

Mars To Hand Over Docs In Texas Dog Treat Patent Row

A U.S. judge ordered Mars Inc. to produce certain documents for two companies that Mars has accused of infringing on their patents for certain breath freshening dog treats. The two companies are Science Holding LLC and TruRX LLC. Mars must also pay for one-third of attorneys fees for the two companies and certain costs for deposing expert witnesses.

This decision looks like an attempt to punish Mars for taking unnecessary action against them, to the companies that are being pursued. This specific claim was first submitted in 2013 and is over two patents.

One is called '176 and the other is called '892, both of which pertain to their dog treat products and have been held since 2002 and 2003. According to Mars, the two companies have produced products called "Minties" and "Breathbuster" that infringe on their patents. However, True Science Holding claims that while the products are obviously competitors, there is no patent infringement in this case.

Without knowing the technical details of these patents and intellectual property, it will be difficult to determine who's right and who's wrong (I guess that's the job of the judge). But it's amazing to see all these IP cases play out -- some of which are legitimate IP disputes and some of which are just patent trolls looking to make a quick buck.

Source: http://www.law360.com/articles/761808/mars-to-hand-over-docs-in-texas-dog-treat-patent-row

Priceline.com's Booking.com Trademark Application

Booking.com is an online travel booking website run by Priceline.com. This case revolves around them filing for a trademarking request for their website name “Booking.com”. However, the Appeal Board did not approve of the request, since their name was too generic.

Foley & Lardner LLP represented the branch of Priceline, stating “consumers would no read any dual meaning in the term”. Moreover, the judge found that Booking.com only pertains to the act of booking travel services, contrasting the “wide array of other services” that are otherwise provided by a travel agency.

The court also mentioned that "very strong evidence of acquired distinctiveness would be required to render the term registerable" and could not find "actual market recognition of Booking.com as a source indicator" of gaining users to the platform.

I agree with the court in that the name is too generic to be awarded copyright, however, I am also at crossroad because I believe if they own the domain they should be able to copyright it. This case really exemplifies the ongoing cases of what can be considered intellectual property and what cannot.