Snapshot News from Technolink Members
Many of us in the Technolink community know and understand that protecting our Intellectual Property (IP) is the key to fostering innovation and encouraging discovery in research and development across many fields. With many current news stories focusing on the added economic value of IP rights, we turned to Technolink member Marc Karish, patent attorney at Karish & Bjorgum, a premier law firm that specializes in protecting the intellectual property of small to mid-size companies in California and beyond. In our conversation with Mr. Karish, he points out that timing is critical when it comes to protecting intellectual property -- whether it be medical devices, industrial and/or mechanical inventions or any results of the creative mind."Businesses should file patent applications as soon as possible," says Mr. Karish. "Under the America Invents Act, any delay risks someone else making the invention available to the public before the application filing date and thereby limiting or eliminating possible patent protection. The inventor’s own public use, offer for sale, sale or public disclosure of the invention more than one year before filing a patent application renders the invention unpatentable."
For the first time in history, 80% of a company's assets are intellectual rather than physical. And, with global access to so much information online, an idea can be copied before it is protected. "The Internet allows for nearly instantaneous transfer and copying of inventions after they are made public. If an invention is disclosed prior to filing a patent application, someone may start copying it immediately and that copying may prevent patent protection unless the inventor can show that the copier learned of the invention from the inventor."
In our fast-paced economy, protecting intellectual property domestically and abroad is more time-sensitive than ever. Karish & Bjorgum specializes in all aspects from acquisition and transactions to litigation. To learn more, visit www.kb-ip.com.
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Technolink member Lt. General Larry James, Deputy Director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, reports the launch of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) Follow-On pair of spacecraft from Vandenberg AFB on May 22, 2018. The mission is a partnership between NASA/JPL and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ).
GRACE-FO is a successor to the original GRACE mission, which orbited Earth from 2002-2017. GRACE-FO will carry on the extremely successful gravity measurement work of its predecessor while testing a new technology designed to dramatically improve the already remarkable precision of its measurement system. The two GRACE satellites, flying in formation, very precisely measure Earth’s gravity and changes in gravity around the globe. For detailed information about the mission, see this link: https://gracefo.jpl.nasa.gov/. For a video of the launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9, click below:
