IBM makes millions off patents, but it could make billions with open source; TechRepublic, August 24, 2018

Matt Asay, TechRepublic;

IBM makes millions off patents, but it could make billions with open source

"While patent collectors will often claim that their portfolio is a good indicator of the deep research and development they do, rarely do we see patent heft translate directly into product success. Why? Because rarely do products succeed simply because of technical merit.

Instead, the most successful companies are those that can execute (sales, marketing, etc.) around a product, whatever its technical merits. In this area, IBM has largely failed over the last decade...

IBM has long been one of the pioneers in open source software, which is where most usable innovation seems to be happening today. From TensorFlow to Apache Kafka to Kubernetes, if IBM wants to compete with modern technology giants like Google and Microsoft, it needs to innovate in the same way they do, too. Yes, they still gather patents, but their more interesting work emerges as open source software."

Trademarks, Patents and Copyrights, Oh My! What's the Difference?; Business News Daily, August 10, 2018

Adam C. Uzialko, Business News Daily;

Trademarks, Patents and Copyrights, Oh My! What's the Difference?

"Intellectual property might seem esoteric, but it's important to protect it like you would any other asset. To do so, you'll need to understand some basics about intellectual property rights first. 

Two of the most common forms of intellectual property protections are the copyright and the trademark. While the two are often confused, they protect very different types of intellectual property. Learning the differences, and how you can use both to protect your own creative output, is essential to securing your assets."

Honoring All Expertise: Social Responsibility and Ethics in Tech: featuring Kathy Pham & Friends from the Berkman Klein Community; Berkman Klein Luncheon Series, Harvard University, April 17, 2018

[Video] Berkman Klein Luncheon Series, Harvard University;

Honoring All Expertise: Social Responsibility and Ethics in Tech:
featuring Kathy Pham & Friends from the Berkman Klein Community

"The Ethical Tech Working Group at the Berkman Klein Center will host a series of lighting [sic] talks exploring social responsibility and ethics in tech. Speakers will draw on their perspectives as computer scientists, critical race and gender scholars, designers, ethnographers, historians, lawyers, political scientists, and philosophers to share reflections on what it will take to build more publicly-accountable technologies and how to bridge diverse expertise from across industry and academia to get there."

[Kip Currier: One of the speakers in this video is Ben Green, Computer Science PhD Student, Harvard University. His talk is titled "Travails in CS Academia".]

Ben Green quote:

[8:46 in video] "What was particularly disturbing for me as I entered the [computer science] field was to see the actual dismissal of non-technical voices and non-technical perspectives in the field. 

I had one experience where I heard a fellow graduate student of mine scoff at the idea of a social scientist being an actual scientist. And I had several conversations with faculty members in the department where they told me that the work that I wanted to do that was socially- and policy-minded was not computer science and wasn't worth doing."

Ethics in Computing Panel; InfoQ, August 28, 2018

[Video] InfoQ; Ethics in Computing Panel

"Summary
 
The panelists discuss the important points around privacy, security, safety online, and intent of software today." 

"Kathy Pham is currently researching the Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence and Software Engineering at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center and MIT Media Lab."

Kathy Pham quote from video: 

[13:11 in video] "What a good engineer is maybe is something we should rethink as well.

I spend a lot of time in academia now. And I hear over and over again that people who are of the computer science plus philosophy or computer science plus social science background, have the hardest time finding jobs. Even if they're within the CS Department they have such a hard time getting jobs because they're not like the real hard science, or the real hard engineering discipline...

Those kinds of people provide a really different perspective on how we build our products. So if you're in charge of hiring for your companies, perhaps we all just need to rethink how we hire people and what makes a good engineer."

"Natalie Evans Harris is COO and VP of Ecosystem Development at BrightHive."

Natalie Evans Harris quote from video:

[12:28 in video:] "While we look at resumes and we care where you get your skills and degrees from, we also want to know what your ethical code of conduct is."

Employers Find ‘Soft Skills’ Like Critical Thinking in Short Supply; Wall Street Journal, August 30, 2018

Kate Davidson, Wall Street Journal; Employers Find ‘Soft Skills’ Like Critical Thinking in Short Supply

"The job market’s most sought-after skills can be tough to spot on a résumé.

Companies across the U.S. say it is becoming increasingly difficult to find applicants who can communicate clearly, take initiative, problem-solve and get along with co-workers."

Emily Douglas, Human Resources Director New Zealand; The problem with ethics in data

"The problem of ‘ethics in data’ has become entrenched in HR. A recent paper published in Philosophical Transactions A by Luciano Floridi and Mariarosaria Taddeo, questioned the nature of ‘data ethics’ and what it means in a corporate setting.

“While the data ethics landscape is complex, we are confident that these ethical challenges can be addressed successfully,” commented Floridi.

“Striking a robust balance between enabling innovation in data science technology, and respecting privacy and human rights will not be an easy or simple task. But the alternative, failing to advance both the ethics and the science of data, would have regrettable consequences.”

It serves as both a scary reminder of what exactly is at stake here, and a rousing challenge for HR practitioners. HR should take on the role of a gatekeeper to employee data – rather than procurer."

Here’s why Trump can’t perform his job; The Washington Post, August 28, 2018

Jennifer Rubin, The Washington Post; Here’s why Trump can’t perform his job

"This is what comes from electing someone emotionally and intellectually incapable of seeing beyond his own emotional needs or understanding the moral authority a normal president enjoys by fulfilling the role of head of state. Trump’s lack of decency, civility and respect for others’ accomplishments prompt him to attack Americans (especially minorities) who disagree with him; in turn, Trump’s conduct provokes honorable people to shun the president."

Best Practices For Developing, Managing And Protecting Your Company's Intellectual Property; Forbes, August 16, 2018

Chalmers Brown, Forbes; Best Practices For Developing, Managing And Protecting Your Company's Intellectual Property

"Every company has some type of intellectual property (IP). It's that product or service that you have developed that sets you apart from other companies and frames your business, its purpose and its growth potential. Therefore, you want to keep developing, managing and protecting that IP in a way that drives more value and stimulates sustainable growth. It's also important that there is some type of exit strategy in place since most companies are acquired primarily due to their IP assets.

As someone who's created my own startups and is now working with others on theirs to help develop technology, I've gained a greater understanding of how to take care of these assets as an IT executive so that I might provide others with best practices to implement with their own IP. Previously, I did not prioritize IP in the way I should have. Here are some best practices to employ:"

Trump rejected plans for a White House statement praising McCain; The Washington Post, August 26, 2018

Josh Dawsey, The Washington Post; Trump rejected plans for a White House statement praising McCain


"McCain allies said they did not expect an outpouring of praise from Trump after their contentious past.

“It certainly doesn’t bother me or the people I know close to John,” Weaver said. “I don’t think it bothers John one bit. If we heard something today or tomorrow from Trump, we know it’d mean less than a degree from Trump University.”"

How This Will End: Sooner or later, tyrants are always abandoned by their followers.; The Atlantic, August 24, 2018

Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic; How This Will End:

Sooner or later, tyrants are always abandoned by their followers.

"But to really get the feel for the Trump administration’s end, we must turn to the finest political psychologist of them all, William Shakespeare. The text is in the final act of what superstitious actors only refer to as the “Scottish play.” One of the nobles who has turned on their murderous usurper king describes Macbeth’s predicament:

Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

And so it will be for Trump...

But in the moment of losing power, the two will be alike. A tyrant is unloved, and although the laws and institutions of the United States have proven a brake on Trump, his spirit remains tyrannical—that is, utterly self-absorbed and self-concerned, indifferent to the suffering of others, knowing no moral restraint. He expects fealty and gives none. Such people can exert power for a long time, by playing on the fear and cupidity, the gullibility and the hatreds of those around them. Ideological fervor can substitute for personal affection and attachment for a time, and so too can blind terror and sheer stupidity, but in the end, these fall away as well."

Yes, Manafort and Cohen are guilty, but the rule of law is still in danger; The Washington Post, August 23, 2018

Joyce White Vance, The Washington Post; Yes, Manafort and Cohen are guilty, but the rule of law is still in danger

"There does not seem to be any bottom — nothing that goes too far for Republican elected officials, whom our Constitution entrusts with the last line of defense. Prosecutors are upholding their responsibility to the rule of law, but without similar action by the majority party in Congress, it is in danger of winking out of existence."

NewsGuard Wants to Fight Fake News With Humans, Not Algorithms; Wired, August 23, 2018

Issie Lapowsky, Wired; NewsGuard Wants to Fight Fake News With Humans, Not Algorithms

Kip Currier: I just heard veteran journalist Steve Brill talking about a new information assessment tool called NewsGuard on MSNBC program Andrea Mitchell Reports. Brill delivered this money quote on how NewsGuard provides evaluation of often-visited Internet sites by human (translation: not AI!) experts:

"That's what librarians have been doing since the invention of the library." 

--Steve Brill, August 24, 2018,
Andrea Mitchell Reports Program, MSNBC

[Excerpt]

"The patchwork nature of promoting trustworthy sources online has had the unintended consequence of seeding fears of bias. 

That's one reason why a group of journalists and media executives are launching a tool called NewsGuard, a browser plug-in for Chrome and Microsoft Edge that transcends platforms, giving trustworthiness ratings to most of the internet's top-trafficked sites. Those ratings are based on assessments from an actual newsroom of dozens of reporters who comprise NewsGuard's staff. They hail from a range of news organizations, including New York Daily News and GQ. Together, they've spent the last several months scoring thousands of news sites."

FBI Agent Points to Need for Protecting Intellectual Property From Theft; KTIC Radio, August 22, 2018

Chris Clayton DTN Ag Policy Editor, KTIC Radio; FBI Agent Points to Need for Protecting Intellectual Property From Theft

"HIGH-PROFILE AG THEFTS

Agriculture has seen its share of high-profile thefts, some coming out of labs, while others come right out of cornfields. Nichols pointed to the case of Mo Hailong, who was sentenced in 2016 to three years in federal prison for stealing biotech corn seeds from DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto in the Midwest.

As DTN has reported in the past, before Hailong was caught, FBI agents said he shipped over 340 pounds of corn seeds from Iowa to his home in Florida. Authorities aren’t certain where the seeds went from there, but it was easy to conclude the seeds were sent to China. The FBI also recorded some of Hailong’s phone calls back to China, in which he and a Chinese plant breeder talked about “using the foreigners’ technology to beat them.” Citing the need to boost biotechnology in China, one of Hailong’s co-conspirators said, “There is a serious need for a national hero.”"

USPTO Seeking Public Comments on Draft 2018-2022 Strategic Plan; U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), August 22, 2018

USPTO Seeking Public Comments on Draft 2018-2022 Strategic Plan

"The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today announced it is seeking comments on the draft 2018-2022 Strategic Plan. The draft plan sets out the USPTO's mission-focused strategic goals: to optimize patent quality and timeliness; to optimize trademark quality and timeliness; and to provide domestic and global leadership to improve intellectual property (IP) policy, enforcement, and protection worldwide.

 

The USPTO welcomes comments on all aspects of the plan. Comments should be sent by email addressed to Strategicplanning1@uspto.gov (link sends e-mail). The USPTO will consider all comments received during the public comment period from August 22 through September 20, and anticipates posting the final strategic plan for FY 2018-2022 on www.uspto.gov in November 2018.

For more information on the proposed 2018-2022 Strategic Plan at the USPTO, please visit www.uspto.gov/about-us/performance-and-planning/strategy-and-reporting"

Kelly Marie Tran: I Won’t Be Marginalized by Online Harassment; The New York Times, August 21, 2018

Kelly Marie Tran, The New York Times; Kelly Marie Tran: I Won’t Be Marginalized by Online Harassment

"Editors’ note: The actress deleted her Instagram posts this summer in response to online harassment. Here she speaks out for the first time...

"I want to live in a world where children of color don’t spend their entire adolescence wishing to be white. I want to live in a world where women are not subjected to scrutiny for their appearance, or their actions, or their general existence. I want to live in a world where people of all races, religions, socioeconomic classes, sexual orientations, gender identities and abilities are seen as what they have always been: human beings.

This is the world I want to live in. And this is the world that I will continue to work toward.

These are the thoughts that run through my head every time I pick up a script or a screenplay or a book. I know the opportunity given to me is rare. I know that I now belong to a small group of privileged people who get to tell stories for a living, stories that are heard and seen and digested by a world that for so long has tasted only one thing. I know how important that is. And I am not giving up.

You might know me as Kelly.

I am the first woman of color to have a leading role in a “Star Wars” movie.

I am the first Asian woman to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair.

My real name is Loan. And I am just getting started."

What If a Female CEO Acted Like Elon Musk?; The New York Times, August 17, 2018

Marina Koren, The New York Times; What If a Female CEO Acted Like Elon Musk?

"Self-reflection, vulnerability, acknowledgment of the effects of work on one’s well-being—these are admirable qualities in a leader of any company. And it is important, in a culture that too often rewards work at the expense of well-being, to discuss openly the often unsustainable results of that culture.

But as I watched the responses to Musk’s tell-all roll in, I tried to imagine what would happen if a female CEO of a major company gave a similar interview. How would she be perceived?

Both men and women take a risk when they reveal stressors or struggles, but their candor doesn’t usually garner the same reaction. For women, the risks of being open are far greater, and they can manifest in tangible ways."

Elon Musk Details ‘Excruciating’ Personal Toll of Tesla Turmoil; The New York Times, August 16, 2018

David Gelles, James B. Stewart, Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Kate Kelly, The New York Times; Elon Musk Details ‘Excruciating’ Personal Toll of Tesla Turmoil

"Mr. Musk said that “to the best of my knowledge,” there is “no active search right now.” But people familiar with the matter said a search is underway, and one person said it had intensified in the wake of Mr. Musk’s tweets. 

[The Tesla board “now must ask a sensitive but vital question,” our columnist writes. “What was Mr. Musk’s state of mind” when he tweeted?] 

In response to questions for this article, Tesla provided a statement that it attributed to its board, excluding Elon Musk. “There have been many false and irresponsible rumors in the press about the discussions of the Tesla board,” the statement said. “We would like to make clear that Elon’s commitment and dedication to Tesla is obvious. Over the past 15 years, Elon’s leadership of the Tesla team has caused Tesla to grow from a small start-up to having hundreds of thousands of cars on the road that customers love, employing tens of thousands of people around the world, and creating significant shareholder value in the process.”

Mr. Musk said he had no plans to relinquish his dual roles as chairman and chief executive.

But, he added, “if you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know. They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now.”"

Raytheon CEO: Why Your Own Employees Could Be Your Greatest Threat; Fortune, August 14, 2018

Thomas A. Kennedy, Fortune;

Raytheon CEO: Why Your Own Employees Could Be Your Greatest Threat

"Is there a bounty on your intellectual property?

It’s more likely than you think. Earlier this month, news broke that FBI agents investigating a case of corporate cyber theft seized a handbook revealing what China was willing to pay to “individuals or entities who can provide certain technologies.”

Nation-states have been using cyber hacking to actively target valuable intellectual property, or IP, for years. However, what may be startling to the public is that state-sponsored IP theft is so organized and methodical; criminal hackers receive catalogs of the most-wanted technologies, referred to as “collection requirements,” each with associated bounties.

For business, university, and research lab leaders, it begs a couple of questions: Do any of your employees have such handbooks? And if they were stockpiling and exporting sensitive data, would you know before it was too late?"

Intellectual Property The Hard Way: Part I; Forbes, August 7, 2018

Mary Juetten, Forbes;

Intellectual Property The Hard Way: Part I

 

[Kip Currier: Cautionary real-world tale about the vital need for Intellectual Property literacy, and "consulting with a lawyer on a regular basis", as the author of this article--the first in a Forbes series of "IP Tales from the Crypt"-esque stories--encourages.] 

 

"In the startup tips series, both the need for intellectual property (IP) protection and foundational protections, like employment and contract agreements were outlined. However, I would like to shift gears now and start a series of lessons learned or in some cases, IP horror stories. If you are interested in contributing please see below.

I spoke with New Orleans lawyer, Andrew Legrand of Spera Law about an interesting cautionary tale concerning an artist who had developed a logo for a small business about ten years prior and the business that paid for it but did not have the rights assigned.  In other words, you do not necessarily get what you pay for. There will be a theme in our stories where clients either do not know that they need to identify and protect their IP or they consciously decide that it’s not worth the time or money."

Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech; The New York Times, August 7, 2018

Jack Nicas, The New York Times; 

Gatekeepers or Censors? How Tech Manages Online Speech

"Apple, Google and Facebook this week erased from their services many — but not all — videos, podcasts and posts from the right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his Infowars site. And Twitter left Mr. Jones’s posts untouched.

The differing approaches to Mr. Jones exposed how unevenly tech companies enforce their rules on hate speech and offensive content. There are only a few cases in which the companies appear to consistently apply their policies, such as their ban on child pornography and instances in which the law required them to remove content, like Nazi imagery in Germany.

When left to make their own decisions, the tech companies often struggle with their roles as the arbiters of speech and leave false information, upset users and confusing decisions in their wake. Here is a look at what the companies, which control the world’s most popular public forums, allow and ban."

A Stanford psychologist on the art of avoiding assholes; Vox, August 7, 2018

Sean Illing, Vox; A Stanford psychologist on the art of avoiding assholes

"Sean Illing

Before we can talk about surviving assholes, we need a proper definition of assholery. Can you give me one?

Robert Sutton

There are a lot of academic definitions, but here’s how I define it: An asshole is someone who leaves us feeling demeaned, de-energized, disrespected, and/or oppressed. In other words, someone who makes you feel like dirt.

Sean Illing

So an asshole is someone who doesn’t care about other people?

Robert Sutton

I would make a distinction between temporary and certified assholes, because all of us under the wrong conditions can be temporary assholes. I'm talking about somebody who is consistently this way, who consistently treats other people this way. I think it’s more complicated than simply saying an asshole is someone who doesn’t care about other people. In fact, some of them really do care — they want to make you feel hurt and upset, they take pleasure in in...

Sean Illing

Plato famously argued in The Republic that a tyrant, however powerful, ultimately suffers in the end by corrupting his own soul. You make a similar argument about assholes — that they might win at life but still fail as human beings.

Robert Sutton

Wow, I've never heard the Plato connection. That’s not a question I expect to hear from a journalist, but I guess that’s the former political theorist speaking. I have to say, I love that connection. We know that assholes have a corrosive effect on the people around them. There are longitudinal studies that demonstrate pretty clearly that people who, for example, work under assholes for many years end up being more depressed, more anxious, and less healthy.

So there’s compelling evidence that assholes are terrible human beings who do harm to other people. I think the way you described Plato’s analogy is far more elegant than anything I could say. 

At the end of the day, if you’re an asshole, you’re a failure as a human being because you promote unnecessary suffering. What else is there to say?"

A conversation with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at the 2018 Trademark Expo; Director's Forum: A Blog from USPTO's Leadership, August 6, 2018

Guest blog by Linda Hosler, Deputy Program Manager for USPTO partnerships;
A conversation with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at the 2018 Trademark Expo

"On July 27 and 28, guests poured in to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to participate in the 2018 National Trademark Exposition. This free biennial event supports the USPTO’s mission of educating the public about the vital role intellectual property protections—in this case trademarks— play in our increasingly competitive global marketplace. More than twenty exhibitors, including government entities, non-profits, small businesses, and corporations from all over the country provided thought-provoking interactive displays and educational workshops.

Keynoting at this year’s expo was NBA All-Star, author, and entrepreneur, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I had the opportunity to sit down with Abdul-Jabbar to find out what made him the industry giant he is today—not surprisingly, it is much more than his 7 foot 2 inch stature."

Newseum Says It Made a Mistake and Pulls ‘Fake News’ Shirts; The New York Times, August 3, 2018

Sopan Deb, The New York Times; Newseum Says It Made a Mistake and Pulls ‘Fake News’ Shirts

[Kip Currier: Photos of some items I bought at The Newseum when I was there for a Social Innovation Summit a couple of years ago:]

"The Newseum in Washington, which caused a stir Friday after reports that it was selling a T-shirt reading “You Are Very Fake News,” announced Saturday that it was pulling the shirts from its gift shop and online store.

“We made a mistake and we apologize,” the museum, which is dedicated to press freedom, said in a statement on its website. “A free press is an essential part of our democracy and journalists are not the enemy of the people.”

Interview: Yuval Noah Harari: ‘The idea of free information is extremely dangerous’; The Guardian, August 5, 2018

Andrew Anthony, The Guardian; Interview: Yuval Noah Harari: ‘The idea of free information is extremely dangerous’

"Why is liberalism under particular threat from big data?
Liberalism is based on the assumption that you have privileged access to your own inner world of feelings and thoughts and choices, and nobody outside you can really understand you. This is why your feelings are the highest authority in your life and also in politics and economics – the voter knows best, the customer is always right. Even though neuroscience shows us that there is no such thing as free will, in practical terms it made sense because nobody could understand and manipulate your innermost feelings. But now the merger of biotech and infotech in neuroscience and the ability to gather enormous amounts of data on each individual and process them effectively means we are very close to the point where an external system can understand your feelings better than you. We’ve already seen a glimpse of it in the last epidemic of fake news.
There’s always been fake news but what’s different this time is that you can tailor the story to particular individuals, because you know the prejudice of this particular individual. The more people believe in free will, that their feelings represent some mystical spiritual capacity, the easier it is to manipulate them, because they won’t think that their feelings are being produced and manipulated by some external system...

You say if you want good information, pay good money for it. The Silicon Valley adage is information wants to be free, and to some extent the online newspaper industry has followed that. Is that wise?
The idea of free information is extremely dangerous when it comes to the news industry. If there’s so much free information out there, how do you get people’s attention? This becomes the real commodity. At present there is an incentive in order to get your attention – and then sell it to advertisers and politicians and so forth – to create more and more sensational stories, irrespective of truth or relevance. Some of the fake news comes from manipulation by Russian hackers but much of it is simply because of the wrong incentive structure. There is no penalty for creating a sensational story that is not true. We’re willing to pay for high quality food and clothes and cars, so why not high quality information?"

Convercent CEO: Encourage Employees to Speak Up on Ethics Issues; Fortune, August 1, 2018

Damanick Dantes, Fortune; Convercent CEO: Encourage Employees to Speak Up on Ethics Issues

"The risk of an ethics scandal is far too great for a CEO to ignore. The conventional approach is to publish a list of ethics guidelines and expect everyone in an organization to follow—but if there’s one thing we’ve learned this year, it’s simply not enough. At risk: the image of an organization and the finances of its stakeholders.

Call it the post-Harvey Weinstein era. The court of public opinion holds corporations accountable for saying one thing and doing another, says Patrick Quinlan, CEO of compliance management software company Convercent. Quinlan’s company operates a compliance and ethics cloud platform—think of it as a 21st century whistleblower hotline—for employees of businesses and governments around the world."

Why Pittsburgh’s Innovation and Performance team takes an open-source approach to open data; Technical.ly, August 1, 2018

Tara Matthews, Technical.ly; Why Pittsburgh’s Innovation and Performance team takes an open-source approach to open data

"This is a guest post by Tara Matthews, the senior digital services analyst at the City of Pittsburgh's Department of Innovation and Performance.

Picture it: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. October 2015.

It was the birth of what would be named the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center (also known as the WPRDC, also known as “Whopper Duck”), an all-star collaboration between the City of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County and the University of Pittsburgh.

This put us in the unique position of hosting not just city and county data, but data from non-governmental organizations such as the Carnegie Library and Bike PGH, as well as other local service providers such as the Port Authority of Allegheny County. This required a specialized set-up, which is why WPRDC is based in CKAN, an open-source data management system that allowed for a completely custom configuration.

The Data Center launch coincided with the kickoff of the city’s Open Data program, managed by the city’s Department of Innovation and Performance."

How your employees can – and must – protect intellectual property; The Globe and Mail, July 18, 2018

Jeff McDowell, The Globe and Mail; How your employees can – and must – protect intellectual property

"Unfortunately, protecting IP is an area where Canada lags globally. Only 10 per cent of small and medium-sized businesses in Canada have IP, and only 9 per cent have IP strategies.

The Canadian government is helping reverse this trend with its new national IP strategy, which supports local innovators through increased resources and legislation. But it’s Canadian companies ourselves who need to see the value in protecting IP − to keep our employees motivated and validate their innovations, to protect our businesses’ hard-won knowledge and to keep strong companies growing and thriving in the Canadian economy."

Make a Name for Yourself: 4 Expert Tips for Choosing a Name and Trademark; Entrepreneur, August 2, 2018

Darpan Munjal, Entrepreneur; Make a Name for Yourself: 4 Expert Tips for Choosing a Name and Trademark 

"A recent Harvard Law Review study highlighted the upwards of 6.7 million U.S. trademark applications (registered 1985 to 2016) that had been made over the last three decades and suggested that we might soon be at the point of actually running out of trademark options...

Choosing an effective trademark means a trademark that's unique. With upwards of 6.7 million trademarks out there, and only 171,476 words in the English dictionary, you need to start thinking outside the box."

The Real Deal: Using Found Content ; Lexology, August 1, 2018

Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz PC - Terri Seligman, Lexology; The Real Deal: Using Found Content

[Kip Currier: Informative article with tips on deciding how and when to use images found on the Net.

In my IP course I've shared the "teachable moment" story of a savvy business friend who was getting a start-up up and running about a decade ago and asked me "if it's OK to just scrape images from the Internet to use on the company's website?" You can anticipate my response, which always elicits a knowing laugh from the students--and reinforces the importance of considering potential copyright and risk management issues.]

"As reported by MediaPost, replacing the use of stock images with crowdsourced photos from real people is gaining popularity with major brands. The attraction is obvious: photos from real consumers can be more "authentic, local and real" than stock imagery.

But it's important to keep some rules of the road in mind to avoid the potential of liability for use of found content."

New Vice Chancellor Named as Pitt Marks Another Record-breaking Year in Innovation; PittWire, August 1, 2018

PittWire;

New Vice Chancellor Named as Pitt Marks Another Record-breaking Year in Innovation

 

"These and 20 other innovative and impactful discoveries — all developed at the University of Pittsburgh — were the basis for the formation of 23 startup companies that were formed, or “spun out,” in fiscal year 2018, according to Pitt’s Innovation Institute. The institute is headed by Evan Facher, who held the position of interim director until being named director and vice chancellor for innovation and entrepreneurship earlier this week...

 “It’s a big deal that universities are now developing the technology that’s going to propel us into the future,” said Joe Marcanio, who has been guiding University innovators as an Innovation Institute entrepreneur-in-residence since 2015. “My job is to stand behind them and help them avoid the mistakes I learned the hard way.”...

The year in kudos

Pitt rose to No. 21 — up from 27th last year and 35th in 2015 — among the top universities worldwide to be granted U.S. utility patents for a new or improved product, process or machine. Neighboring Carnegie Mellon University, a fellow anchor in Pittsburgh’s innovation ecosystem, was No. 40 in annual rankings compiled by the National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association.

In March, Pitt alumnus and trustee Bob Randall (A&S ’65) announced a $2 million gift to accelerate student entrepreneurship through the Big Idea Center at Pitt.
A new Innovation Igniter workshop outlines the path to licensing an innovation or forming a startup company. The two-hour workshop is open to faculty, staff and students who are curious about commercialization.

The first cohort of a revamped Blast Furnace student accelerator program completed the nine-week program in June. Ten teams pitched their business ideas at a June 29 final event at the University Club. The Innovation Institute will host @PITTINNOVATES Open on Sept. 20 to introduce its 2018-19 academic year programming and funding opportunities.

Finally, the Innovation Institute came home a winner from the recent Deshpande Symposium for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education, receiving the 2018 Exemplary Practice in Technology Commercialization Award in recognition of its work in accelerating innovations to the market."

'Peanuts' First Black Character Franklin Turns 50; NPR, July 30, 2018

Cecilia Lei and James Delahoussaye, NPR; 'Peanuts' First Black Character Franklin Turns 50

"It was especially defining for a 6-year-old Robb Armstrong, author of Fearless: A Cartoonist's Guide to Life and creator of JumpStart, one of the most widely syndicated black comic strips ever.

"1968 is a very vivid year for me," Armstrong told NPR's Renee Montagne in an interview for Weekend Edition. Two months after King was killed, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Armstrong's older brother also died that year, just 30 days before Franklin's debut.

For Armstrong, a young black boy who declared to his mother at the age of 3 that he was going to be a cartoonist, Franklin's inclusion was extraordinary."