Perpetual Innovation

Category: commercialization

  • Mickey Mouse Enters to Public Domain

    The first trademarks by Walt Disney run out of copyright protection starting in 2024. This would have happened 20 years earlier had it not been for the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act of 1998” (as discussed here). For corporations, copyright lasts for 95 years from first release. (For individual creators/authors, copyright lasts for 70 years after the last author dies.)

    Associated Press has a discussion about this: Mickey Mouse will soon belong to you and me — with some caveats. This article by Andrew Dalton (Dec 14, 2023) hits two notes that are not intuitive to the average person with only a modest understanding of copyrights. 

    1) When Steamboat Willie (c) Nov 1928 hits 95 years old, this film and some aspects of the stars of the file — Mickey and Minnie Mouse — will enter public domain. When Winnie the Poo entered public domain a horror film was released: “Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey.”  (We suspect that A.A. Nihle would not have been pleased!)

    2) You have to really wonder in amazement that such characters as Winnie, Minnie and Mickey had endured to the test of time. Many characters or graphics would not be worth much, fading into the background canvas on the painting of time. As these distinctive characters have aged they have moved into a status of folklore; and now with the passage of time, they have moved into a status of public domain as well. 

    Remember that there are other types of intellectual property protection by Disney, including other copyrights and trademarks. Be careful making a Disney horror film staring Minnie and Snow White. 

    See The Mickey Mouse Protection Act article from November.

    #IntellZine #PublicDomain #Copyright

  • Cool Motor that Runs on Air

    A lot like a perpetual motor: no fool’n.
    As a kid, college really, I was intrigued about the idea of a “perpetual” motor. A motor that ran forever. My idea seemed like it should work, but I had a hard time getting someone to explain why it wouldn’t. My idea was based on the flywheel of the single engine Briggs & Stratton where a magnet on the flywheel creates the spark for the ignition on each rotation. My idea was to have magnets that attract the flywheel and a reverse magnet to repel the flywheel once it got past. But I had the problem that the flywheel would get attracted and stuck. So I found something called paramegnetic materials, materials that repel both positive and negative magnetic forces. All I needed, then is to have a thin sheet of paramagnetic material pass between the attracting magnets to let the flywheel move on to the repelling magnet. Perfect, a perpetual motor.
    I finally got to talk with a Physics professor at USF who explained my small, but subtle issue with the perpetuity of my motor. When you use a magnet, you loose a magnet. It took energy to magnetize a magnet, so the process of using it will deplete it!
    For decades, there have been articles about perpetual motors… But generally they have gone the way of “cold fusion”.
    Here is a very cool article/technology on a motor that runs on air. Liquefied Nitrogen, actually. Very cool. Literally, about -210 C (or -340 F). So, if the internal combustion motor works on the temperature differential before the ignition of fuel and after ignition, the liquid nitrogen concept works in the same way: from really really cold, to cold. Not nearly the same as the 1,000 times differential from gasoline, but still an effective motor. Effective only once you overcome the problem of things freezing up in the process.
    So here’s the great Wired article by Nicola Twilley about the inventor Peter Dearman: A One-Time Poultry Farmer Invents the Future of
    Refrigeration: Mechanical cooling revolutionized the global food supply—and
    accelerated global warming. Peter Dearman’s liquid air engine could change all
    that.
    The thing that Dearman had to overcome is to bring the temp of the super cold nitrogen up enough that it didn’t freeze up the works. (Kind of a reverse of the radiator idea to cool the motor down.)
    So the motor works, not especially efficient, but it works.
    However, your favorite internal combustion engine is very inefficient. Your car is only about 15% efficient. Diesel turbine motors for electricity are generally about 40% efficient, at best… Unless… Unless you need the excess heat. So if you can use the heat, like hot water on a campus environment, then the combined heat and power (CHP) can be very efficient, maybe up to about 70%.
    Imagine if you could use the cool from a liquid nitrogen engine? Say, hypothetically, for refrigerated storage or reefer. (No, not a Jimmy Buffet kind of Reefer!:-) A refrigerated reefer truck.
    And, wa la. You have a really great method of efficiently transporting and simultaneously cooling perishable products.
    The cryogenic reefer truck seems to be really gaining traction (sorry about the pun) within several food chains.
    Very cool!
    Dearman says the nitrogen solution will result in a 40% improvement over diesel in terms of greenhouse gases. If is the nitrogen is liquefied (chilled) by renewable energy the improvement compared to diesel moves up to 95%.
    Even Cooler!
    It also helps to overcome the need for Freon or the replacements for Freon. (Fluorocarbons are a wicked greenhouse gas that blow holes in the ozone layer.)
    With 78% of the Earth’s atmosphere, nitrogen (N) is readily abundant.
    Dearman has several patents related to cryogenics and cryogenic motors.
    Interestingly, it would appear that the same Peter (T?) Dearman is also the inventor of respirators and ventilators back in 1990!

  • IP for Corn that fertilizes itself with Nitrogen Fixing bacteria.

    From SustainZine: Corn that fertilizes itself with Nitrogen Fixing bacteria. How best to propagate the innovation & commercialize it. #SustainZine #RegenerativeFarming
    http://sustainzine.com/2018/08/corn-that-fertilizes-itself-with.html
    *** Blog Article ***
    This is a cool article in Science by Ed Young about a giant corn varietal in Sierra Mixe Mexico that grows in very poor soil, but actually fertilizes itself. There’s a bacteria that grows around the roots that absorbs nitrogen from the air and provides it to the corn. The team of researchers led by Alan Bennett from UC Davis referred to this a “Nitrogen Fixing” which works just like roots absorbing nitrogen from the soil.
    In this case, the soil is very poor quality, so the corn actually gathers nitrogen from the air (78% nitrogen for dry air).
    One major disadvantage of this corn is that it takes 8 months to mature.
    The benefits are many. In a linear world of farming, row crops are raise on big farms and the crop shipped off to marked (cities), which deplete the soil. So fertilizers are needed to replenish the soil to grow the next crop. The fertilizers (mainly phosphate and nitrogen) end up running off into the water ways and result in massive ecological damage such as algae blooms and red tide.
    Because fertilizers are expensive to buy, and expensive to apply, farmers continue to do a better job with fertilizers. (Other factors like urbanization, turf grass and golf course are taking over lead positions in pollution generation.)   However, linear systems in farming are non-sustainable, broken systems, compared to Regenerative Farming approaches that use non-til and corp rotations to restore the quality of the soil.
    To commercialize this “nitrogen fixing” cereal crop requires some improvements, new varietals (sexual reproduction) or genetically engineered (GMO crops). The intellectual Property (IP) of such crops will be important. Profits and the capitalist system at work, availability to the people and countries that need it, and the property rights protections that make IP work are just a few important ingredients in the dissemination of new technology — in this case, new crops.

  • A Good News Story from an Unexpected Source

    Here at IAM-Media is an example of using patents to secure products in a global market.
    Its full strategic management of its 200 patents included creating barriers to entry  and to transform the antenna industry.  This approach does not take place overnight, more than a decade.  The company began initially with patent protected product sales which was quite successful.  Well into the market adoption,  Fractus concluded that licensing for royalties was the best option for the future.  It resulted in over $100m in royalties.

    Fractus also dealt with infringements by major companies and had to be helped by the Spanish courts.  Overall, a good news story about the patent commercialization success of a small company.

  • Do Cryptocurrencies Such as Bitcoin Have a Future? – WSJ – Crappy currencies

    Do Cryptocurrencies Such as Bitcoin Have a Future? – WSJ:

    This is a good discussion about bitcoin, a cryptocurrency.

    At the current exchange rate, $261 US equals about 1 bitcoin, or 1 USD equals .003 BTC.

    During the Great Recession all countries worked hard to devalue their own currencies. A great way to stimulate the domestic economy is to reduce the value of the currency such that exports are stimulated. All right, not a great way, especially if every country in the world wants to do the same. So the currency decisions world-wide were a “race to the bottom” to achieve the most worthless currency fastest.

    Of course the whole process is a little more complicated than that, the central banks (the US Federal reserve) can make hard decisions quickly, whereas congress, can’t make any reasonable decisions, ever. Decades of federal deficits and trade deficits result in a devaluation of the currency (as the world economy/currencies move to equilibrium)  provided you don’t intervene somehow and manipulate the numbers.

    China started out with a massive undervalued currency decades ago so that it could grow based on export expansion. Their HUGE savings rate has offset the US low savings rate by subsidizing our Walmart products imported from China. For half a century. At peak times, the yuan has been arguably 40% undervalued against world currencies; however, they have slowly but steadily let the yuan rise. As a result of the persistent trade imbalance, China has ended up with massive amounts of Yankee Dollar$, much of it going to fund the US Federal Debt (US bonds). They have however, been systematically dumping their US Dollars by buying up massive amounts of real estate (mines and factories and homes) around the world.

    Japan has had a really strong currency that they finally devalued into submission. They devalued from about 80 yen to the $1US to about 120 today. That’s a 50% devaluation of the currency over about 2 years. So now Japan can export again.

    The Russian ruble is in rubble. For lots of reasons, but mainly because their income is mainly from oil and gas which has plummeted. Combine that with embargo types of penalties associated with their invasion(s) of Ukraine. Same problems for all oil export countries (OPEC) like Venezuela.

    The Euro is in the toilet for lots o reasons, but now they are cranking up the quantitative easing efforts that the US has exercised so ?well? for the last 6 years. One of the last strong currencies in the world is the Swiss Frank, They finally abandoned all hope of sticking to the Euro and their currency revalued 20% overnight in mid January.

    So, with all these crappy currencies out there, how is it that the USD is least crappy of the world currencies. One reason is, that as bad as the Dollar is, it is substantially better than the alternatives. Who wants to do business in the Yuan, or the Euro. There has been talk of a currency block by the BRIC countries: Brazil (with the real dropping), Russia (in rubble), India trying to get its country back on strong footing), and China (where everyone worries about a political uprising if/when their growth really does slow).

    The US economy is growing strongly, so that’s one good reason for having a stronger dollar; but only one. The rest have to do with the USD as the best of the worst. It is good to be less crappy than the rest of the world’s currency, but not something to really brag about.

    Since the USD is still the worlds choice for purchasing and global transactions, when the USD strengthens it crushes commodity prices. Therefore, the price of oil (in petrodollars) drops. That’s not the main reason, but it helps. Even gold drops.

    Gold, the best possible alternative currency is worrisome that it doesn’t blast from $1,200 way past $2,000 per (troy) ounce. Gold is a great hedge to inflation-prone currencies. It seems like it should be harder to manipulate gold than all the other currencies of the world. But no, everyone is dumping their “safe” money into US treasuries where the return does not cover inflation. And, of course, the US stock market where the dividend yield tents to more than cover inflation and still leave room for upward capital appreciation (stock price going up).

    No question, there is a bubble built on quantitative easing around the world. No question it will unwind. For those people/institutions who think it will happen gracefully, history has demonstrated that graceful re-balancing of bubbles is rarely the case.

    That said, the US economy appears to be far stronger than most people give credit.

    Sometime, somewhere, people are going to get tired of having their currencies and their welfare associated with it manipulated. That’s gonna mean a rise of Gold and cyber-currencies as an alternative. Or, maybe everyone will go on believing that all is good in the fairy-tail land of Oz and there is no such thing as a crappy currency? I’ll bet you can’t wait for the Greek drachma to come back when the EU finally gets tired of their fiscal irresponsibility and kicks them to the curb?

    ‘via Blog this’