The Dolcera Blog

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had sued Myriad for licensing a couple of gene sequences related to breast cancer — BRCA1 and BRCA2. The judge came back today and ruled that human gene sequences in and of themselves are not patentable subject matter, and thus the patents are invalid. This case will now make its way to the CAFC (the US Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit), and then on to the Supreme Court.This could be a landmark change. Diamond v. Chakrabarty started the gene patent story, and the Myriad ruling could be a major chapter in it. The smart money is not on ACLU’s side yet, but things could change in the next year or two.With the Bilski decision due any day (could come as soon as the day after tomorrow), we are in for some interesting times in the patenting world.

“Is it a bird, is it a plane…” What is the Dolcera dashboard and how does it fit into the constellation of other patent products? Three types of patent applications have been available to IP professionals over the years:

1. Patent search engines: In this category, we have the Thomson tools (Micropatent, Delphion, Thomson Innovation), Questel, Lexis-Nexis, Google Patents, and the patent office’s own search tools (USPTO’s search engine, eSpaceNet, etc.).
2. Patent analytics tools: In this category, we have the desktop tools (VantagePoint, for example), and the online tools such as Aureka, Innography, and PatentInsight Pro.
3. Intellectual asset management systems: In this category, we have FoundationIP, IPMaster, Anaqua, and many others.

Patent professionals and other patent-aware professionals (inventors, scientists, business development/licensing managers) need tools for the following tasks:

1. Search: Conducting patent searches on patent databases around the world.
2. Categorization: Organize patent data (one’s own patents or competitors’ patents or those of a potential acquisition) into categories and groups that can be used for easy access to patent information.
3. Analysis: Analyzing large quantities of patent information to understand trends and to make business decisions.
4. Sharing/Presentation: Share “raw” patent data and the analysis with large teams of people.
5. Collaboration: Obtaining feedback from other stakeholders in the organization, or from partners and collaborators (outside counsel, for example) on the patent data.
6. Docketing: Tracking one’s own portfolio through the prosecution process and beyond.

The existing products do a good job of search, analysis, and docketing processes. While categorization, sharing/presentation, and collaboration are equally important aspects of the patent world, they are underserved by the tools described above. Enter the Dolcera dashboard. The dashboard focuses on the three tasks: patent categorization, patent sharing/presentation, and collaboration. With the dashboard, these three tasks are a breeze: you can take your patent sets and categories, organize patents into the categories, share the results with an interactive presentation platform, and collaborate with your colleagues easily. The dashboard is the Facebook of patents, and not the Google search engine. Dolcera also provides high quality patent search and analysis services as well, using some of the excellent search tools described above, as well as using some of our internal proprietary technologies.

The year 1996-2000 were fantastic for all things mobile. Almost. The Palm Pilot sold like hot cakes, the Wireless Access Protocol was going to make all of the Web available on the phone and there were all sorts of new browsers being put on the phone. There were operating systems being built for the phones too. Ebooks and ebook readers were beginning to emerge too. And there we were @ iScribe — putting prescription writing on mobile devices too and changing the way doctors worked… forever.

Most of the promises were unfulfilled at the time and we had to wait for 10 years before the mobile devices, browsers and ebook readers became usable. All that is happening now.

All, that is, except for e-prescribing on mobile devices. My beloved iScribe is dead and not coming back. And doctors aren’t using their phones except to select the restaurant they’ll go to for dinner… and to make the occasional phone call. Will the new healthcare bill force doctors to use technology and reduce waste?Is the practice of medicine ever going to come to the 21st century, I wonder.