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Your QR Code

Nowadays potential and current customers want to know everything about your business instantly; with one click on a mobile device, if possible. No waiting period is acceptable. Bar codes and Quick Response (QR) Codes [1] are all the hype; by offering complete details about your company at the light speed. Here, light speed is meant to explain the time taken for a laser or light beam to immediately scan the QR or Bar Code and read the data contained in it.

Is it a good idea to put all information about a business in a code? If you want potential customers to be able to show up at your office or production location, then it is perhaps alright to include the geographical or ‘brick and mortar’ address in the QR code. If you want potential customers to find your company on the World Wide Web, then you would want to include your website address in the Code. You could also include text that contains a brief synopsis of your business operations and a tagline or promotional text.

Every person, just like every business, also has a QR Code or Bar Code. Everyone has an identifier by which they are known at first glance. There are a few set characteristics by which one is categorized, defined and also evaluated. One’s economic standing, ancestry, ethnicity, appearance and personality all shape the perception others have of oneself. At one glance one is ‘sized up’ and processed in people’s minds.

Other factors can also determine the impression one leaves on others, such as; how one greet others, the inflection or projection of one’s voice, one’s posture and the stride of one’s step. One can walk in so many varied ways that there are more than 60 styles of walking.[1] Everything about oneself provides an explanation of who one seems to be, either in actuality, or least in the mind’s eye perception that others have about oneself. Does one’s self-perception affect or influence how others see oneself? Does charisma play role in one’s self-estimation and in the valuation of one by others?

Your calling card to the world is your QR Code. How you look and how you speak – even more than what you say – may speak volumes about who you are in the view of others. Be sure that you know your QR Code and be certain that you are display the characteristics you want to be read, at first glance / scan.

[1] http://www.dailywritingtips.com/60-synonyms-for-walk/

October 13, 2015/by Zack Steel

Essays

Future Machines

medical machines used for advanced research

Will future machines and robotic technology advance ahead of people? Will robots develop a level of consciousness? Why is it so difficult to imagine a computer with a brain that can discern choices based on logic and on emotion?

Perhaps we cannot imagine a robot that can think like a human because we cannot perceive of a human that could truly think like a robot. A person cannot actually achieve the perspective the mind’s eye of a robot.

To believe – as some noteworthy scientists do – that artificial intelligence will advance to a high level and eventually take over the world and dominate mankind is ludicrous. Why would machines want to be in-charge of people? Perhaps artificial intelligence and robots so programmed will become so focused on advancement and development that they will just ignore humans is more plausible.

Robots may strive to build a society of robots that are highly intelligent; solely for the purpose of enrichment the development of robots.

Perhaps the advent and invention of a computer or a robot is not such a novelty. A person contains the hardware, software, operating system, ability to heal and to creatively contribute to world. Even so-called applications are not really so new. These software add-ons have been part of the human mind and have been integrated into the brain for centuries. One day society will realize that we should have spent more time trying to figure out have to actually maximize the potential and capabilities of the human brain and less effort seeking ways to increase mass production with mechanized replacements.

A human being contains at least the following attributes: a brain (hardware of computer); a mind (software of computer); ideas, memories, thoughts, electrical currents (synapses). It could rightly be said that the brain is the most highly developed computer that could ever exist. Through newly popular process known as neuro-plasicity the brain can be redesigned / configured and grow into a seemingly new creation through brain training.

Just imagine for one single moment the following processes: The brain is the hardware of a human being / person, the mind is the software that runs on the hardware, a person creates an operating systems throughout one’s life and growth process and various applications are available to be utilized when called upon through relevant stimuli. A person can equally learn from success or failure. Would it be possible for a robot to achieve the same level of optimal functioning?

March 10, 2015/by Zack Steel

Business Matters Articles

Domain Names Internet Change

Domain names internet changes are all the hype today. Whether you are talking .club, condos, or .guru, among the currently available extensions on the market. But what about all of the domains that are coming soon? Close to 2000 possible extensions may one day be available for use.

If you buy a new domain name extension or gTLD (generic top-level domain) can you use it and / or sell it as you would with other extensions? It seems that there registries that are conjuring up these new novelty extensions are controlling the process of the entire life cycle for their gTLDs. They determine when the registrars can sell them, including pre-registration and priority registration and even auctions for competing bidders for the same domain name who priority registered a domain with different registrars. Can you imagine that there are auctions for domain names that are not even available yet? Domain names that have not yet been used for a website and have not even been available as forwarding domains are highly valued and be sold before there are yet bought.

What is the deal with the domain Internet changes Is this madness? Possibly this domain name insanity is incurable. Trying to secure the right domain name can be maddening. Many registrar’s may offers promotional gimmicks that seem to promise you a desired domain name at one of the many new extensions. But what can they really offer you other than notification, by e-mail, when the gTLD becomes available? That is, unless you are willing and able to pay for pre-registration or priority registration (much more costly) and this is dependent upon the sunrise or release date of the domain name.

Domain names are now being screened by an intake clearing house to ensure that trademarks are respected and upheld, by the trademark holder / owner. It used to be that someone could register any business name, as domain name, even if one did not own the business name proper – having registered it with the required regulatory authority. Perhaps the new extensions gTLDs were created to ensure that rightful trademark owners can fairly register the business name as their own domain name.

But will this process actually restrict unlawful registrations across the board for all gTLDs? Or is the clearing house only monitoring and enforcing for requested gTLDs to ensure that trademark holders will gain a suitable gTLD for their business name? If so, how will this process be any different from the initial launch of the .com extension where some domainers opted to capitalize on acquiring namesakes of well known brands and then offering the gTLD for sale at an outrageously high price at auction?

February 5, 2015/by Zack Steel

Blog Posting, Skin Law Office

Big Data

Recent court decisions now allow for business method patents, in time to protect the new computer-implemented big data technologies that are starting to come through in a major way. Now, with the computer industry expanding greatly, we have a developing area called big data and big data analytics. Big data analytics came about because of the large and complex data sets that they encompassed and regular, traditional software could not handle these large data sets. These large data sets arose because of the relatively inexpensive ways to acquire data information including wireless networks, cameras and RFIDs. All these data points meant larger data sets that were hard to analyze, manage, image, move and sort due to the sheer volume of data available. Data analytics were used in areas such as genetics and the prevention of disease, astrophysics and planetary science, predictive analytics, user-behaviour analytics, to combat crime and spot business trends. There were also other concerns with patenting computer-implemented applications. These concerns included objections for definiteness and the requirement that a computer was a necessary part of the invention. Now, with recent cases, such as the Amazon One-Click decision in Canada, business method or computer-implemented patents became a reality. By describing the algorithm, one imparted structure to the claims, thereby removing the problem of definiteness of the claims, and by explaining why a computer was an essential part of the invention, one allowed for patenting of the now-allowed business method patents in 2011.

To make use of big data, one needs to be able to analyze, image, query or sort these data sets. These data sets were also used to obtain user-behaviour characteristics. Because conventional software could not perform these functions, new software, specific to large data sets needed to be programmed and produced to handle the large data. These data sets were not esoteric. With these applications at hand, there stood, and still stands, to be a lot of invention in the area to assist with promoting big data analytics, but what about protecting our inventions and monetizing them?

Computer-implemented patents were available in the United States but not in Europe and, until 2011, not in Canada either. Until the Amazon One-Click case was heard in the District Court and Appeals Courts in Canada, business method or computer-implemented patent protection was not available in Canada. The Federal Court of Appeals found that the Examiners must have looked to a purposive construction of claims in order to have found the ability to patent an invention. The Court further reasoned that one must look at the invention as a whole and not just the inventive step as a separate part of the invention. As a result of this new business method ruling, there were Practice Notices to Examiners to provide them guidance to grant patents according to this judgment. Some successful business method patents have, therefore, been granted. Some, however, are not granted, when they do not expressly show why a computer is a necessary part of the invention and sometimes not when there is an algorithm missing.

Another suggestion was to prepare a patent application to give structure to the application by way of describing the algorithm. This removed the doubt of indefiniteness, which was a problem for computer-implemented patent applications. This often happened with a means plus function way to approach patent drafting. To avoid the indefiniteness rejection that often came with means-plus-function drafting claims. Adding an algorithm added structure to the means-plus-function removed the indefiniteness associated with this type of patent drafting. One must have remembered to explain how the algorithm changed the state of art and was an improvement in specification. One must have claimed the algorithm was a way to address the technological or state of art need for the invention. One could say, for example, that these calculations claimed in the patent application would have required a human one thousand years to calculate.

There were other tricks and tips involved in patenting computer-implemented inventions in Canada. Big data analytics had been poised to become a major area of invention and we, in Canada, have become prepared to offer inventors protection, which had always been a lucrative endeavour in Canada. With some tips and suggestions, practitioners had avoided the few quirks associated with the patent practice of computer-implemented inventions.

Since then, computer-implemented or business method patent protection has been available in Canada, and, along with careful drafting to avoid indefiniteness, patent protection of computer-implemented inventions has become a possibility. This new area of practice will enhance opportunities for those in patent practice in computer-implemented technologies in Canada as the area continues to expand

July 21, 2014/by Zack Steel

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