What I learnt from the class:
About patents:
- Great introduction to patent law and understanding how patent cases work.
- Learnt about key terms in patent cases: anticipation, prior art, obviousness, infringement, patent trolls through examples and studying cases.
- Learnt how to read patents, understand claims, and detect possible infringement (may be).
How patents/IP can be a deadly weapon:
- Learnt the importance of companies having a diverse and strong IP portfolio by studying IPs of unicorns like Airbnb and Uber.
- Also learnt about important cases like Apple vs. Samsung, and how patent cases affect companies' finances and PR, and how a good IP strategy can destroy competition.
- Through cases like Microsoft and Google, I learnt the that sometimes it is better to not enter in a legal battle and focus energy on innovating, but this is only possible if you have a good IP portfolio. Microsoft, for example, makes a lot of money by licensing its patents.
Learning from social media:
- Making youtube videos made me comfortable with recording myself, and the fact that the videos were supposed to be 3 minutes or less taught me how to be informative yet concise.
- Researching cases, writing about them, and reading others posts got me more interested in IP and following more IP cases, and showed me how social media can be a great learning tool.
Looking forward:
I learnt the importance of having a good IP portfolio, and as someone passionate about healthtech and entrepreneurship, I will be mindful of this and file patents when the opportunity arises. I learnt, as mentioned earlier, that a good IP strategy is not only important but necessary.
Suggestion: Randomly assign students to eachother each week, so everyone gets feedback on their work!
I would definitely recommend this class to students for next semester. Thanks for a great semester everyone! It was great to learn from you.
Hi Srushti,
ReplyDeleteGreat job on your blog, you put a lot of effort into it. I think the most important thing we learned is how patents can be a deadly weapon. In my blog I used the example of blackberry and how they eventually became an irrelevant company. They forgot to pursue patents and as a result, they disappeared.
Thanks for a great semester.
Hi Srushti,
ReplyDeleteThanks for a very concise blog post! I'm glad we learned all about patents, especially about the unicorn companies. It is amazing how they have such little to no intellectual property, but also be valued at $1 billion dollars. Thank you for a great semester!