Weekly IP Buzz for the Week Ending December 20, 2019

December 23, 2019 Darin M. Klemchuk

In this week's post, we see how the Internet of Things has spread to children’s toys, which now poses new privacy questions for children and parents alike. These “smart” toys have fun new capabilities, but CARU warns they also invite new privacy threats and challenges.

Also, for software owners, some alternative software intellectual property protection strategies and tools.

Smart Toys for Kids May Be Too Smart

With the advent of the Internet of Things, toys for kids and toddlers are increasingly becoming “smart” in that they can now upload and download information or data wirelessly from the Internet.

According to the Children’s Advertising Reviewing Unit (“CARU”), more and more toys are now able to wirelessly connect to the Internet, and as such, may be collecting the personal information of children. The information collected by these toys may include, but are not limited to, names, addresses, email addresses, gender, and age.

While many manufacturers have taken the steps to try to require parental permission before uploading or sharing such data, CARU notes that there is a worrying amount of toys that do not have proper safeguards in place to prevent children from faking parental acceptance, or the toys simply do not request permission at all.

Software Protection Strategies: Alternatives to Patents

Over the past few decades, intellectual property (IP) has become an increasingly larger portion of the capital investment and assets of U.S. companies. For software companies, in particular, IP legal protection is crucial to secure their assets from theft or copycats.

For many software companies, patents serve as a key tool in protecting their rights in and to their software products. U.S. patent owners can potentially prevent others from making, using, or selling any products or services that incorporate their patented inventions or methods throughout the U.S. As such, patents can be powerful deterrents to copycats, and can provide patent owners with significant market advantages.

However, software patents are expensive and difficult to maintain, and can be even more expensive and difficult to enforce. The lifetime cost of obtaining and maintaining a patent in the U.S. can easily top $30,000. Of course, patents expire after a maximum of 20 years, so at some point the patented inventions become open to the public.

Also, U.S. patent protection does not protect the invention from users in other countries. Of course, since the U.S. patent process involves a publication of the claims that, thanks to the Internet, are globally available, failure to secure international patents leaves a U.S. patent owner unable to prevent use of their technology by foreigners. As such, U.S. patent owners often seek patent protection in foreign countries, as well, at costs of $30,000 or more for each additional country where patent protection is desired.

In addition, once a patent is obtained, the burden of enforcing patent rights falls upon the patent owners, themselves. Thus, patent owners must bear the cost of investigating potential infringement and, if necessary, filing infringement lawsuits.

In light of the costs and limitations of software patents, some of which are outlined above, software owners often employ alternative legal tools to protect their IP rights.