notlob

[deleted, this was a total overshare]

Yeah, exactly. The linked article quotes parts of the suit that specifically say "nicotine salts" which I think is suggestive that this may be a big part of the case.

> JUUL is like any other nicotine alternative (e.g. gum)

Not exactly so, a distinguishing feature of Juul is that the nicotine provided is formulated as a salt rather than as a free base.

What parts of this would you expect to be of interest for startups outside of digital, specifically biotech?

I see where you're coming from now. ABX (antibiotics) are a bit unique. New ABX are sparingly profitable because they are usually incremental developments instead of new classes of compounds. A new class would be lucrative. I see this as a reflection that ABX dev is a ridiculously hard problem with many failures. There are many working in this area, but not much to show yet.

Public funds are used up to proof of concept and sometimes early tox/CMC (often through a CRO), but the bulk of the funding for trials comes from industry.

UPenn and Novartis brought Kymriah to market and Kite brought Yescarta to market. Universities can be great for discovery and sponsored research, but they are not leading the work needed to get to market and they are certainly not funding it. Universities efforts are the visible tip of the iceberg, pharma efforts are the bulk under the surface.

This is an inaccurate portrayal of the pharmaceutical industry. Take CAR-T as one obvious counterexample.

Post-AIA, US utility patents (including APIs, biologics, methods of manufacture/use, etc.) are 20 years with possible adjustments to term length.

I’m not in IT tech, last job search a couple years ago took about a year and I’m starting another that’ll likely take as long. It’s just fantastic to me that multiple people could simultaneously find employment on short notice. It’s a world I haven’t experienced and am frankly envious of.

There could be a good blog post in that? Planning to do right by your employees, even when times are hard.

(Also, I can't imagine what it'd be like for jobs to be easy to find!)

What happened with the people you had to let go? Did you prioritize rehiring them once your ship was righted or help them find new positions?

> If they don't, you have a job you otherwise wouldn't have had.

No, you have a job for as long as you're able to keep your lie secret. Once the lie comes out, even if it's X years down the road, you're terminated for cause, and if a prospective new employer calls they will be told you are "ineligible to be rehired." There are possible legal consequences as well.

GP, do not lie. In the long run, the world works out to be pretty fair, and liars are revealed for what they are.

> It also depends of your tolerance of rednecks, prudes, puritans, and ignorant people (which exist everywhere in the world, but have particularly large concentrations there).

FYI, using "redneck" as a pejorative, as in this context, can be interpreted as pretty offensive, and maybe this is unintentional. I for one consider it offensive.

> > > They timed production to maximize federal tax credits for US consumers.

This is what is confusing me: if the credits are timed to domestic sales (so international sales don’t affect the timing of the tax credit phase out) what does this have to do with production?

Can you quote the text here? For the life of me I can’t find the section you’re referencing. I’ve heard the “timing production to match tax credit” thing before and it doesn’t make sense to me, hence why I’m trying to track down the primary source.

Can you clarify, did Tesla announce this, or are you announcing this?

I wasn’t intending to advance an argument, merely present that as a biotech entrepreneur in the process of forming a new company I for one like many of the changes in this proposal. I completely get why software people take umbrage with patents, but wanted to politely put forward that it isn’t a universal feeling.

One biotech person's perspective is that these are changes in the right direction. Things were certainly not perfect in the pre-AIA era, but post-AIA and recent court decisions have had many negative impacts on our industry, particularly diagnostics and particularly new ventures. The uncertainty associated with an “issued” patent has decimated their value, to the loss of innovation in our industry.

> The reality is that HSR isn't cost-effective if the trip takes more than about 5 hours.

Can you expand on that? It's not obvious to me.

This appears to simply be a copyright violation based on the demand letter.

Both of your examples have transmissions, they are however a single gearing ratio (“reduction gear”). EV conversions also frequently use a multi-gear transmission, as did the original Tesla Roadster IIRC.

Theranos was tight lipped on the tech. An alternative interpretation is that there was insufficient information on the tech at that moment for knowledgeable people to weigh in on, other than to observe that this is a difficult problem and a “red ocean” in a regulated industry, and it is hardly worth stating something so obvious.

An interesting observation is that medman77 would seem to be particular about FDA clearance vs approval, which is one sign of someone who does know what they’re talking about.

In risk management for the medical devices I’ve worked on, we account for users and patients not following instructions during the design process. “You’re holding it wrong” is literally something we account for. From my perspective Tesla has been baffling, especially so considering the highly involved CEO is aware that people use his company’s product contra to the instructions for use.

What sort of E&O coverage is needed on projects like this?

They are I think referring to first-sale doctrine.

> This is missing my pet step: doing the literature review.

One of the earliest, most important, and most useful lessons I learned from a senior grad student: "a day in the library can be worth a week at the bench."

These are design patents, not utility patents. Chapter 1500 of the MPEP is the relevant reference, and in particular, 1502 distinguishes between design and utility patents.

> In general terms, a “utility patent” protects the way an article is used and works (35 U.S.C. 101), while a “design patent” protects the way an article looks (35 U.S.C. 171).

https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s1502.html

I’d also like to add that the claimed elements appear in solid lines; broken lines are to show visible environmental structure and are not part of the claim.