Technology and Knowledge Diffusion

Innovative industries are working on a more sustainable way to produce energy. One example is LM Wind Power, one of the world’s largest makers of blades for wind turbines. These blades are designed to last for more than 20 years, but what happens to them when they are done spinning? In the past, they ended up in landfills, lined up like dinosaur bones. LM Wind Power wants to change that. The company, which became carbon neutral in 2018, is working with the wind industry to come up with blades that could be 100% recyclable in the future.

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To battle COVID-19, the world will need vaccines. Expanding global manufacturing capacity is part of ensuring there are enough to go around. Biovac, based in South Africa, is committed to the long fight against the pandemic. The CEO, Dr Morena Makhoana, estimates that Biovac will be able to produce as many as 30 million doses of a Covid-19 vaccine. Biovac is part-owned by the South African Government. The company is still engaged in talks with global pharmaceutical companies regarding manufacturing and producing Covid-19 vaccines at its facilities in South Africa. The emergence of the second, more lethal variant has added some complexity – and urgency.

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The Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property (CPIP) at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School invites applications for a non-resident fellowship program designed to develop rigorous scholarship on intellectual property (IP), creativity, and innovation law and policy. The Edison Fellowship promotes excellent academic research about IP and related rights in the innovative and creative communities. The program consists of a series of invitation-only conferences over the course of a year. Over the course of these conferences, Edison Fellows work under the guidance of distinguished senior commentators, and with each other, to turn paper ideas into polished manuscripts publishable in law reviews or other academic journals.

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The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated innovation at hospitals across the USA by forcing them to adopt new, digitally focused ways of delivering care, paving the way for further tech-enabled improvements after the pandemic subsides. In this interview, eight hospital and health system innovation leaders weigh in on how healthcare innovation trends have grown amid the pandemic.

The interviewees acknowledge that the pandemic has taken away everyone’s excuses as to why telehealth cannot work and instead made them focus on how and why it must work. Before the pandemic, most traditional brick-and-mortar providers in our industry saw telehealth as a threat and were thus quite biased to focus on its shortcomings. Not surprisingly, they were quick to point out why telehealth was not ideal – or even ‘dangerous’ – for  ‘most’ encounters. Payers sang the same tune, as they have always been wary of the potential for unchecked overutilization of telehealth.

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The Innovation Council member Qualcomm launched the 5G Academy, a resource designed to educate the public and policymakers on 5G – from how it works to how it’s changing the way the world connects and communicates, and why standards and patents in wireless technology matter.

You can learn more why 5G will redefine the ways we connect to the world around us—making possible a connectivity fabric that weaves everything, and everyone, together.

Here’s a look at our future with 5G.

Test your knowledge on wireless technology – from wireless voice calls to autonomous cars? Test here your 5G knowledge by playing the 5G Game!

The health pandemic has shown the need for faster wireless networks to boost remote learning. Watch here how 5G can take e-learning to the next level.

5G networks will broaden the ways we interact with doctors, manage our own health, and improve access to treatment. Watch here how 5G will transform healthcare.

In their 2021 annual letter themed ‘the year global health went local’ released by Bill Gates and Melinda Gates, they are reviewing the epidemic in 2020 and addressing the future.

Gates stressed that cooperation between China and the US is critical to combating the pandemic, including ending the current pandemic and preventing the next one, while he pointed to China’s continuing technological advances, improving regulatory capabilities and a growing willingness to help the world.

Roberta Lipson, founder of United Family Healthcare, agreed that there is plenty of room for cooperation between China and the US, first and foremost in healthcare amid the epidemic’s hardships. High tariffs make the use of imported products more costly for both countries, said Lipson, adding that elimination or reduction of these duties would give patients in both countries access to the most suitable products at reduced costs.

“Opening the market for leading-edge therapies and medicines will also benefit from level playing fields in central procurement as well as reliable intellectual property rights protection,” said Lipson.

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Verizon Business released findings from its “Verizon 5G Business Report” highlighting the impact 5G technology is expected to have across the United States. The report revealed that technology decision-makers overwhelmingly agree 5G high-speed communications networks and devices will create new growth opportunities and applications for their companies and industries within the next two years.

The survey, which was conducted in partnership with Morning Consult, polled 700 business technology decision-makers across the United States to gauge interest in deploying 5G and specific use cases within the Sports/Entertainment/Media, Government/Public Sector, Healthcare, Manufacturing, and Retail.

Decision-makers largely agree that 5G will create new opportunities for their company (80%), their industry (79%), and their role (79%). According to the survey, 5G will also play an important role to help economic recovery: Seven in 10 (69%) decision-makers believe 5G will help their company overcome the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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AI technologies including machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing can be harnessed to process vast data sets to identify new drug candidates, optimize drug dosing, match patients with drug trials and diagnose diseases. Recognizing this potential, global biopharma companies have invested heavily in AI technology—the AI in life sciences market was valued at USD 1092.44 million in 2019 and is expected to reach USD 3445.60 million by 2025. But what happens to the IPRs? Can AI be an IPR holder?

This article provides answers to important questions about (future) IP ownership:

1. Life science companies utilizing AI can mitigate potential IP ownership issues by defining ownership of AI-related IP rights in employment, licensing, or purchase agreements.
2. Aside from general contractual protections of IP, life sciences companies should consider what type of IP protection is appropriate for their AI-related inventions.
3. If patent protection is more appropriate (e.g., where the requirement of secrecy for trade secret protection is hard or impossible to meet), the companies should adopt an “AI-Patent Playbook” as follows to obtain patent protection for AI-related inventions.

The strategies described in the article could be adopted to minimize the risks while still harnessing the powerful potential of AI technology.

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Speaking at a panel organized by the World Economic Forum and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), ministers from Canada, Denmark, Italy, Japan, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom announced their plan to lead the world in fostering responsible innovation and entrepreneurship. The Agile Nations Charter sets out each country’s commitment to creating a regulatory environment in which new ideas can thrive. Read full article here.