Uncategorized

The continuing rollout of 5G and the application of AI top the list of the most important technologies expected to grow in 2022, according to a survey of senior technology officers published by international technology organisation IEEE. Ron Alalouff reports. In the survey of 350 chief technology officers, chief information officers and IT directors, AI and machine learning, cloud computing and 5G were identified as the most important technologies for 2022 and beyond. Technology leaders said they had accelerated their adoption of cloud computing (60%), AI and machine learning (51%) and 5G (46%), due to the global pandemic. An overwhelming 95% of them agreed – and 66% strongly agreed – that AI will drive most innovation across almost all industry sectors in the next one to five years.

Read more.

There was a time when inventors did not have to worry about protecting intellectual property outside their country, largely because products were typically conceived, manufactured and purchased within a circumscribed territory. However, the rise of globalization has changed this. Now, a product produced in one corner of the globe can easily be sold and manufactured all over the world. This new economy presents challenges for patent applicants and/or inventors, one of them being how to ensure that an invention is protected in countries that have easy access to your product or process. The solution lies in filing a patent application in any market-target country — expanding your rights there and making it difficult for competitors to use your products or technology without due authorization.

Read more.

A wildfire raging on the slopes of Cape Town’s Table Mountain spread on Sunday (April 18^th) to the University of Cape Town (a member of the Innovation Council), burning the historic campus library and forcing students to evacuate. We hope the situation can be brought under control as soon as possible. Our thoughts go out to everyone there.

On the occasion of the WTO TRIPS Council online side event focusing on the intersection of innovation, IP and sustainability – which will take place on March 9 at 16:00 – we are re-posting some resources about IC member Shiok Meats. Shiok Meats is a Singaporean company that produces cell-based crustacean meat. Shiok Meats plans to bring healthy, nutritious, environmentally-friendly and cruelty-free crustacean meat to tables everywhere in the coming years, disrupting the global shrimp market which is worth an estimated 40b USD annually. This month marks the one-year anniversary since the Singaporean innovators introduced their first shrimp dumpling. Shrimp grown from cells has several advantages over wild caught shrimp or shrimp raised through aquaculture – notably in relation to health, environment, and labor impacts – but further innovation is required to bring down production costs. This is the goal of the team at Shiok Meats over the next 2-3 years.

Read more:

Shiok Meats Raises $4.6 Million Seed Round To Develop Cell-Based Shrimp

How artificial shrimps could change the world

Singapore’s Shiok Meats hopes to hook diners with lab-grown shrimp

Could ‘labriculture’ be the future of food?

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has commissioned a study, which is to be released shortly, for the purpose of identifying policies that enhance access to the intellectual property (IP) system by women inventors, creators, and entrepreneurs. While stating that it is not yet possible to identify a list of “best practices” in this area—due simply to a low level of research on the subject to date—the authors pinpoint a number of promising programs for the advancement of women in the IP system. They distill both a short list of barriers to women’s success in this arena and a lineup of possible next steps towards surmounting each of them.

Read the full story.

Intellectual Property Securities Corporation (IPSE) just received its NASDAQ ticker and announces their intent to list through a traditional IPO in 2021, according to Swiss Financiers. IPSE, a novel kind of security called an Intellectual Property Security, allows Intellectual Property owners to sell current and future authoring and neighbouring royalties on the stock market.

With this listing, IPSE will be able to start offering its Intellectual Property Securitisation solutions to issuers. IPSE intends to create a new market segment in full partnership with the NASDAQ, that will be solely dedicated to the listing and trading of IPS instruments.

The target valuation of IPSE will be above the $1 billion mark reflecting the high-quality of the innovative solution and the size of the total addressable market.

Read the full story.

The need for the rapid development and global distribution of a vaccine to prevent COVID-19 infection has spurred a number of novel collaborations between the pharmaceutical companies, research entities, and other stakeholders. These collaborations aim to ensure broad access to new health technologies to address the pandemic.

• One example is the University of Oxford Jenner Institute vaccine candidate, developed with AstraZeneca, that included collaborations with Catalent Biologics (Italy), Symbiosis Pharmaceutical Services (UK), Oxford Biomedica (UK), Emergent BioSolutions, BioKangtai (China), and R-Pharm (Russia). Through the WHO’s Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, AstraZeneca signed an agreement with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, on vaccine development, manufacturing, and procurement, ensuring 300 million doses of the vaccine for low- and middle-income countries. Separately, AstraZeneca also signed a license agreement with the Serum Institute of India (SII) to supply 1 billion doses of vaccine to low- and middle-income countries.
• Another example involves Sanofi and GSK, which signed a Statement of Intent with Gavi, to make available 200 million doses of their adjuvanted recombinant protein-based COVID-19 vaccine, if approved by regulatory authorities.
• A third example focuses on Johnson & Johnson.  The company has committed to bringing an affordable vaccine to the public on a not-for-profit basis for emergency pandemic use and anticipates the first batches of a COVID-19 vaccine to be available for emergency use authorization in early 2021.

This article examines the context in which the Oxford COVID vaccine was developed – such as the slow response to the Ebola outbreak – and new technological breakthroughs at Oxford’s Jenner Institute that enabled researchers to cut 10 years of vaccine work down to 10 months.

This article explores the mixed reactions to a new art exhibit commenting on lab-grown meat. The installation of steak grown from human cells at the Design Museum in London was intended to criticize the meat industry’s rising use of living cells from animals. It ended up triggering a roiling debate about bioethics and the pitfalls of artistic critique.