Need some good reading material? Here’s a quick recap of the top December IP news stories we loved diving into this month!
- “In July 1999, representatives of Amazonian Indigenous groups arrived at the headquarters of the US Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, Virginia, to challenge a patent on the ayahuasca vine. Indigenous peoples had cultivated ayahuasca for its medicinal and other properties for generations. How could someone in the United States have ‘invented’ it?” – Racism is baked into patent systems, Nature
- “The immutable nature of blockchain provides a history of ownership and creation that cannot be tampered with. This is imperative to an intellectual property owner as it prevents a claim to ownership from being contested by another person.” – How Blockchain Can Help to Protect Intellectual Property in the Age of the Internet of Things, IoT For All
- “The Gray Lady claimed in a Manhattan Federal Court suit that Time’s “TIME100 Talks” is confusingly similar to its “Times Talks” series.” – Times for a fight! New York Times sues Time Magazine for trademark infringement, NY Daily News
- “With the exception of a few notable inventors who are regularly elevated during Black History Month […] the disregard of many of the era’s Black inventors not only whitewashes the historical record, but biases who we perceive to be innovators in the present.” – The Black innovators who elevated the United States: Reassessing the Golden Age of Invention, Brookings
Final tidbits: Read the new report from the International Trademark Association discussing The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) of the Future; Two opposing views on whether the COVID-19 crisis should or should not lead to more open intellectual property rights in the NYT and Forbes
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The Michelson Institute for Intellectual Property, an initiative of the Michelson 20MM Foundation, addresses critical gaps in intellectual property education to empower the next generation of inventors and entrepreneurs. Michelson 20MM was founded thanks to the generous support of renowned spinal surgeon Dr. Gary K. Michelson and Alya Michelson. To learn more, visit 20mm.org.