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Someone has been trying to link with me for the last couple of days, and I didn't realize who it was. It is John Rizvi. He is The Patent Professor. And joining us live this morning, John. Good morning. I just accepted your invitation. I apologize for the delay. And, and I am so glad that you're here this morning.
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Of course, thank you, always a pleasure.
Not a problem. And thank you. It's a pleasure for us as well. So this really caught my eye and it caught my producer, Steven Chamberlain's eyes, as well. Kind of a prediction, I guess it is, unless you really have some inside information about what you are expecting or what we should be expecting from the Apple Watch. And then once Apple does it, others do it. So where are we heading with all of this?
Yeah, so I mean, a little bit of background. So, Apple has a patent granted on a new watch that has a detachable camera, so it looks that, from reading the patent, it looks as if the goal is so that you can kind of eliminate having to carry your cell phone. I'm thinking maybe for a circumstance where you go to the gym, you want to take a selfie, and you don't have to take your cell phone with you. The watch itself already, you know, you can make phone calls, you can receive email, but the one thing that was missing was the ability to take pictures. So now, patents are always looked at as a way to kind of predict which direction companies are going. And competitors always look at patents, especially Apple's patents, they get about 2500 patents a year, to get an idea of what may be coming down the pipeline.
Well, I love that we live in a world where, with your example, somebody's gone to the gym, but they have to take something to take a selfie. I mean, if that doesn't if that doesn't define the world in which we live, I don't really know what it is.
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It is! You got to have breakfast, how can you eat without, you know, showing the world what you're, what you're eating? And heaven forbid you don't have your phone with you? But now as long as you have your watch with you, you know they've solved that need.
So you know, you make a really good point here, and perhaps you weren't even trying to make it. But would you say 2,500 or 25,000 patents a year? It's the same difference, but go ahead.
Yeah, 2,500 patents every year.
So my question from that, you know, is this: you’re a professional, you look at this stuff, whether it's Apple or any other company, of all the patents that get filed, and even those that get approved, how many actually turn, like what's the percentage that actually become something that we're ever going to see, and that it's not just, you know, kind of controlling some intellectual property that may or may not be used, you know, years down the road?
So that's generally the worry. I mean, you've touched on it, the concerns of why are people up in an uproar about this, because large companies and lately pharmaceutical companies have been in the news quite a bit as they file a number of patents to create, like a patent web, to prevent competitors from entering the market. And a lot of those patents don't end up with actual products. So the feeling is that they may keep good products from entering the market, because they've closed this, this field, kind of put this fence around an idea that they're not going to produce. You know, just because you own a patent on something does not mean that there's any duty for you to actually produce and make the product. Sometimes you can get the patent just so your competitors don't do it. And that's what’s looked down on.
Yeah, well, this is going to be interesting. We'll see if, if this turns into something. I mean, I'm sitting here and you know, I'm not embarrassed to say I've got, I mean, many of us in the studio have on an Apple Watch. I don't know how you're gonna get a camera on there. I don't know how you're gonna flip it off and do something. But I love the idea and I still love your, your understanding that the world in which we live, you gotta go to the gym and take a selfie. So, so good stuff on that. John. John, we look forward to talking to you again in the future. That is The Patent Professor, John Rizvi.