Novel & Non-Obvious

Dr. Maria Navas-Moreno is the co-founder of Lever Photonics, a company exploring the commercial potential of Raman spectroscopy, a chemical process that's used to identify individual molecules.

This week on Novel & Non-Obvious, Yoriko speaks with Maria about her entrepreneurial journey, how she has been defined her product and IP, and the business pivots that happened along the way.

The trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is dominating Silicon Valley headlines at the moment, but the real story is in how the company built and profited from its IP portfolio.

This week on Novel & Non-Obvious, Yoriko examines the blood testing company's patent portfolio and how it both propped up the company and led to its downfall.

If you’re an inventor, you’re likely familiar with the three requirements of patentability: usefulness, novelty, and non-obviousness. Sounds simple enough, right? Not exactly. In fact, those last two requirements are what make patent law the most stringent branch of IP law, and the key reasons why it’s so difficult to get a patent.

This week Yoriko takes a closer look at what novel and non-obvious really means.

A strong brand starts with a strong and relatable story. From there, it's about remaining laser focused on the audience you want to reach and the product you want to create, and then protecting that brand with trademarks and other IP action when necessary.

That's the path that Career Girls® founder Linda Calhoun has taken with her nonprofit organization. Career Girls is a free, non-commercial, online platform that features more than 16,000 short video clips of 800 diverse women role models sharing career and educational advice to inspire young girls to expand their horizons, improve their academic performance and dream big about their futures.

Linda joins Yoriko this week to discuss the work that Career Girls does to support the career development of girls nationwide and how it has built a purpose-driven brand.

Introducing the next generation of pros to the patent business is one of the pillars of Patents Integrated, and we work with interns every year who are interested in intellectual property law and the work that goes into a patent agency.

This week on Novel & Non-Obvious, Yoriko speaks with Garrett Janney and Jakob Bookspan, two students at the University of Colorado Law School who have spent the last year as interns at Patents Integrated, about what they've learned about IP, the topics that captured their attention and what's coming next.

Scripta is the company behind Clause Logic, an add-in to Word to help attorneys draft legal documents faster and more accurately by effectively reusing their best existing work products. It licenses its software to other companies who want to take advantage of its award-winning legal software development team.

This week on Novel & Non-Obvious, Yoriko speaks to Scripta co-founder Mike Boucher about the IP issues he's faced in his work in legal software and shares how entrepreneurs can build scalable products without giving up their intellectual property.

In the age of the internet, being able to see the teardown of popular products is always fascinating. This could, however, open up the floor to someone looking to reverse engineering your IP. In this week's episode of the Novel & Non-Obvious podcast, Yoriko goes over the differences between a product tear down and reverse engineering in terms of IP. 

Whether you find yourself confused, fascinated or both by the world of crypto, there's no denying its captivating hold on today's society. Luckily, there are crypto experts like Larkin Reynolds and Zak Wolff to laydown the basics of all things crypto. On this week's episode of the Novel & Non-Obvious podcast, Yoriko discusses NFTs and Blockchain with Larkin and Zak and looks specifically at the implications they have on IP.

It happens all too often. A full-time employee with a successful company comes up with an idea for a great new product or business. Do they own that idea? If not, why not?

This week on the Novel & Non-Obvious podcast, Yoriko discusses the limitations and requirements around IP at work and whether or not the ideas you have (both on the clock and off) actually belong to you.

When your ideas get stolen, it's easy to be quick and make accusations. While this may feel like the right thing to do, in the world of patents, it may actually work against you in the long run. In this week's episode of Novel & Non-Obvious podcast, Yoriko Morita goes over how to prevent your ideas from being stolen and what to do when they are.