Imagine this – It’s late in the afternoon. You had a heavy lunch an hour or so ago, and your eyes are drooping now. All you want is a nap, but you cannot because you have work and responsibilities. Now, what if, right then, from nowhere, a drone lands on your workspace carrying a cup of coffee from your favorite cafe?
You would love it, won’t you? I would, for sure. IBM had envisioned that and patented this idea in their patent US10040551B2.
Source: https://tryslate.greyb.com/engage/US10040551B2
The patent protects the technology for drones to deliver a coffee to an individual, particularly, sensing whether a person is sleepy and delivers it to him/her. This is a pretty innovative way – and an excellent business opportunity – for cafés and delivery companies to team up and deliver coffee to people at the right time.
Knowing how good this idea is, chances are other companies would have come up or tried to patent a variant of this very concept. I was curious, and to find more deets, I inputted this patent number into our system (BOS tool) to figure out other companies who were trying to file patents on a similar concept and probably trying to build similar products. Well, I can go to them to license my patent or directly sell them.
Here’s what I found. IBM’s ‘551 patent has been used by examiners to provide 103 type rejections during the prosecution of patent applications filed by Prodrone, Casio, Onpoynt, and Magna Electronics (details below).
| Blocked Company | Blocked Patent/Application | Action Type | Action Date | Claim Amended | Application Abandoned after this Rejection |
| Prodrone Co Ltd | US20190057252A1 | 103 | February 19, 2019 & August 15, 2019 | Yes | Yes |
| Casio | US20170293795A1 | 103 | January 30, 2019 | No | Yes |
| Onpoynt Unmanned Systems Llc D/B/A Onpoynt Aerial Solutions | US10525332B2 | 103 | August 16, 2018 | Yes | No |
| Magna Electronics Inc | US10694150B2 | 103 | June 17, 2019 | Yes | No |
These patent applications were either abandoned or had to amend their claims to get a grant. Hence, it seems that these companies were trying to protect the tech already patented in IBM’s 551 patent.
For example – US20190057252A1 filed by Prodrone focuses on using drones to identify living beings. The below snapshot portrays the examiner raised a 103 rejection against the US’252 application using IBM’s 551 patent.
Source: 2019-02-19 Non-Final Rejection for US20190057252A1
Prodrone amended their claims but could not escape the rejections posed due to IBM’s 551 patent and had to abandon their patent application.
Source: 2019-08-15 Final Rejection for US20190057252A1
Concluding Notes
From the market adoption perspective, this technology still seems in the early stages. Alphabet’s subsidiary Wing, for instance, is delivering coffee and light packages in four locations across three continents.
Having said that, it would be interesting to see if companies like Wing, Prodrone, etc., are also planning to deliver coffee after sensing people’s drowsy state and deliver coffee to them automatically.
If they intend to, IBM’s US10040551B2 patent should be on their buying/licensing list to get protection in the US market and defend their technology from being used by other companies.
Which patents should you buy to strengthen your market control? We can provide you with all the intelligence you never knew you wanted but needed in a short time.
Authored by: Rohit Sood, Infringement.
