Source: Silicon Bay Partners’ staff with assistance from ChatGPT
Photo: A sign warns customers that cameras are monitoring the parking lot of a Walmart store on January 17, 2017 in Skokie, Illinois. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Your loyalty card may not be saving you money. It may be teaching retailers how much more they can get out of you.

Remember when the price on the shelf was the price you paid at the register? Those were simpler times. You picked up a box of cereal, checked the price, and decided whether you could afford it. The supermarket didn’t need to know your shopping habits, your income bracket, your ZIP code or whether you were having a particularly stressful Tuesday.

Today, that old-fashioned transaction is colliding with a much more sophisticated business model: surveillance pricing. It involves using personal information, purchasing behavior, location and other data to influence the prices, discounts or products offered to individual consumers. The technology can help companies figure out not only what you want to buy, but also how much you might be willing to pay.

And that raises an uncomfortable question: Are companies competing to offer us the best price—or using what they know about us to determine the highest price we might tolerate?

Walmart’s Electronic Shelf Labels: Convenience or Something More?

Walmart has been rolling out electronic shelf labels, replacing traditional paper price tags with digital displays that can be updated centrally. The practical advantages are obvious: Employees can change prices more quickly, reduce the labor involved in replacing paper labels and potentially make fewer pricing errors.

But the technology also makes frequent price changes easier. And when a retailer can change thousands of prices remotely, consumers have legitimate questions about how those decisions are made.

Critics worry that electronic labels could eventually facilitate dynamic pricing, with prices changing according to demand, time or other market conditions. The more troubling possibility is personalized pricing, in which information about an individual shopper influences what that person pays.

Walmart, however, has publicly rejected that scenario. In September 2026, CEO John Furner said the company would not use personal information—including shopping history, income or perceived willingness to pay—to set individualized prices. Walmart says its electronic labels are about operational efficiency, not charging different customers different amounts for the same product.

That distinction matters. An electronic shelf label does not, by itself, mean a store is charging different shoppers different prices. A price displayed on a shelf is visible to everyone standing in the aisle.

Still, the technology makes rapid price changes possible. Consumers have every reason to want transparency about what triggers those changes, how often they occur and whether the prices remain consistent across stores and shopping channels.

After all, technology is only as reassuring as the rules governing its use.

Starbucks Rewards: The Price of Being a Regular

Then there’s Starbucks, where millions of customers voluntarily participate in a loyalty program designed to reward repeat business.

You buy your usual latte, scan the app, collect Stars and eventually redeem them for something free. It sounds like a straightforward bargain. But loyalty programs also give companies a detailed picture of customer behavior: what people buy, how often they visit, when they order, which promotions they use and how their spending changes over time.

That information can be valuable for more than deciding which coupon to send you.

A 2025 Washington Post investigation examined Starbucks Rewards data and found that promotional offers could vary with customers’ purchasing behavior. The reporting raised concerns that frequent customers might receive fewer offers during periods when they were already buying regularly, while other customers could receive incentives to encourage additional purchases.

That is not the same as proving Starbucks charged one customer more than another for the identical drink. It does, however, illustrate how data can influence the discounts and incentives a customer sees.

And that’s the catch: A company doesn’t necessarily have to raise your listed price to make your loyalty less rewarding. It can simply decide you don’t need a discount because its data suggest you’ll keep coming back anyway.

The customer who buys coffee every morning may be less likely to receive a coupon than the customer the company is trying to lure back. Loyalty, in other words, can become a signal that you’re willing to pay full price.

So much for being a VIP.

Your ZIP Code May Tell Them More Than You Think

Your ZIP code is more than a way to get the mail delivered. Combined with other information, it can help businesses infer neighborhood income levels, local demand, shopping patterns and the kinds of products customers may be interested in.

The Federal Trade Commission has been examining the use of personal data in what it calls surveillance pricing. Its January 2025 findings described how pricing intermediaries can use information such as location, demographics, browsing history and shopping behavior to influence the prices or promotions consumers see. The agency also described hypothetical scenarios in which a shopper’s ZIP code and behavior could affect which products appear in online search results.

That last point deserves attention. A ZIP code may help determine what products are promoted or what offers are shown, even when it does not directly change the price at checkout.

There are legitimate reasons for regional price differences. Shipping costs, local taxes, rent, labor expenses and competition can vary from one place to another. A store in an expensive urban neighborhood may have different operating costs from a store in a small town.

But a different question arises when companies use personal information to estimate what an individual customer can afford—or how urgently that customer needs something—and then tailor the offer accordingly.

Imagine two people searching for the same product. One is shown a bargain; the other sees a more expensive option because an algorithm believes that customer is less price-sensitive. Neither shopper necessarily knows the other received a different offer.

The concern is not that every ZIP-code-based price difference is discriminatory. It is that increasingly detailed consumer profiles could make it difficult to tell whether a price reflects the cost of doing business or the company’s estimate of how much it can extract from a particular customer.

The Loyalty Card Has a Memory

Supermarket loyalty cards were once marketed primarily as a way to save money. Sign up, scan your card, receive discounts. In exchange, the retailer learns what you buy.

Today, apps and loyalty accounts can connect purchases to a much larger digital profile. Depending on the company and its privacy practices, that profile may include online activity, location information, coupon use, purchase frequency and responses to earlier offers.

The Federal Trade Commission’s work has highlighted a broader market of technology companies that help retailers analyze consumer data and tailor pricing or promotions. These tools can use information supplied directly by customers, information inferred from their behavior and data obtained from other sources.

The business logic is straightforward. If a company knows you regularly buy a particular brand, it may not need to discount that product to keep you coming back. If it believes you’re shopping around, it might offer you a coupon. If you abandon an online cart, it might send a promotion designed to bring you back.

Some of that can benefit consumers. Personalized coupons can lower costs, and loyalty programs can offer genuinely useful rewards. The problem is that the same system can distribute benefits unevenly, based on what the company believes each customer needs to make a purchase—or how little incentive the customer needs at all.

A discount is welcome. A system that quietly decides who deserves one, and who can be charged more without noticing, is another matter.

Dynamic Pricing Is Not Always Surveillance Pricing

It is worth making a distinction. Prices have always changed. Airlines adjust fares, hotels charge different rates for different dates, and stores run promotions based on inventory and demand. Those practices are not automatically surveillance pricing.

The more specific concern is when personal data about an individual—or a profile of that person—is used to shape the price or offer presented to them.

The FTC’s investigation reflects concerns that this practice could undermine price transparency and fair competition. The agency’s work does not establish that every retailer is using individualized prices, nor does the existence of a patent or a new technology prove that a company has deployed it.

That is particularly relevant in the Walmart debate. Electronic labels make price updates easier, but they do not establish that Walmart is changing shelf prices based on individual shoppers. The company says it is not doing so.

Consumers should be able to scrutinize the technology without treating every potential use as a proven practice. The question is what retailers are doing with the systems they have—and what safeguards prevent them from going further.

Who Is Watching the Watchers?

The deeper issue is the imbalance of information.

Retailers can collect and analyze enormous amounts of data about customers. Consumers, meanwhile, may have little idea what information has been assembled about them, which outside companies have access to it, or how it affects the offers they see.

That makes meaningful transparency essential. If personal data are being used to determine prices or discounts, consumers should be told. They should be able to understand the factors involved, challenge deceptive practices and compare prices without having to guess whether an algorithm has put a thumb on the scale.

Loyalty programs should not require customers to surrender privacy without a clear understanding of the bargain. And digital shelf labels should not become a black box in which prices change without a clear explanation.

There is also a simple fairness question: Should two people shopping for the same item face different prices because one has been profiled as more affluent, more loyal, more desperate or less likely to comparison-shop?

Companies will argue that personalization makes commerce more efficient and helps deliver relevant offers. Sometimes it does. But efficiency for the seller does not automatically mean fairness for the buyer.

The burden should not fall entirely on consumers to clear their cookies, avoid every loyalty program, shop anonymously and compare prices across a dozen websites just to know whether they’re getting a fair deal.

Ventured’s Take

The next time you scan a loyalty card, open a retailer’s app or walk past a digital shelf label, remember that the transaction may generate information that outlasts the purchase itself.

Your coffee order can reveal a routine. Your grocery cart can reveal preferences. Your ZIP code can provide clues about your neighborhood. Your browsing behavior can suggest what you want, what you can afford and how urgently you need it.

None of that proves a company is charging you more because of who you are. But it does explain why surveillance pricing deserves scrutiny.

The promise of technology is that it can make shopping easier and prices more competitive. The danger is that it can also make the customer easier to profile—and the price harder to question.

We used to ask, “How much does it cost?”

Now we may have to ask a second question:

“How much does it cost me—and how did the company decide I should pay that much?”

Source: Spy Magazine
Photo: Spy Magazine

Author David Kamp notes that in the 1980s New York, Donald Trump had the press in the palm of his hand. Only one satirical yet scrupulously reported magazine had the temerity to note the length of his fingers: Spy Magazine.

“Short-fingered vulgarian”; “Queens-born casino operator”; the “WA-A-A-A-H!” cover depicted Donald Trump as a toddler mid-tantrum. These are all, presciently if tragically, now a vital part of the historical record. Forty years on, Spy magazine is best remembered, not unjustly, as the first entity to call out Trump for his tackiness, villainy, and arrant idiocy.

The cover story of the October ’86 issue, Spy’s very first, was entitled “The Ten Most Embarrassing New Yorkers” and described the future president as someone afflicted with “a Dynasty notion of panache.” The piece proceeded to indict him with a series of his own utterances. In one, he said, “It would take an hour and a half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles.” In another, he defended his destruction and disposal in 1980 of the bas-relief sculptures and Art Deco grillwork on the façade of the Bonwit Teller building—soon to make way for Trump Tower—by saying, “They were nothing. Just junk.” To the people of Iran and those who held the East Wing dear: This is called “foreshadowing.”

Spy’s second issue (November 1986) featured a legal column that will feel familiar to readers in 2026: “litigious” Donald Trump was in danger of being “punished for filing a federal lawsuit in bad faith.”

In the end, Trump was indeed forced to pay the defendants’ legal fees—$157,000, or $473,000 in today’s dollars. The lead lawyer reportedly had a copy of Trump’s check framed and hung on his wall.

In his article entitled ‘Will Trump Get Spanked?’, author M. Connor writes the following:

THANKSGIVING APPROACHES. Where should gratitude be affixed? As far as we’re concerned, any setback encountered by casino operator Donald Trump is providential, always cause for merrymaking. And in a little-known court case, the litigious Trump, we hope, may be punished for filing a federal lawsuit in bad faith.

Sixteen years ago Congress enacted the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO), a law that invented a new federal crime called racketeering. The intent of RICO was to make it easier to prosecute mobsters, which it has done. But the RICO act also had a provision that permitted the bringing of civil RICO suits by private parties.

Just before Christmas last year, Trump had his lawyer, Richard Golub (Mr. Marisa Berenson), file a civil RICO suit against the perfectly respectable law firm of Fischbein, Olivieri, Rozenholc and (Herman) Badillo—the firm that had, in a highly publicized case, successfully represented the tenants of an apartment building Trump owns at 100 Central Park South. “I don’t like being pushed around,” Trump said at the time, “and now they’re beginning to learn it.”

Trump essentially argued that the opposing lawyers were racketeers because they opposed him—that their intention to “prevent, frustrate and inhibit” him from making larger profits by evicting the tenants constituted “extortion.”

A New York federal court told Trump to get lost, dismissing his case. Last spring the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed that decision. Now pending in district court is a motion by Fischbein, Olivieri asking that a Trump company and its lawyers be sanctioned for violating Rule 11 of the federal rules of civil procedure. Rule 11 prohibits lawyers from instituting, on behalf of their clients, civil suits that are filed “to harass or to cause unnecessary delay or needless increase in the cost of litigation.” If Trump loses, the court could order him to pay the legal expenses incurred by Fischbein, Olivieri.

Happily, the tide now seems to be running against Trump. The U.S. Department of Justice has come out in favor of forbidding civil RICO suits like Trump’s. And Congress seems about to do just that, by amending the law so that it permits civil suits only against convicted criminals.

Source: Thoughts To Paper
Photo: Wright Brothers’ Patent Drawing for a Flying Machine

Innovation has long been regarded as one of the principal drivers of economic prosperity, industrial development, and technological advancement in the United States (U.S.). From the mechanical inventions that fueled the Industrial Revolution to the sophisticated artificial intelligence systems, biotechnology breakthroughs, semiconductor technologies, renewable energy solutions, and quantum computing innovations that define the modern economy, inventors have consistently transformed scientific ideas into practical technologies that improve lives, create new industries, and strengthen economic competitiveness. Underpinning much of this progress is the U.S. patent system, a carefully designed legal framework that seeks to encourage innovation by granting inventors a temporary exclusive right over their inventions in exchange for making those inventions available to the public through full and enabling disclosure.

Among the three principal categories of patents available in the U.S., utility patents, design patents, and plant patents, the utility patent occupies the most significant position. Every year, the overwhelming majority of patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) are utility patents because they protect the functional and technical aspects of inventions rather than merely their appearance or particular botanical characteristics. Whether the invention concerns a pharmaceutical compound capable of treating previously incurable diseases, a sophisticated machine-learning algorithm that improves medical diagnostics, an innovative manufacturing process that increases industrial efficiency, or a simple yet ingenious mechanical improvement that enhances the performance of everyday products, the utility patent remains the primary legal mechanism through which inventors secure protection for technological innovation in the U.S.

Although utility patents are frequently discussed in business, legal, and engineering circles, misconceptions regarding their purpose and scope remain widespread. Many individuals mistakenly believe that a patent grants the owner the unrestricted right to manufacture or sell an invention, when in reality a patent confers a much more specific legal entitlement: the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the patented invention within the U.S. for a limited period. Others assume that any novel idea may be patented, overlooking the statutory and judicial requirements that every invention must satisfy before protection may be granted. These misunderstandings underscore the importance of understanding not only what a utility patent protects but also the legal principles that determine whether an invention qualifies for protection in the first place.

Thus, it is important to examine the nature, purpose, and scope of utility patents under U.S. law, with particular emphasis on the statutory framework established by the Patent Act, the constitutional foundations of the U.S. patent system, the evolving jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the examination practices of the USPTO as they exist in 2026. In doing so, it explores not merely the legal definition of a utility patent but also its practical significance in promoting innovation, encouraging investment, facilitating technology transfer, and contributing to long-term economic growth.

The Constitutional Foundation of the United States Patent System

Unlike many areas of intellectual property (IP) law that evolved primarily through judicial development, the American patent system derives directly from the U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, commonly referred to as the Patent and Copyright Clause, empowers Congress:

“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

Although this constitutional provision contains only a single sentence, it reflects a remarkably sophisticated understanding of the relationship between innovation and economic development. Rather than viewing exclusive rights as rewards bestowed upon inventors solely because of their ingenuity, it recognizes patents as instruments of public policy designed to encourage technological progress for the benefit of society as a whole.

This constitutional philosophy remains central to the U.S. patent law more than two centuries later. Every utility patent embodies a carefully balanced exchange between the inventor and the public. The inventor receives a temporary right to exclude others from exploiting the invention, while society receives something of lasting value, i.e., a complete public disclosure explaining how the invention works. Once the patent expires, that knowledge becomes freely available, enabling others to build upon the invention without restriction.

This balance explains why patents differ fundamentally from trade secrets. A trade secret derives its value from continued secrecy and may theoretically last indefinitely if confidentiality is maintained. A utility patent, by contrast, requires immediate public disclosure but rewards the inventor with exclusive rights for a limited period. The patent system therefore encourages openness rather than secrecy, ensuring that technological knowledge ultimately enriches the public domain.

The Development of the American Patent System

The constitutional provision quickly found legislative expression in the Patent Act of 1790, one of the earliest statutes enacted by the First Congress, and the aforesaid Act established the U.S.’s first patent system. But the Patent Act of 1790 was soon replaced by the Patent Act of 1793, which simplified procedures but largely eliminated substantive examination, relying instead upon a registration system. Experience quickly demonstrated that this approach resulted in the issuance of many invalid patents because inventions were no longer evaluated for novelty before grant.

Recognizing these shortcomings, the Patent Act of 1836 was enacted, which established the modern examination system and created the office that ultimately evolved into today’s USPTO. Professional patent examiners were appointed to conduct substantive examination, evaluate novelty, and maintain organized collections of prior art. Many regard the 1836 Act as the true beginning of the modern U.S. patent system because it introduced systematic examination based upon technical expertise.

Following that, although numerous legislative reforms occurred during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the most influential modern statute remains the Patent Act of 1952. This legislation codified decades of judicial precedent while introducing several important statutory provisions that continue to govern utility patents today. Most notably, Congress formally incorporated the doctrine of non-obviousness into 35 U.S.C. § 103, replacing the uncertain common-law standards that had previously developed through judicial decisions such as Hotchkiss v. Greenwood.

The 1952 Act also organized the principal patentability requirements into a coherent statutory structure that remains largely intact: 35 U.S.C. § 101 defines patent-eligible subject matter. 35 U.S.C. § 102 establishes novelty. 35 U.S.C. § 103 requires non-obviousness. 35 U.S.C. § 112 governs disclosure and claim drafting. 35 U.S.C. § 154 defines the rights conferred by an issued patent.

Although the statute has subsequently been amended, most notably by the Leahy–Smith America Invents Act of 2011, which introduced the first-inventor-to-file system and modernized several procedural aspects of patent law, the basic statutory framework established in 1952 continues to underpin USPTO examination and federal patent litigation.

What Is a Utility Patent?

A utility patent protects the functional and operational characteristics of an invention. Unlike other forms of patent protection, its emphasis lies not in how something looks but in how it works, what it does, and how it achieves a useful technological result.

Under 35 U.S.C. § 101, utility patents may be granted for: a process; a machine; a manufacture; a composition of matter; or a new and useful improvement of any of these categories. These statutory categories have intentionally broad scope, enabling the patent system to adapt to technological developments that could scarcely have been imagined when the legislation was enacted.

For example: (a) A new method of manufacturing carbon-fiber aircraft components may qualify as a process. (b) An autonomous warehouse robot may qualify as a machine. (c) A newly designed mechanical valve or electronic sensor may qualify as a manufacture. (d) A pharmaceutical compound or synthetic polymer may qualify as a composition of matter. (e) An improved lithium-ion battery architecture may qualify as an improvement to existing technology. This flexibility explains why utility patents continue to accommodate technologies ranging from nineteenth-century steam engines to twenty-first-century artificial intelligence systems.

What Does a Utility Patent Protect?

Perhaps the most important distinction for inventors to understand is that a utility patent protects the invention as defined by its patent claims, not merely the physical product described in the patent specification. The specification explains the invention in technical detail, often accompanied by drawings and examples, but the claims establish the legal boundaries of protection. This distinction has enormous practical significance.

Suppose an inventor develops a highly efficient electric vehicle charging system incorporating novel control software, improved cooling architecture, and innovative power management circuitry. The commercial product may contain hundreds or even thousands of components, but the patent need not protect every aspect of the finished product. Instead, the claims may focus specifically upon the inventive features that distinguish the charging system from existing technology.

Competitors remain free to develop different charging systems provided they do not practice the specific inventions defined by the patent claims. Conversely, a competitor may infringe the patent even if its commercial product differs substantially in appearance, provided it incorporates every essential limitation of the claimed invention.

For this reason, experienced patent practitioners frequently observe that claims define the legal invention, whereas the specification explains it.

Utility Patents Distinguished from Other Forms of Patent Protection

Understanding the scope of utility patents becomes easier when compared with the two other categories of patents recognized under the U.S. law.

A design patent protects the ornamental appearance of an article rather than its functional features. For example, the distinctive exterior configuration of a consumer electronic device, furniture design, or graphical user interface may qualify for design patent protection if it is new, original, and ornamental.

A plant patent, by contrast, protects certain new and distinct varieties of asexually reproduced plants.

Utility patents differ because they focus on technical functionality. Consequently, a single commercial product may simultaneously benefit from multiple forms of intellectual property protection.

A smartphone, for instance, may incorporate: utility patents covering wireless communication technologies, processors, cameras, battery management, and software innovations; design patents protecting the ornamental appearance of the device; and trademarks protecting the manufacturer’s branding. This layered approach illustrates the complementary nature of different intellectual property rights.

Patent Eligibility Under 35 U.S.C. § 101

Section 101 provides that whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent, subject to the conditions and requirements of the Patent Act. Although this language appears remarkably broad, the Supreme Court has consistently explained that Congress did not intend every discovery to be patentable. For more than a century, the Court has recognized three judicial exceptions that exist outside the express statutory language: laws of nature; natural phenomena; and abstract ideas.

These exceptions exist because they represent the fundamental building blocks of scientific and technological work. If an inventor could obtain exclusive ownership over gravity, electromagnetism, naturally occurring DNA, or basic mathematical relationships, future research would be significantly hindered rather than encouraged. The constitutional objective of promoting progress therefore requires that these foundational principles remain available for public use. The difficult task has always been distinguishing an unpatentable principle from a patentable technological application of that principle.

The Utility Requirement

Section 101 also requires that an invention be useful. Although this requirement is rarely controversial, it serves an important function. The invention must possess a specific, substantial, and credible utility.

Speculative inventions lacking demonstrated practical application generally fail this requirement. For example, an alleged perpetual motion machine unsupported by credible scientific evidence will ordinarily fail because it lacks demonstrated operability. Similarly, merely identifying a newly discovered chemical compound without establishing any practical use may prove insufficient.

The Federal Circuit discussed these principles in In re Fisher, 421 F.3d 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2005), involving expressed sequence tags used in biotechnology research. The court held that generalized research usefulness alone did not satisfy the statutory utility requirement.

Novelty Under 35 U.S.C. § 102

Even if an invention is patent-eligible and useful, it must still be new. Novelty represents one of the oldest principles of patent law. Simply stated, society does not reward inventors for rediscovering what is already publicly known.

Section 102 therefore bars patents where the claimed invention was previously patented, described in printed publications, publicly used, offered for sale, or otherwise made available to the public before the effective filing date.

The America Invents Act significantly modernized Section 102 by adopting a first-inventor-to-file system. Today, priority generally depends upon filing date rather than the date of invention. This reform harmonized U.S. patent practice more closely with other major patent jurisdictions.

Prior Art

Novelty depends upon comparison with the prior art. Prior art encompasses far more than earlier patents. It includes: published patent applications; journal articles; conference papers; technical manuals; commercial products; websites; public demonstrations; academic theses; standards documents; and numerous other publicly accessible disclosures.

During examination, USPTO examiners conduct extensive prior-art searches using both patent and non-patent literature. Applicants likewise frequently conduct pre-filing prior-art searches to evaluate patentability and guide drafting strategy.

Anticipation

Novelty is defeated through anticipation. A claim is anticipated if a single prior-art reference discloses every element of the claimed invention, either expressly or inherently. The Federal Circuit summarized this principle in Verdegaal Bros., Inc. v. Union Oil Co. of California, 814 F.2d 628 (Fed. Cir. 1987), explaining that every limitation must be found within one reference arranged as claimed. This strict standard distinguishes novelty from obviousness, which permits combinations of multiple references.

Non-Obviousness Under 35 U.S.C. § 103

The requirement of non-obviousness, codified in 35 U.S.C. § 103, represents one of the most significant safeguards within the Patent Act. While novelty asks whether the invention already exists in the prior art, non-obviousness asks a different and more sophisticated question: would the invention have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the relevant field at the time the invention was made?

The distinction is critical. An invention may be entirely new because no identical disclosure exists in the prior art, yet still represent nothing more than a predictable combination of existing technologies. Patent law seeks to reward genuine ingenuity rather than ordinary technical skill, and Section 103 ensures that exclusive rights are reserved for inventions that reflect a meaningful inventive contribution.

A Practical Example of Non-Obviousness

Consider an engineer who develops a drone equipped with existing GPS navigation, commercially available obstacle sensors, and conventional wireless communication technology. If these components are simply assembled using routine engineering techniques to perform their expected functions, the invention may be considered obvious under Section 103. Conversely, suppose the inventor develops a novel control architecture enabling the drone to coordinate sensor data and artificial intelligence algorithms in a manner that substantially improves autonomous navigation under unpredictable environmental conditions. If this technological improvement was neither taught nor suggested by the prior art and produced unexpected technical benefits, it may satisfy the non-obviousness requirement. This example illustrates that patentability often depends not upon the novelty of individual components but upon the inventive character of the technological combination as a whole.

The Disclosure Requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 112

If Sections 101 through 103 determine whether an invention deserves patent protection, 35 U.S.C. § 112 determines whether the inventor has fulfilled the public side of the patent bargain.

The patent specification must provide sufficient information to demonstrate that the inventor actually possessed the invention, enable others to make and use it, and define the scope of the invention with reasonable certainty. These requirements distinguish patents from mere announcements of ideas or research aspirations. A patent is intended to be a technical teaching document as well as a legal instrument.

Written Description

The written description requirement ensures that inventors claim only what they actually invented. The leading authority is Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Eli Lilly & Co., 598 F.3d 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2010), in which the Federal Circuit confirmed that written description constitutes an independent requirement separate from enablement. The court explained that the patent specification must demonstrate that the inventor was in possession of the claimed invention on the filing date. Merely describing a desirable research objective or biological function is insufficient if the specification does not adequately disclose how that objective is achieved.

This doctrine has become particularly important in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and chemistry, where applicants sometimes seek claims covering broad classes of molecules before identifying representative species.

Enablement

Closely related to written description is the enablement requirement. A patent specification must teach a person having ordinary skill in the art how to make and use the invention without requiring undue experimentation. The Federal Circuit established the governing framework in In re Wands, 858 F.2d 731 (Fed. Cir. 1988), identifying several factors relevant to determining whether experimentation would be undue, including the quantity of experimentation required, the predictability of the technology, the amount of guidance provided, the breadth of the claims, and the presence of working examples. Enablement ensures that the public receives meaningful technical knowledge in exchange for granting exclusive rights.

Definiteness

Section 112 also requires that patent claims define the invention with sufficient clarity. In Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc., 572 U.S. 898 (2014), the Supreme Court held that patent claims must inform persons skilled in the relevant art of the scope of the invention with reasonable certainty. Absolute precision is impossible in many scientific disciplines, but patents must nevertheless provide fair notice regarding the boundaries of the exclusive rights granted.

The USPTO Examination Process

After filing, a utility patent application is assigned to a USPTO examiner possessing technical expertise in the relevant field. The examiner conducts a comprehensive prior-art search and evaluates compliance with Sections 101, 102, 103, and 112. In practice, the examination process often becomes an iterative dialogue between the examiner and the applicant.

If the examiner identifies deficiencies, an Office Action is issued explaining the legal basis for any rejection or objection. Common grounds include patent-ineligible subject matter, lack of novelty, obviousness, inadequate disclosure, indefiniteness, or procedural issues.

Applicants may respond by amending claims, presenting legal arguments, submitting supporting evidence, or requesting an examiner interview. It is common for several rounds of correspondence to occur before an application proceeds to allowance or reaches a final rejection.

Experienced practitioners recognize that successful patent prosecution requires not only technical expertise but also careful legal strategy. Statements made during prosecution may later influence claim interpretation in litigation through the doctrine of prosecution history estoppel, making thoughtful advocacy essential throughout the examination process.

The Commercial Value of Utility Patents

Once granted, a utility patent becomes a valuable form of intellectual property that may be assigned, licensed, sold, inherited, or pledged as collateral. Importantly, a patent grants its owner the right to exclude others, not an affirmative right to practice the invention. A patented improvement may itself rely upon earlier patents owned by others, requiring licenses before commercialization can occur.

For many businesses, patents serve strategic functions extending far beyond litigation. They attract investment, strengthen market position, facilitate technology transfer, support licensing programs, and enhance corporate valuation. Universities likewise rely upon utility patents to commercialize publicly funded research under the Bayh–Dole Act of 1980, which allows qualifying institutions to retain ownership of inventions arising from federally funded research while promoting technology transfer to industry.

One striking example of the commercial significance of patent portfolios occurred in 2011, when the patent assets of the bankrupt telecommunications company Nortel Networks were sold for approximately US$4.5 billion. The acquiring consortium valued the portfolio not because of physical manufacturing assets, but because the patents themselves represented strategically important technologies in wireless communications and networking. The transaction demonstrated that utility patents may constitute valuable business assets independent of the products originally associated with them.

Comparative Perspective

Although this blog has focused on the U.S. law, the fundamental principles governing utility patents (or by whatever other names their equivalents are called in other jurisdictions) are reflected in many other jurisdictions. The European Patent Office, as well as patent systems in Japan, China, South Korea, Canada, Australia, and India, likewise require inventions to be novel, inventive, and sufficiently disclosed before patent protection is granted. Nevertheless, important doctrinal differences remain, particularly regarding software, biotechnology, and patent eligibility, making jurisdiction-specific advice essential when international protection is sought.

Conclusion

The utility patent remains the cornerstone of the U.S. patent system because it reflects a carefully balanced legal and economic policy that has successfully encouraged innovation for more than two centuries. By granting inventors a limited right to exclude others in exchange for the public disclosure of new technologies, the patent system rewards creativity while ensuring that technological knowledge ultimately enriches society as a whole.

Modern utility patent law is the product of constitutional principles, congressional legislation, USPTO examination practice, and a substantial body of judicial precedent developed by the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit which collectively demonstrate that the patent system is not static but continually adapts to scientific and technological change while remaining faithful to its constitutional purpose.

As innovation accelerates in fields such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, and quantum computing, the utility patent will continue to play a central role in encouraging research, attracting investment, facilitating technology transfer, and promoting economic growth. Although debates concerning patent eligibility, disclosure standards, and the proper scope of exclusive rights will undoubtedly continue, the fundamental bargain underlying the utility patent remains unchanged: society rewards inventors not simply for having ideas, but for transforming those ideas into practical technological advances and sharing the knowledge necessary to inspire the next generation of innovation.

Source: Yahoo News, Logan K. Carter
Photo: City of Dallas – Department of Sanitation Services/Facebook

It turns out those Flock cameras aren’t the only example of AI surveillance that are ticking people off anymore. The city of Dallas, TX has installed side-facing AI-powered cameras onto its garbage trucks that photograph properties, scan the photos for any potential code violations, and assign what’s called a ‘blight score’ based on the severity of the code infraction.

50 trash trucks carry two cameras each, aimed at either side of the street, where they take photos from the public right-of-way to flag code violations. So far over 21,000 properties have been flagged, resulting in about 1,800 courtesy notices which, if left unaddressed, can later turn into a fine.

NBC Dallas Fort Worth obtained city records that show notes on every infraction the cameras found, including their blight score which ranks code violations from one to four based on their severity. It includes complaints like lawn grass height, debris on the sidewalk, branches on the lawn, and issues with paint.

Unsurprisingly the majority of citations were issued in economically challenged neighborhoods

Dallas announced a three-year, $2.5 million contract with the company City Detect for these AI cameras last year, but the city only began testing them on trash trucks in April, and ramped up their efforts over the summer. NBC mapped the locations of the code violations detected by the cameras and found that most detections are in economically depressed areas in Southern Dallas.

Human reviewers use the blight scores as a way to determine which photos to analyze and which properties to notify about their infractions, city officials told NBC. The goal is saving time and helping code enforcement officers detect violations more quickly, they said, but residents counter that the cameras are a violation of privacy and that the stricter enforcement is a threat to Dallas’ historic Bottom neighborhood, originally settled as a Freedmen’s Town in 1845. City officials denied that was the intent of the program.

The cameras blur license plates and the faces of any humans in the images, and City Detect’s CEO said they are not connected to law enforcement or any federal databases. Dallas City Council member Chad West proposed a budget amendment that would strip funding for the cameras on Wednesday, but he agreed to table his request after the city manager apparently agreed to a hearing on the issue in December.

A majority of Dallas City Council members signaled that they want to move forward with their $1.5 million budget to keep the city’s 321 AI-powered Flock ALPR cameras operational since they are “a key tool for solving crimes and tracking down suspects.” The vote is non-binding, but comes in opposition to a suggestion to cut funding for these controversy embroiled AI cameras, too.

Read the original article on Jalopnik.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/dallas-installed-ai-cameras-garbage

Source: The Mercury News, NOAH BERGER, TERRY CHEA and ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN, Associated Press
Photo: Karl Deisseroth, one of the three recipients of the 2026 Nobel Prize in medicine, talks to his wife Michelle Monje-Deisseroth at home Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, in Stanford, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Dr. Karl Deisseroth spent hours fielding congratulatory calls after learning early Monday that he had won a Nobel Prize for medicine for helping to open a new field of brain science called optogenetics.

But it wasn’t long before the California scientist asked for a break from all the attention for a more ordinary task: He needed to make school lunches for his children, who were asleep in the family home in Stanford, where their father had been speaking in the middle of the night with journalists and well-wishers.

Deisseroth, 54, shared this year’s medicine prize with two researchers in Germany for their work in optogenetics, a field that combines light with genes to switch on and off neurons in living brains.

A self-described night owl, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and Stanford University professor often works past midnight. After reviewing papers and emailing his students, he said he had just gone to lie down when he got the call from the Nobel Assembly in Stockholm.

“I almost felt as if I’d lost the power of forming words,” he told The Associated Press, “but I recovered after a minute or two.”

He regained speech quickly enough for remote interviews with AP science reporters. Speedy emails with the Stanford communications staff had helped put them in touch.

“No real sleep was achieved,” he said an hour after the announcement.

As the science reporters chatted with Deisseroth over the phone and Zoom, an AP photographer and videographer raced to his home in Stanford.

The photographer arrived around 3:30 a.m. to find Halloween decorations outside the home but just one light on inside. He was worried he had the wrong house before mustering the courage to knock on the door.

Dr. Michelle Monje-Deisseroth, the scientist’s wife, answered and ushered the photographer into their home, where the Nobel winner was taking calls from the couch.

Monje-Deisseroth, an HHMI investigator and Stanford pediatric neuro-oncologist, was at his side when she wasn’t making coffee for the Stanford communications staff who had joined the celebration. Deisseroth was surprised to hear his work had been honored with a Nobel Prize, he told the AP, but his wife was not.

Deisseroth recounted the research he conducted with fellow Nobel winners Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel, and its real-world impact.

“For me, I’m a physician-scientist. I am a psychiatrist. I care about patients and my patients who have autism, who have depression,” he said. “I care about the hope that this brings. But I’m also a basic scientist, and I care about understanding this amazing organ, the brain, and how it works and how it integrates and computes and delivers all the things that make us human.”

As Deisseroth wrapped up the interviews, he told the Stanford staff he needed an hourlong break beginning at 6:30 a.m. His kids would be waking up, he said, and they would need lunches before leaving for school.

When one of the Stanford representatives wondered if the neighbors would mind all the late-night commotion, Monje-Deisseroth shrugged it off.

They live in faculty housing, she said. There are a lot of Nobels in the neighborhood.

Ramakrishnan reported from New York. Associated Press writers Stefanie Dazio in Berlin and Lauran Neergaard in Washington contributed to this report.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/10/05/california-scientist-wins-a-nobel-prize-then-makes-school-lunches-for-his-kids

Source: Retail Dive, Justin Bachman
Photo: A bill to give merchants a federal framework for how to round cash transactions, the Common Cents Act, passed the Senate on Monday with the legislation heading to President Donald Trump. (Getty Images)

Our Two Cents

Apparently, Washington has decided it’s time to get serious about saving money—starting with the penny. The Senate has passed the Common Cents Act, establishing a framework for rounding cash transactions and formally moving the country toward life without the one-cent coin.

Nothing says fiscal responsibility quite like pinching pennies while spending tens of billions of dollars on a war with Iran. The Congressional Budget Office put the cost of the war at about $38 billion through August 1, with another $3 billion a month projected if it continues.

So, congratulations, America. We’re saving a few cents at the cash register while the Pentagon is burning through billions. Apparently, every penny counts—unless you’re dropping them from a bomber.

The measure to provide merchants a cash rounding framework and to formally phase out the penny now heads to the White House.

Dive Brief:

The Common Cents Act, which gives merchants a legal framework for rounding to the nearest nickel amid a dearth of pennies, passed the Senate on Monday night and heads to President Donald Trump.

The bipartisan bill — which also formally ends U.S. Mint production of the penny — represents a victory for merchants that had sought federal guidance on how to more efficiently handle cash transactions as pennies gradually fade from circulation. The measure doesn’t apply to electronic transactions.

In a press release Tuesday, NACS — the National Association of Convenience Stores — hailed passage of the bill and said Trump is expected to sign it in the coming weeks. “The act provides guidance that is critical for businesses that process cash transactions as the number of pennies in circulation continues to dwindle,” Brennan Duckett, director of regulatory and policy at NACS, said in the release.

Dive Insight:

The legislation had two votes in both the House and Senate due to an amendment added in the Senate version when that chamber endorsed the bill in August. That set up a second House vote earlier this month, followed by the second Senate ratification on Monday.

In an emailed statement Tuesday, Dylan Jeon, vice president of government relations for the National Retail Federation, praised passage of the bill as “a solution to a real problem for retailers,” and said the legislation “provides much-needed consistency for both businesses and consumers.”

The association also urged Trump to “sign this bill into law without delay.”

The House bill was cosponsored by Michigan Republican Rep. Lisa McClain and Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California. The Senate version was sponsored by Sens. Cynthia M. Lummis (R-WY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).

In a Tuesday post on her X social media page, Lummis thanked her current and former Senate colleagues for their support of the bill.

The final batch of pennies was struck last November, nine months after Trump directed the U.S. Treasury to stop making pennies, citing their cost inefficiency. The department estimated $56 million in annual savings by ending penny production. Under the bill, pennies will still be produced as collectible coins.

Beyond its rounding language, the legislation also directs the Treasury Department to explore alternative metal options using zinc instead of copper for the nickel to lower production costs for the 5-cent coin.

The bill first passed by the Senate included an amendment by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren that requires the Treasury Department to notify Congress of any future currency discontinuation, along with a transition plan, according to two retail industry trade associations. That change to the bill set up the subsequent second votes for the House and Senate.

https://abcnews.com/US/wireStory/congress-votes-end-production-penny-after-234-years

Source: Democracy Docket, Marc Elias
Photo: ChatGPT

Earlier this year, The New York Times asked Donald Trump whether he regretted not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines in swing states after the 2020 election. His answer was chilling: “Well, I should have.”

Trump is telling us what he plans to do in this year’s midterms. He is trying to rig the elections and subvert their results. While we have been able to stop him so far, there is no guarantee that we will continue to prevail in the weeks ahead.

Yet despite the obvious signs of Trump’s plan, too many reporters and pundits downplay it. They adhere to the false neutrality that has come to dominate legacy media coverage over the last decade.

No phrase captures this attitude more clearly than the admonition to take Trump seriously but not literally. The suggestion is that only out-of-touch elites pay attention to his actual words. Real voters — and those in the media who claim to speak for them — know to focus on his vibes.

When it comes to voting and elections, this advice has been catastrophically wrong. In 2020, Trump’s words before the election were prophetic about what he would do afterward. His refusal to concede foreshadowed the attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump is once again in power, and he is again telling us his plan. He has weaponized the entire federal government — including the Department of Justice and the U.S. Postal Service — to make voting more difficult.

He is threatening to deploy federal agents at the polls and to disrupt voting. And he is reaching for every other tool of election rigging: partisan gerrymandering, restrictions on voter registration, attacks on mail-in voting and the use of bogus lists to purge eligible citizens from the rolls.

But most dangerous is what he has been saying for more than a year about the counting, tabulation and certification of election results. Despite what the U.S. Constitution says, he has repeatedly claimed the power to direct this process.

This is not a new idea. It has been his plan all along.

Welcome to The Weekly Spill—Silicon Bay Partners’ regularly scheduled download of thoughts, takes, and the occasional side-eye at the world as it actually is (not just as it’s pitched in a deck). Each week, we sift through the noise across current events, politics, startups, and financial markets to bring you what matters—and what’s just pretending to. 

We aim to keep things light, even when the topics aren’t. That means a bit of satire where it’s earned, a bit of skepticism where it’s called for, and a commitment to staying grounded in facts even when opinions sneak in through the side door. We won’t always be non-judgmental—but we will always try to be clear-eyed.

Think of this as your informed, occasionally irreverent briefing for the week ahead. Read it for insight, stay for perspective, and feel free to disagree—that’s o.k. too. Fair warning: Sometimes we spill more than once a week!

Sweetly, Weird?

Snickers and Adidas are teaming up on a limited-edition pair of football cleats and a candy bar. To ring in the start of NFL season and Halloween, the Adizero Electric II cleats borrow Snickers’ deep chocolate-brown shades with a green insole, a bedazzled “S,” and yellow text reading “Go Nuts” on the heel flap. Maybe we’ll wait for whenever Reese’s drops slippers. 

The Smell Test

If you live in Boston — take a whiff. The city topped the list of the best-smelling cities in America, according to online casino McLuck. The analysis scored cities on cleanliness, air quality, green space, and “garbage disposal satisfaction,” as well as the amount of candle stores, bakeries, florists, and perfumeries. Washington, San Francisco, Seattle, and Philadelphia rounded out the top five, and SF’s 19.8 bakery score is proof chocolate chip cookies do fix everything. 

Fancy Sharing A Jet?

You hop off your jet, step into the private terminal, and see — oh no — your friend from back home just arrived too. You could’ve flown together. Man. A startup called FlyWith aims to fix that when its invitation-only private jet-sharing app debuts next month. The goal: filling up empty seats with vetted, cost-sharing friends headed in the same direction. Finally.

What’s Your Fantasy?

Tech consultant Justin Kersey ditched his day job to fulfill a fantasy: building fantasy-themed vacation rentals inspired by Harry Potter. Full of fantastical details like potion cabinets, sorting hats, and fairy villages, each cottage cost $700k to build. The properties rent for $200 to $700/night and average 90% occupancy — Kersey expects the three cottages to gross $375k this year. Muggles are welcome but no guarantees of a house-elf cleaning up after your stay.

Source: CNet, Katie Collins
Photo: What if smart glasses could see everything but your face? (Jeffrey Hazelwood/CNET)

Wearable cameras and smart glasses pose a threat to everyone’s privacy. But what if they couldn’t see your face?

A man walks into a party and spends the evening networking with new people without getting his phone out even once. As he leaves at the end of the night, he tells his smart glasses to add the people he just met that evening on LinkedIn with a note about how they could collaborate.

This is the vision that Shawn Shen, co-founder of Memories.ai, put forward at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii last week. Shen presented this idea as a net positive – a problem solved. In this scenario, the glasses were allowing the man to be fully present and handing off the labor of remembering everyone’s names and faces to an invisible third party.

But this is also an example of how one person’s utopian ideal can be another’s dystopian nightmare. As Shen spoke on stage, pitching his vision for smart glasses and AI agents, there was an undercurrent of uncomfortable shuffling and side glances around the room. People were clearly not comfortable with the notion of surrendering all rights to personal privacy simply to avoid a minor inconvenience.

Wearable cameras are in the midst of a PR crisis. The “pervert glasses” moniker has hit the mainstream, and the backlash shows no signs of stopping. And it’s about more than just people surreptitiously taking videos and photos as they could do with their phones.

The technology industry’s long-term proposal for smart glasses, such as Meta’s Ray-Bans and their ilk, is for people to walk around sporting always-on cameras that absorb massive amounts of data. The vision is that they’ll be part of an always-sensing personal network of devices that can understand the context of who we are and the lives we live.

If smart glasses only collected data belonging to the wearer, the decision to wear them and opt into this AI-powered personal network would be highly individual and far less controversial. Instead, camera-equipped glasses on the market currently are designed to swallow any of our data falling within their line of sight – including our most highly identifiable features: our faces.

Is obscuring faces the answer to a privacy nightmare?

At best, it feels icky. At worst, it feels like we’re all being encouraged to actively participate in and perpetuate mass surveillance.

But what if the glasses could see everything but also exclude people’s faces? Call it facial obfuscation, an idea that Qualcomm is putting forward as a way to maintain the privacy of the people you come into contact with while still enabling AI-driven experiences that require context about who we are and the lives we’re living.

It’s a capability called “all-sensing camera” that’s available right now, built into the sensing hub of Qualcomm’s most recent wearable chips. This feature enables very low-resolution imaging that can detect a mouth and two eyes, which indicates a face, but covers up the specifics so the face can’t actually be recognized. In other words, it knows someone is there, but not exactly who that person is.

“I don’t really need to send all these faces for AI processing,” Ziad Asghar, Qualcomm’s general manager of XR, wearables and personal AI, said in a roundtable with journalists. “What I really need to do is to be able to send the context.”

Having a vague understanding of who is around you helps the glasses understand where you are – at home, or out in public, for example. But you don’t need to know exactly who is in a room with you at all times, with facial recognition noting down individual people’s presence and performing background checks linking you to your LinkedIn and other social media.

In business circumstances and in specific regions, there are already data protection rules that prevent this type of invasive data gathering, processing and storing. More widely, the idea of taking no more than what you actually need isn’t revolutionary – except in tech, which has long traded on a business model of hoarding the maximum amount of our data at all times.

The catch is this: Qualcomm makes the underlying chipsets, not the consumer-facing products we actually buy, meaning Qualcomm itself can’t solve privacy concerns posed by wearable cameras, said George Jijiashvili, senior principal analyst at Omdia.

“Basically, the buck stops with the service providers, be that Meta or Google or whoever that may be,” he said.

Your move, glasses-makers

Last week, Meta unveiled its first pair of audio-only glasses, with other smart glasses-makers set to follow. This is certainly one solution to the privacy issues caused by camera-equipped glasses, but it does mean that any AI agents working for you in the background will be missing out on visual information about your surroundings.

In light of this, facial obfuscation could well be another solution companies including Meta would consider deploying, said Ben Hatton, analyst at FDM CCS.

“You can maintain that kind of vision-led context without having to completely change the kind of composition of the product by taking the camera out,” he said. “Whether that fully alleviates any of the privacy concerns is kind of yet to be seen. But this is the kind of development that I guess the industry is going to need in order to start sort of quelling some of those real fears.”

Asghar wouldn’t name any companies considering adopting Qualcomm’s facial obfuscation, but said, “We have multiple partners that we’re engaged with right now to be able to create that sort of an experience.”

All of Qualcomm’s partners in the rapidly growing smart glasses market are concerned about privacy and establishing people’s trust, Ashgar said. “It is in the interest of our customers to do devices that people feel comfortable with.”

Meta confirmed it already uses automated filters to remove identifying information, including blurring faces and license plates, when you query Meta AI. The company didn’t comment about whether it would consider using further facial obfuscation tech in future products.

Forrester Principal Analyst Kate Winick said she could imagine Meta eventually adopting facial obfuscation as one way to answer privacy concerns. But, she added, “To maintain the full utility of the product, they will have to make it optional, and as we’ve seen with other Meta safety features that are available on an opt-in basis, utilization is much lower than features which are core to the product or even opt-out.”

Trust issues remain potent

Ultimately, if facial obfuscation remains optional, or it’s only deployed in a handful of products, the more widespread trust issues will remain.

As Jijiashvili pointed out, if someone is wearing a camera with glasses, “How do other people around the user know that they are using this fancy AI technology that can obfuscate their face?”

Companies tend to focus on smart glasses from the wearer’s perspective – and that includes Qualcomm. “If people have concerns, they don’t buy the device,” said Asghar.

But this ignores the wider social context in which they’re designed to be used, not to mention the social contract, which feels like it’s being renegotiated in real time.

People’s privacy has already been violated by smart glasses, and trust in the safeguards is already low. “It’s unlikely that people will find [facial obfuscation] to be much of a consolation without some kind of indicator that the feature was on and assurance that it was impossible to reverse,” said Winick.

It’s not necessarily too late for companies to course correct in establishing trust, said Jijiashvili, but it is going to be difficult in the face of all the negativity.

It also helps that Qualcomm and others are focusing on on-device processing, which prevents data from being unnecessarily sent to the cloud and keeps it locked down as much as possible. Apple is particularly hot on this, Jijiashvili added, with the company limiting the new Audio Intelligence capabilities, such as Live Rewind, on its latest Apple Watches to capturing short snippets rather than endlessly recording conversations.

But whether it be on-device data processing, time-limited content capture, LED lights or facial obfuscation, technology solutions may still fail to convince many people that wearable cameras aren’t an invasion of their privacy.

The burden of establishing trust falls upon the technology companies making these products, even though what stands in their way is largely a subset of people who may always find ways to abuse these tools, regardless of so-called safeguards.

“Given the types of videos we’ve seen that have caused so much of this backlash, it must be said that anonymization doesn’t eliminate the harm of the violation,” said Winick. “If using this technology allows perpetrators to avoid consequences for hurting the human behind the blur, it is not necessarily to the benefit of the people it is supposed to protect.”

Editor’s note: Katie Collins’ travel costs for the Snapdragon Summit were covered by Qualcomm. The judgments and opinions of CNET are our own.

Katie Collins
Principal Writer

Katie is a UK-based news reporter and features writer. Officially, she is CNET’s European correspondent, covering tech policy and Big Tech in the EU and UK. Unofficially, she serves as CNET’s Taylor Swift correspondent. You can also find her writing about tech for good, ethics and human rights, the climate crisis, robots, travel and digital culture. She was once described a “living synth” by London’s Evening Standard for having a microchip injected into her hand.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/smart-glasses-facial-obfuscation-qualcomm-chips

Source: Make Use Of, Dan Selcke
Photo: Seinfeld

Netflix is home to a great many terrific comedies, movies and TV shows alike. That includes original series like Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, I Think You Should Leave, and Grace and Frankie, shows that are native to Netflix and you’ll never be able to get anywhere else. But none of those shows have become pop culture phenomenons. In the age of the streaming wars, where there are as many platforms as there are fans to watch, perhaps nothing can.

But streamers like Netflix can pilfer pop culture phenomena from the past. That’s what happened in 2021, when Netflix secured the rights to stream all 180 episodes of the classic NBC sitcom Seinfeld. It’s been a huge draw ever since, but it won’t be on Netflix forever.

Seinfeld still holds up

It seems almost patronizing to describe what Seinfeld is about, but we’ve got to start somewhere. The NBC show ran from 1989 to 1998 and became one of the most popular sitcoms in an era dominated by hugely popular sitcoms. Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld), George (Jason Alexander), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and Kramer (Michael Richards) produced too many iconic moments to count. There’s the reign of the Soup Nazi, the battle with the Bubble Boy, Elaine’s “Little Kicks” dance, celebrating Festivus with the Feats of Strength, Kramer losing the Contest, George suffering from shrinkage, Jerry wearing the Puffy Shirt, Susan dying from licking too many cheap wedding invitations…we could go on and on. Pick your favorites.

Seinfeld produced 180 episodes in all, so it was a huge coup when Netflix secured the streaming rights in 2019 to the tune of $500 million, taking it away from Hulu and beating out competitors like Amazon, Peacock, HBO Max, and CBS All Access. Since then, the show has been a consistent draw for Netflix.

You might not think that a show from the ’90s would be this popular, but it doesn’t pay to underestimate the draw of familiar comfort food. People like what they know, and a lot of Seinfeld’s most famous episodes and moments have become part of the wider culture. “Yada yada yada.” “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” “These pretzels are making me thirsty.” Like I said, we could keep going. That gives the show brand recognition it’s nearly impossible to replicate in an era when people don’t watch TV like they used to. In the ’90s, there were simply fewer options for entertainment, and platforms like YouTube and TikTok weren’t around to distract people from their TVS. So of course sitcoms like Seinfeld and Friends and Frasier got massive penetration.

Although that could be selling Seinfeld a bit short. Even back then, it was the best of the major network sitcoms, and even though some things about it are now dated — it’s weird to drop in on a world without smartphones — the comedy is still sharp. Now and then, watching George quit his job in a huff, regret it, and then try to go back to work acting as if nothing happened is still funny.

The state of sitcoms in the age of streaming

Netflix streaming Seinfeld isn’t just a win for the streaming service; it’s a necessity. In the 2010s, before companies like Disney and HBO and NBC and others all started their own streaming services, you could watch lots of great classic sitcoms on Netflix, including Friends, The Office, Frasier, and 30 Rock. It was an easy, one-stop spot.

Those times are over, which is terrible for ordinary people who just want to watch their favorite shows. Friends, one of the few ’90s sitcoms to really compete with Seinfeld when it comes to cultural impact, is on HBO Max, where it’s consistently one of the top draws. The Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation and others are all on Peacock. The Simpsons is on Disney+, and Frasier is on Hulu (you can also stream big chunks of it on free streaming services like Pluto TV and Roku, which have tons of great free content if you know what you’re looking for).

So Netflix didn’t spent $500 million on Seinfeld out of the goodness of its heart; it needs at least one major comfort food sitcom in its library if it’s going to keep people from jumping ship. But that may just be a stop-gap measure.

Seinfeld is leaving Netflix
Unless Netflix does something about it

Seinfeld landed on Netflix on October 1, 2021. The deal will keep it there for five years, meaning that it could leave the platform as early as October 1, 2026.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the show will actually leave, since Netflix knows how valuable it is and will surely do everything it can to keep it around, but if you want to revive the good times — or if you’ve somehow never seen Seinfeld and want to see what all the fuss was about — time could be running out. Popular shows and movies do leave regularly Netflix, with Netflix always scramling to replace them with something equally enticing. But what could replace a show like Seinfeld?

The irreplaceability of Seinfeld

And that’s ultimately why Seinfeld outstrips so many Netflix original comedies; it’s not necessarily than Seinfeld is sharper and funnier than a lot of the original stuff that Netflix makes (although it definitely can be), it’s that the show has a legacy nothing else on the platform does.

So will it leave later this year? It’s possible, we don’t know anything for sure. For now, just turn on the TV and repeat to yourself: “Serenity now.”

https://www.makeuseof.com/500-million-seinfeld-leaving-netflix-2026