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Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

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Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#81

Post by dragonwriter »

mwfunk wrote: post #78
jpizzle wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holmes figured out a pathway to violate the trust of old man wisdom. Sounds like she just fished the right old men. One of those that that’s incredibly mature in one aspect of life and threw all her effort in that direction naively ignoring the rest of of what “trust” actually facilitates. Poo poo for the men who were fished... don’t s*!t where you eat.

What on earth does that even mean in this context? "Don’t shit where you eat" is a warning against office romances. This is plain old fraud AFAIK.

> "Don’t shit where you eat" is a warning against office romances.

It's a warning against poisoning an environment on which you depend that has been applied to lots more than office romances, though that may be the most common use in some social circles today.

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#82

Post by SloopJon »

dragonwriter wrote: post #81
mwfunk wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth does that even mean in this context? "Don’t shit where you eat" is a warning against office romances. This is plain old fraud AFAIK.

> "Don’t shit where you eat" is a warning against office romances. It's a warning against poisoning an environment on which you depend that has been applied to lots more than office romances, though that may be the most common use in some social circles today.

This is the first time I've ever heard that term used in the context of office romances.

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#83

Post by danso »

I wonder what u/Alupis is thinking today? via a HN thread in 2014:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7951624

> Seems rather sad state of our Patent system here in the US where a 19 year old with no prior technical background, who was a Chemical Engineering student, a sophomore no less (meaning barely finished or finishing General Ed. requirements and just starting Major courses), can write and file for a highly-technical patent involving radios, sensors, embedded devices, and the like...

> It's very doubtful she understood how any of that works, or would work in her product/patent. Underlying story seems it's absurd this was patent-able.

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#85

Post by JasonFruit »

SloopJon wrote: post #82
dragonwriter wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Don’t shit where you eat" is a warning against office romances. It's a warning against poisoning an environment on which you depend that has been applied to lots more than office romances, though that may be the most common use in some social circles today.

This is the first time I've ever heard that term used in the context of office romances.

It's an uncomfortably mixed metaphor.

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#86

Post by jwatte »

sorokod wrote: post #26
jdietrich wrote: post #12

The patents don't really tell you whether the Theranos technology actually works. They cover small parts of the overall system - fluid handling, centrifuge configurations, software processes and so on. It's quite common for companies to use a mix of patents and trade secrets to protect their technology. Filing for patent protection is a tradeoff - you gain the exclusive right to use that invention for 20 years, but t…

But are they required to deliver individually? If not I can imagine patents in the spirit of "fake it before you make it" which may be applied against someone else who "made it" while the patent holder still "fakes it" or not even trying to.

Or, one source of patent troll fodder.

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#87

Post by jwatte »

astrodev wrote: post #69
acjohnson55 wrote: post #65

Inspectors don't really concern themselves with verifying that an invention works. That would be insanely expensive. It's on the inventor to make something work so that they can profit. Although I do think inventors should have some burden of proof that they're effectively using their patent to provide a service to the market that justifies their monopoly protection.

As a matter of fact, it is normal for patent examiners to not even read the invention specification and focus only on the claims. I was surprised to learn that from a patent attorney, but it seems to be common knowledge, e.g. [1]. Upon reflection, that's the only way it can work. A generalist patent examiner could never understand all the inventions given the volume of applications they must handle. [1] http://www.ip…

It's only the claims that matter, but the claims typically draw on vocabulary and context established in the disclosure. Often, part of getting a patent granted is clarifying the disclosure such that the examiner can understand the idea and how it's different from previous art.

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#88

Post by mwfunk »

dragonwriter wrote: post #81
mwfunk wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth does that even mean in this context? "Don’t shit where you eat" is a warning against office romances. This is plain old fraud AFAIK.

> "Don’t shit where you eat" is a warning against office romances. It's a warning against poisoning an environment on which you depend that has been applied to lots more than office romances, though that may be the most common use in some social circles today.

That makes sense. I’ve only ever heard it used in that context, but the more general interpretation is a much more logical use of the metaphor.

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#89

Post by carapace »

There's uBeam, the company trying to charge devices using ultrasound. Apparently it's still hard to tell from the outside if this is going to work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBeam

Or Magic Leap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Leap

> In December 2017, UK IT news site, The Register, reported that Magic Leap is a vaporware company that "has received nearly $2bn in funding over four years, values itself at $6bn, and has yet to produce anything but fake technology."

> On March 7, 2018, Magic Leap raised $461 million in Series D funding led by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, the country's sovereign wealth fund.[25]

Half a billion dollars for vaporware?

But there are lots of fun ways to spend your money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_3

> Cal 3 is a state ballot initiative to split the U.S. state of California into three states. It was launched in August 2017 by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper.

Reminds me of my favorite ever Richard Pryor joke: "Cocaine is Nature's way of telling you, 'You have too much money.'"

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#90

Post by aaron695 »

It was known to be bogus from the start, why look at patents?

But let's say this is a interesting path, only "competition research" can do it, since it's very highly specialised and Holmes alone had hundreds of patent in this one company of many in the field, which would take a lot of time to analyize.

Why would " a competition researcher" disclose after doing the millions of dollars work researching all the patents in the field? Surely this IP has more value internally.

It also would prove they are looking at patients, which won't look good in possible future lawsuits from any company on patient infringement.

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