“The application has been filed, we are currently waiting for the state-of-the-art report, the publication of the application information and, finally, the decision on granting the patent”, says Piotr Mierzwiński, patent attorney at JWP Patent & Trademark Attorneys, who handled the case pro bono on behalf of the JWP Foundation.

Meet the 15-year-old inventor; his dad, Bogusław Piękoś, talks about Filip, his interests and new inventions.

What is Filip interested in? What are his passions?

He is mainly interested in everything that is related to computers. He reads and programs a lot. His passion is assembling small programmable devices. Actually, this is how his invention came about – he decided to construct a programmable keyboard for himself.

Apart from that he is currently working on a smart home. He loves Morgan Freeman. He enjoys computer games as much as anyone else, but doesn’t overdo it; he mainly plays in a team with his siblings. It helps him relax.

In your opinion, what are the most important features of the solution submitted to the Polish Patent Office?

The use of magnetic sensors as switches in the keyboard, with a pointer to activate them, which can come in different forms. This solution may help a lot of disabled people to be able to work on a computer.

Has anyone used this invention yet? And if so, what are their first impressions?

The ZHELTA K6 programmable keyboard without magnetic sensors was first used by Filip’s classmates. It makes it much easier for them to play computer games, apparently.

More recently, following a meeting with a disabled person who has only one functioning hand with a very small range of movement, the pointer has been adapted to fit the user’s grip and a stand has been added to the ZHELTA K46 keyboard, allowing it to be tilted.

The indescribable joy of the disabled person is the biggest payoff for the handover and installation of the keyboard at their home. It is almost like a new chapter opening up in their life. The keyboard is not just for typing, but for the most common activities, too. Everything has been programmed specifically to suit their requirements.

A lot of other disabled people are approaching us and meetings with them inspire further modifications to the invention.

Have any large companies or institutions expressed interest in the invention?

The meetings we had at a conference attended by the heads of local centres for the disabled gave us a broader perspective and prompted us to think about new ways to help such people, open a window to the wider world for them, so to speak.

Many disabled people around the world are offered euthanasia because of their ailments. If Filip’s invention saves the life of even one such person, it will be a great achievement… We just need to reach them. It requires take time and publicity.

Has no one actually invented such a solution yet?

It seems so. No one is selling such contactless keyboards.

Apparently, there was an attempt to take over the idea. What happened? And how was it stopped?

There was an attempt to get a sneak peek at how the keyboard, i.e. the actuator, works. Several recognized and talented engineers looked closely at a working ZHELTA K6 keyboard and came up with nothing. Probably none of them suspected such a simple solution. Just in case, I sent a letter warning them that it was Filip’s intellectual property.

And how did you come across the JWP Foundation?

Through Filip’s secondary school in Jarosław, thanks to Mr. Adam Tomaszewski, the headmaster, and Mr. Artur Tutka, one of the teachers. The JWP Foundation takes part in the educational project called “Intellectual Property at Your School” organized by the Polish Patent Office.

What are your thoughts after getting to know the patent procedure better and witnessing the first application?

All of this would have been difficult to accomplish on our own. It’s like with a court case: one needs an expert. We were fortunate to meet the exceptional Mr. Piotr Mierzwiński at the JWP Foundation. No words could express the extent of what he did to help Filip. He worked out every detail, asked about every single document and made sure everything was in order.

Is Filip working on any new projects?

Of course. For now, modifications to the existing keyboard designs have the highest priority. But he is also working on other projects, such as a life-saving device for people in the mountains, whose prototype will be developed soon.

What are Filip’s plans education-wise?

Right now his plans are not very far-fetched. He is taking one step at a time. First, he wants to study at the Rzeszow University of Technology.

We wish Filip the best of luck and a lot of satisfaction from creating more world-changing solutions!

Artykuł “The joy of a disabled person is the greatest payment” – an invention by 15-year-old Filip Piękoś pochodzi z serwisu 30-lecie JWP.

Not only scientists, but also a number of companies and entrepreneurs work to develop new technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and directly eliminate CO2 from the atmosphere. This group includes companies such as Climeworks, Carbon Engineering (supported, among others, by Bill Gates), Global Thermostat (cooperating with the Coca-Cola Company) and many others.

Here is a list of unusual solutions that may help save our planet:

Solution No. 1. Bury the problem in the ground (literally)

One approach to eliminating CO2 is the use of CCS (carbon capture and storage) technology, known and developed for years, which generally involves capturing CO2 before it reaches the atmosphere, transporting and depositing it, for example, in the ground, or processing it. This technology is used mainly in areas where carbon dioxide is produced in large quantities (e.g., power plants), its use is limited on a large scale.

Solution No. 2. Capture CO2 from the air and sell it to a carbonated beverage manufacturer

A similar approach, although slightly more effective, is to capture CO2 directly from the atmosphere. And although it seems unreasonable at first glance, the first commercial farm to capture CO2 from the atmosphere was put into operation by the Swiss company Climeworks in 2017. Carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere was used, among others, to stimulate the growth of plants in greenhouses, and was also sold to manufacturers of carbonated beverages.</p>

Solution No. 3. Build a plant, saturate water, pump it underground

Climeworks’ biggest project to date (to eliminate carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere) is “Orca.” It is a commercial plant put into service in Iceland in 2021. Its capacity to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere is estimated at 4000 tonnes per year. “Orca” resembles metal containers, which, with the use of fans, pump air into a collector, whose task is to capture CO2 and thus to “concentrate” it, so that in the next stage this concentrated carbon dioxide could be used to saturate water, which is then pumped about 1 km underground. The accumulated carbon dioxide deep underground is mineralized and, as a result, transformed into environmentally harmless carbonates. Additionally, the installation is powered with renewable energy, i.e., geothermal energy from nearby hot springs.

Climeworks is already working on much larger projects (e.g., in Scotland and the USA) capable of eliminating up to one million tonnes of CO2 per year directly from the atmosphere, which corresponds to the amount of CO2 absorbed by about 40 million trees.

Elon Musk has offered the largest ever prize of up to $100 million for the best carbon dioxide removal technology. The competition will be held until 2025. And we’re following it very closely.

You can read more about it on our blog in an article by Maciej Stodulski, PhD >>

Artykuł Innovative solutions for reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere pochodzi z serwisu 30-lecie JWP.

Coral reefs are generally found in well-lit and warm waters, and although they do not cover a significant area, it is estimated that about 25% of all marine species depend on them, either directly or indirectly. The largest coral reef, about 2300 km long, is the Great Barrier Reef, located off the east Australian coast. Visible even from space, the Great Barrier Reef is home to hundreds of coral, fish and mollusk species, several species of sea turtles, and even whales and dolphins.

Apart from the fact that they serve as natural breakwaters, coral reefs are a popular destination  for generally understood marine tourism. Anyone who has ever been reef diving knows the great beauty of the bustling sea life there. However, marine tourism and fishing is not all that coral reefs have to offer; multitude of creatures living on and around them give researchers a unique opportunity to find new chemical compounds that may contribute to the development of novel drugs.

The threats they face are numerous and, to make matters worse, they arise from all sorts of different reasons. The most important endangering factor is definitely climate change with its rising temperatures that result in the fading of corals. However, it is not the only problem, as pollution and acidification of the oceans – a topic only briefly outlined herein – is equally destructive.

Various reports show that by 2050 as much as 95% of the global coral reefs will be exposed to temperature stress leading to coral fading. This would probably not pose such a big problem were it not for the fact that natural reef regeneration is a slow process. Also, destroyed coral reefs are less likely to reproduce: for example, the average annual growth of the Great Barrier Reef is only 5-8 mm!

It has already been stressed that reef regeneration is a time-consuming process, however, an interesting research results have been published recently that concern 3D printing technologies used to regenerate coral reefs. To put it simply, the scientists managed to create an artificial coral skeleton on the basis of the natural one which ensures rapid growth of the coral micro-fragments, as there is no need to construct a calcium skeleton that forms the basis of the reef structure. Unlike other similar methods, this technology relies on the passive colonization of the printed substrate, i.e. the attachment of coral micro-fragments to the printed skeleton.

Read Dr Maciej Stodulski article >>

Artykuł Patents to save coral reefs pochodzi z serwisu 30-lecie JWP.

According to the latest reports, the demand for digital gadgets is high, and the value of many NFTs reaches staggering amounts. The total price of a hundred of the aforementioned MetaBirkins amounted to almost $ 450K. No wonder that Hermès – the owner of the rights to the original Birkin purse – decided to take legal action.

Although today concepts nearest to the metaverse are the realms of online computer games – such as Minecraft, Roblox or Fortnite – the increase in popularity of parallel reality does not seem very distant. In a globalised economy, we work with people from different parts of the world on a daily basis, and due to the COVID-19 pandemic, activity has moved largely to our homes. It is not hard to imagine that soon international businesses will set up offices in the metaverse, where we will meet colleagues living on the other side of the globe. After work, we will be able to go in multinational company for a drink, a concert or an NFT art exhibition.

Here, however, the first obstacles appear. NFT is a digital good, most often categorised as the Class 9 or 41 of the Nice classification. The trademarks of the Hermès fashion house for the appearance and name of the Birkin bag, on the other hand, are protected as handbags and leather goods belonging to Class 18. In the case of such a recognizable brand, it will likely not be a problem to demonstrate the reputation of the marks, which helps to prohibit the use of similar markings also for other goods and services. In other cases, however, the lack of proper trademark registration may cause problems.

Choosing the right brand protection strategy is a necessity in today’s world. Due to the rapid advancement of technology, its development must take into account not only current but also future areas of activity. The competitiveness of global market players will increasingly rely on their innovation. It is worth considering these issues today and ensuring optimal protection of your rights.

You can read more about NFT on our blog in article ‘Trademark infringements in the metaverse: The future is now’ by Karolina Brzezińska>>

Artykuł Trademark infringements in the metaverse: The future is now pochodzi z serwisu 30-lecie JWP.

Dorota Rowanieżewska, attorney-at-law, talks about the idea of establishing the foundation – The JWP Foundation came about as a result of something that had been on my mind for a long time. In the course of my legal training as an attorney-at-law, and then during my judicial and patent attorney training, I became aware of how the level of knowledge about what intellectual property rights are and what role they can play in companies is significantly lower in Poland than in Western Europe or in the U.S. It occurred to me that unless such knowledge reaches the Polish entrepreneurs, scientific institutes and universities, the changes in our country will continue take place very slowly. It was when the foundation was being brought into existence that I got the strong feeling that the time has finally come for me to start sharing what I had learned with others. I concluded that this was going to be a good platform to share the knowledge through training courses and workshops for entrepreneurs, scientists, university students and the media. Therefore, the foundation has become operational and is carrying out its mission. We run an educational project called “Talent Advocates” which is held at universities and comprises a series of practical training courses for students and doctoral candidates. Some time ago, we have also aimed our activities at high school teachers and students. If young people become better acquainted with the protection of intellectual property rights and learn about the profession of a patent attorney this early on in their life, then there is hope that they will approach these issues more consciously and think differently about their future.

We invite you to follow the profile of the JWP Foundation Idea Patent Profit >>

Artykuł 10 years of JWP Foundation Idea Patent Profit- infographics pochodzi z serwisu 30-lecie JWP.

‘We are committed to ensuring that clients receive high quality legal assistance in our firm in relation to all aspects of intellectual property rights protection. It is important to us that our clients have partners in us who understand their needs and their industry and who provide professional support and a sense of security. We aim to be partners who help them grow their business and successfully achieve their goals. (..)

The achievements of our clients and the firm make us proud. By protecting intellectual property rights, promoting knowledge in this area and a culture of respect for the law, we feel that together with our clients we contribute to changing the world and developing innovation and technology. Together, we propel the wheel of development, which by working efficiently in the area of intellectual property rights protection, drives progress.’ 

– Dorota Rzążewska is the Managing Partner at JWP Patent & Trademark Attorneys.

Artykuł How JWP Patent and Trademark Attorneys handles IP affairs. The infographic pochodzi z serwisu 30-lecie JWP.

Meanwhile, here on Earth, the European Parliament ratified the Association Agreement with Poland and the era of systemic transformation began. In 1992, the first mobile phone network and McDonald’s restaurant were established in Poland and the “Wheel of Fortune’ game show premiered on Polish TV. The economic reform ushered in free market, releasing fresh business energy in millions of Poles.

Under these new circumstances, it also became possible for patent attorneys to open private practices. One of them was Mr. Jan Wierzchoń , a patent attorney specializing in the invention protection in the field of mechanical engineering and electrical engineering, who on 1 April 1992 set up one of the first private patent law firms in Poland – Jan Wierzchoń & Partners (now JWP Patent & Trademark Attorneys). Magdalena Pietrosiuk, a patent attorney dealing with the trademark and industrial design protection, became his partner. From the very beginning, the firm has provided comprehensive assistance in the field of industrial and intellectual property protection. By the authorization of the then Ministry of Foreign Trade, it could represent foreign entities that constituted the majority of its clients.

The newly established firm, managed by the experienced and renowned patent attorneys, has earned great recognition and clients’ trust from the start. The evidence of this are the official records of patents granted in the cases in which the firm’s attorneys represented foreign companies – many of which are well-known even today – as well as several Polish entrepreneurs. Numerous entities cooperating with Jan Wierzchoń & Partners included such law firms as Marks & Clerk, Societa Italiana Brevetti, D.A. Casalonga, Ladas & Parry, big international companies such as Sandoz, Syngenta, Pfizer and Eaton, firms dealing with the protection of exclusive rights, such as CPA, and Polish entities such as Gerda or Biogradex.

This is how Magdalena Bułas, senior specialist in the industrial property protection in the Patent Team, who has been with the firm for over 25 years, remembers the beginnings of JWP.

Our beginnings were quite humble. The firm was based for a few years in a 100 m² flat in a building up Tamka Street in Warsaw, close to the Złota Kaczka restaurant and the Chopin University of Music. It was a great location for shopping, strolling and organizing sightseeing tours in Warsaw’s Old Town with our foreign clients when they visited us. There were also some excellent Warsaw patisseries nearby – one of them regularly provided us with cookies for our guests (for the next couple of days we enjoyed the leftovers from the fridge), and another one with the meringues called “sokoly” (a specialty of this establishment dating back to the 1980s), Italian pastries and, of course, doughnuts – all for our own use this time.

After a few years we moved to a new building in Grzybowska Street with a characteristic clock on the façade at the entrance to the building. The clock became a fixed graphic element of the firm’s first website. We were then based in an office whose elegant décor was also courtesy of Mr. Jan Wierzchoń. Of course, here too we found an excellent patisserie nearby, specializing in Viennese cheesecakes and vanilla cupcakes. A party to celebrate launching of our new head office was attended by the best and brightest in the patent attorney profession, including our partners and the Polish Patent Office representatives.

In 2007 we moved again – this time to Żurawia Street. The move marked the beginning of major changes and the firm’s dynamic development, especially in terms of employing new staff and setting up new specialized departments.

But let us go back to the first 10 years in the firm’s history; at the beginning there were only Mr. Wierzchoń and Ms. Pietrosiuk, who were gradually joined by new employees.

One of the first to join the team were Mr. Jerzy Wodz, a patent attorney, a mechanic and an extremely cultured, charming gentleman; Mr. Tomasz Jablkowski, a patent attorney, a chemist, paragon of good manners and an embodiment of the sense of duty; and, after a few more years, Ms. Zofia Szczepanska, a patent attorney, a chemist, a participant and winner of national dictation competitions and an avid theatregoer; Ms. Danuta Stefani-Iwanow, a patent attorney, a chemist and a biotechnologist, a very warm and friendly person, always ready to help; Ms. Jolanta Gorczak, a patent attorney, a chemist, and an excellent companion on sightseeing trips around Poland; and Ms. Elżbieta Plewa, a patent attorney, an electronics engineer, a person of versatile and practical skills, one on whom one could always rely.

Shortly after the firm was established, our versatile and extremely meticulous assistant-receptionist staff in the person of Ms. Barbara Gluszko needed help and it was me who joined her. We were sometimes called by the collective name “Basias”. Our job was to deal with the telephone switchboard, deliveries, office supplies, as well as providing assistance to the patent attorneys and translation support both in terms of documentation and as interpreters during foreign client visits. There was also need for assistance in relation to trademarks and protection, and here too we welcomed some newcomers, but the recruitment in this area developed later on. After a while, the Trademark Team was joined by Ms. Joanna Janoszek, a patent attorney (now partner) who used her observations from this period of the firm’s initial development to build our Wroclaw branch in 2007 and manage it effectively. The Trademark Team also included Ms. Iwona Czaplicka, a lover of good coffee and travelling, who until very recently had been in charge of the legal protection matters in our firm.

Of course, the financial affairs of the dynamically developing, although initially small law firm were also in need of tidying up. Therefore, at quite an early stage of the firm’s existence, we were joined by Ms. Hanna Laszczych, a living legend and a confidant of many secrets, personal advisor in the matters of the heart, always eager to offer comfort and a friendly word to all of us, who became “auntie Hania” to many of our children or grandchildren.

From the very beginning we relied not only on our own memory, but also on the systemic recording and monitoring of official deadlines, thanks to an original program developed specially for us. It worked under DOS, just like the first text editors, e.g. TEX, but also continued to serve its purpose reliably after we had moved on to Windows 3.11, and then to Windows 98 and MS Word.

The most important files were already saved and stored back then, which posed some challenges due to the technical limitation of file names to 8 characters (that’s right, only 8 characters in a file name!) and of course small capacity of the available media. I wonder who still remembers them today?

As soon as anti-virus software appeared, the firm secured its digital resources, and – in the time when access to the Internet and e-mail was not so widespread – every month we received an update of the Polish Patent Office database on a floppy disk.

Back then, the main means of communication was the fax machine – a very effective tool in that era, however, sometimes very user-unfriendly. Paper getting caught and crumpled, transmission errors – these were some of the nuisances we often had to deal with while “hovering” over the machine, especially when several dozen pages of documents had to be send. I have several vivid memories connected with the telephone/fax:

First of all, the fax machine worked better when there were at least two people at it (it worked properly out of fear, I guess) and when it was “distracted” (to keep it busy from hatching up some malicious plots).

One day, when a deadline was approaching and we had to respond to an official letter, one of our clients, a Swiss pharmaceutical company, would not send us their instructions. I phoned them, explained the problem, and  was promptly told: “This is a huge company, we have our procedures. The fax is yet to be sent to the person responsible in a few days!”.

Another situation: also a tight deadline, this time a one-man foreign law firm. I dial the fax number and instead of a signal to start transmission I hear someone picking up, the rustling of bed sheets and a heavy, sleepy grunt: “Yes?”.

I attempt to send another fax to the client’s home and the recipient asks: “Can you please call again? I’ll run downstairs and won’t pick up, just turn on the fax machine.”

In the olden days, we often dropped by the Main Post Office with all sorts of parcels, and it was mainly Hania who did the dropping by. As luck would have it, each time she left the office, a downpour would start. Sometimes she would return soaked and her shoes, jumpers and jackets would be laid out to dry on the radiators.

As in any office, the kitchen was a very important place with its supplies of fresh coffee, water and food. It also served as a meeting room for informal discussions. And, of course, there were balconies overlooking Tamka Street and a corridor by the stairs in Grzybowska Street where the amateurs of tobacco flavors, in groups and sub-groups, exchanged comments on a wide range of topics. I remember that even our boss, who sometimes found us there, would stop for a moment to comment on something currently being discussed or to talk about matters concerning the firm.

We produced huge quantities of documents at the time; such were the official and archiving requirements. New invention applications had to be submitted to the Polish Patent Office in three copies, plus one file copy and one or two for the client. And when the application was 30 or 500 pages long, it meant truckloads of paper! Back then, copying documents was much cheaper than printing, so we became very proficient indeed in changing paper sheets on the photocopier glass. We used to have our photocopier moments… all sorts of important and less important conversations took place there.

Then came the advent of e-mail and printers that enabled double-sided and, above all, cheaper printing.  Life became simpler, yet not so colorful, or maybe still colorful, but in a different way?

Artykuł JWP’s colorful beginnings – a copier, a fax, an old clock and cookies… pochodzi z serwisu 30-lecie JWP.

Major global companies are not indifferent to environmental issues, they actively support a range of innovations by planning and implementing breakthroughs in their products. Paboco with its paper bottle or DEMETO with its innovative technology for the industrial application of chemical treatment of polyester waste are not the only ones worth mentioning. With the commitment of large corporations to the process of improving environmental protection, the changes that will take place may lead to major changes on the markets in the near future.

The main strategies to tackle the polymer waste problem could include: recycling of waste (chemical and biological methods, processing of plastics into specific products), material recovery and plastic separation methods, alternative plastics such as bioplastics, etc.  Global trends in the patent market as far as broadly understood plastic waste reduction is concerned, make it possible to identify areas where current efforts and funding are concentrated. They are at the same time an excellent guide as to which directions are worth pursuing. The situation on the patent market with regard to broadly defined plastic waste reduction is very dynamic. The number of patent documents in the area of recycling technologies in the global market was increasing steadily until 2020, which was largely driven by the Chinese market.

You can read more about the market of eco-friendly patents on our blog in article ‘The problem of plastics management – trends in the patent market’ by Maciej Stodulski, PhD. Read more >>

Artykuł Green patents for plastic pochodzi z serwisu 30-lecie JWP.

As reported by Time[1], film studio Miramax has sued Quentin Tarantino for copyright infringement over the film “Pulp Fiction”.

Last year at NFT.NYC, Tarantino announced that he intended to auction off portions of his original “Pulp Fiction” screenplay, which contain “secrets” about the film and its creative process. This includes copies of manuscripts of seven script fragments with deleted scenes and musical commentary. It is doubtful that the original screenplay written by Tarantino before the contract with Miramax is an asset of this company, but the exact date of the auction is yet to be announced. Tarantino’s lawyer claims that selling NFTs falls into the clause of “publishing the screenplay” included in the 1993 contract. However, Miramax claims that selling is “a one-time transaction that does not constitute a publication”. The other party believes that the author has the right to sell NFTs of his screenplay written by hand.

Putting aside the intricacies of the dispute between the studio and the director, it is worth noting that one of the points of the lawsuit was that the film company itself intended to sell NFTs relating to the film. Perhaps this is just an assertion for the sake of litigation, but the very fact that the lawsuit was brought indicates that the studio wants to highlight its interest in the NFT market and that it is watching it closely. In the same article, Time quotes one IP lawyer as saying that the vast majority of NFT disputes are resolved outside the courtroom. This is because litigants are well aware that the fledgling market is highly volatile and any lawsuits could erode confidence in the bidder at auction or sale, nullifying potential profits from the transaction. As in other markets, the key issue is trust in the counterparty and the institution providing the tokens.

This whole dispute begs the question of the ultimate goal of both parties. Many people purchase NTFs believing that they will be worth more in the future. But is it really possible to make even more money on “Pulp Fiction”? Is Tarantino planning a continuation of his work? Or maybe the company wants to increase its presence in the virtual world?

[1] Andrew R. Chow, “The Quentin Tarantino-Miramax Dispute Isn’t the First Lawsuit Over NFTs—And it Won’t Be the Last”, November 17, 2021 4:14 PM EST, https://time.com/6120878/tarantino-nft-lawsuit/ accessed 26.01.2022.

Artykuł Dispute over NFT of the Pulp Fiction script pochodzi z serwisu 30-lecie JWP.