Newt Gingrich's Interview at HIMSS Annual Meeting

Newt Gingrich needs no introduction. He’s a former Speaker of the House of Representatives. He is founder of the Center for Health Transformation. He is a strong proponent of healthcare IT.

Anthony Guerra, the Editor-in-Chief of Healthcare Informatics, interviewed Gingrich at this year’s Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual meeting in Orlando, Florida held February 24-28.

Here’s an interesting excerpt:

Guerra: Many health information exchange initiatives are thwarted by privacy concerns. How do you think that can be addressed?

Gingrich: First of all, I favor strongly a federal law that would make it a felony to release or use personal health information without the consent of the person involved. And I would make it an automatic matter of slander for any news organization to use your health record without your permission. [...]

The last point I make is one where I think the hardest line privacy advocates actually get caught in a formula that in the long run doesn’t make much sense. It is clear that we’re going to have some method of knowing who you are. Because we present in an emergency room or you present to get a drug, if we don’t know who you are, how can we have safety in terms of medication, how can we have safety in terms of treatments. It turns out to be irrelevant, whether it’s a single identifier or five items that identify you. All the big credit card companies who allow you to use a piece of plastic worldwide have multiple methods of determining who you really are. If you said to the average person, in order to protect your privacy, we’re going to take away your credit card, they would think you were crazy. There are some people — but to be fair in a free country, there are a significant number of people who won’t shop on the Internet, who won’t use a credit card — there is a minority that actually have no bank accounts deliberately as an act of policy. It’s a pretty small minority, but it’s several million people who are deliberately living in a cash society. (underlining added for emphasis)

To read both Part I and Part II of the interview, go to One-on-One with Newt Gingrich.

Mostly Invented Somewhere Else

G. Pascal Zachary authored an article in the New York Times on March 30, 2008 entitled Thinking Outside the Company's Box.

“One of the oldest barriers to innovation is ‘Not Invented Here,’ a persistent bias of even the most creative people toward their own creations and against those of people who work for other companies. […] To help counteract N.I.H., large corporations have promoted technology alliances with rivals, as well as the concept of ‘open innovation,’ to draw on a wider circle of big brains — not on their payroll — to work on core technical problems. These efforts arise from the recognition that no single innovator or team, no matter how loyal to an employer or successful in the market, has a monopoly on wisdom.”

This is an interesting article that revolves around the steps and processes that Cisco Systems, obviously one of the big boys, is internally exercising in an attempt to overcome the NIH syndrome.

Compare Zachary's article with a presentation made by Peter N. Detkin, Founder and Vice-Chairman of Intellectual Ventures, on March 7, 2008 to the Washington State Bar Association. The presentation is entitled Investing in Invention. Here's his premise, and it's a good one:

 “Corporations are not a major source of invention …. Academics are not a major source of invention …. Startups are a source of invention …. Individuals are a .... huge source of invention.”

Detkin is a former vice president and assistant general counsel to another one of the big boys, Intel Corporation. I have no relationship with either Detkin or Intellectual Ventures. But that Detkin is an attorney, and that he talks about how to level the playing field for the little guy, probably has something to do with why I like his presentation. In it he succinctly begins his presentation by describing the significant inefficiences in the marketplace for the monetization of patents by start-ups and individuals. Then he finishes by providing hope that new business models are bringing efficiencies to the IP marketplace.

For those of you who may be interested in a more scholarly approach, also take a look at Detkin's law review article entitled, Leveling the Patent Playing Field, published by The John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law.

So allow me to coin a phrase I'll call the "Mostly Invented Somewhere Else" cure. Think of the MISE cure not as one single process or business model for bringing efficiencies to the IP marketplace. Think of it as an attitude. Isn't this what Cisco is trying to do? Introduce a MISE-type attitude cure for the NIH syndrome? Isn't that what Detkin is trying to do, too?

Yes, and kudos to both Cisco Systems and Detkin.

EPCglobal & Prescription Drug Tracking

Andrew Pollack authored an article in the New York Times on March 26, 2008 entitled California Delays Plan to Track Prescription Drugs.

"In a reprieve for the pharmaceutical industry, California regulators agreed on Tuesday to delay by two years a requirement that all prescription drugs be electronically tracked as a means of thwarting counterfeiting.....

The California plan would require that drugs be tracked electronically from the manufacturer through the wholesaler to the pharmacy. Each bottle of pills sold to a pharmacy would have to have a unique serial number, encoded in a bar code or a radio-frequency identification tag.....

Pharmaceutical manufacturers [said that] putting a unique serial number on each container would require changing their packaging lines, which would cost millions of dollars and take years. […] Pharmacies and wholesalers, meanwhile, said they could not install the software and the equipment needed to read the serial numbers until they knew what systems the drug manufacturers would use."

Though not directly identified in Pollack's article, EPCglobal is a leader in establishing standards in the area of drug tracking. EPCglobal is a private, standards setting consortium governed by very large organizations like Cisco Systems, Wal-Mart, Hewlett-Packard, DHL, Dow Chemical Company, Lockheed Martin, Novartis Pharma AG, Johnson & Johnson, Sony Corporation and Proctor & Gamble. EPCglobal is architecting essential, core services for tracking physical products identified by unique electronic product codes (including RFID tags) across and within enterprise systems controlled by large organizations.

I submitted a comment to EPCglobal on January 22, 2008 about EPCglobal's Architecture Framework. You will see that the comment is addressed to Mark Frey who courteously and immediately responded that he had forwarded it to EPCglobal's Architectural Review Committee.

This is a 10 page comment (including exhibits) about broader data ownership issues than just those relating to electronic pedigree documentation for use by pharmaceutical supply chain. But see the first full paragraph on page 5 where I said:

“[W]hile EPCglobal has begun establishing forward-looking standards relative to electronic pedigree documentation for use by pharmaceutical supply chain participants [see EPCglobal Pedigree Ratified Standard Version 1.0 as of January 5, 2007], it has yet to include these standards within the EPCglobal Architecture Diagram.

With this comment I am proposing, by way of an illustrative example, that the methods developed by Pardalis within its IP may be used to derive essential specifications for connecting the current EPCglobal (EPCIS) Architecture with its ePedigree standards for the pharmaceutical industry."

The illustrative example referred to above is a mock Common Point Authoring (CPA) informational object. This illustrative example has a reference point beginning with a granular EPCglobal ePedigree document. The represented CPA informational object is the EPCglobal ePedgiree document that has been further granularized with mock XML tagging containing unique identifiers pointing to a CPA registered data element database.

My point is that EPCglobal has yet to develop standards for ePedigree document exchange that may be efficiently, flexibly and cost-effectively applied to the pharmaceutical supply chains for helping to reduce counterfeiting. Given the players who comprise EPCglobal, it is reasonable to presume that California regulators have essentially backed off enforcing their anti-counterfeiting regulations because EPCglobal has yet to catch up to the California plan. The plan was to take effect January 1, 2009. Now it has been pushed back to 2011.

Update on Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 1:54PM by Steve Holcombe

From the Economist's Economic & Financial Indicators section:

"Custom seizures of counterfeit goods rose by 17% in the EU last year, according the European Commission."

Source: The Economist crediting European Commission

"The number of cases has grown rapidly since 2003, but fewer fake articles were confiscated last year than in 2006—perhaps because internet sales have boosted the number of small consignments. Indeed, 70% of cases involved air-express courier or mail. Cigarettes and clothing accounted for more than half the sham gear seized. China was the source of almost 60% of dodgy goods. Switzerland and India account for three-quarters of the trade in fake drugs, which rose by 51% last year. Treatments for erectile dysfunction—phoney Viagra pills—were the most common counterfeit medicines." [emphasis added]

Update on Sunday, April 4, 2010 at 9:07PM by Steve Holcombe

"Discovery services" (See the EPCGlobal Standards Overview at http://www.epcglobalinc.org/standards) has been gray in color for the two years since I published this blog entry. And I am informed by a knowledgeable source that it will probably be another two years before they arrive at any definitive standards (if then). 

Granularity & Semantic Trust

I have received, and continue to receive, some quizzical looks and comments when I speak about Common Point Authoring in terms of granularity or granular information ownership.

Here's a wonderful parable about granularity taken from an excerpt of Automated Trust Mechanisms and the One World Market by Greg FitzPatrick. This paper was submitted to XML Europe 2001.

"Granularity .... means the breaking up [of] ideas, processes, products and services into fragments. The makeup of a set of fragments is dynamic and aspectual to ever-changing utility and circumstance. Each set represents new and unique combinations. The backside of granularity is complexity and the costs involved in extending distributed trust. Unlike Humpty-Dumpty, a granular set must be able to function as effectively as any pre-granular whole.

Imagine a group of children in a playroom. Each child has come to the room with a thousand pieces of their privately owned and highly valued collections of Lego. A teacher says to the children. "Put all your Lego pieces in the middle of the floor and build a great city." The children balk, since once the Lego is removed from their immediate possession, they can no longer identify it as their own. The teacher tells them," I will keep track of each piece and remember whose is whose. If the children trust the teacher's ability to do this they will begin to build.

To match their trust the teacher would need almost supernatural powers since Lego is known for the precision modularity of its product, mostly indistinguishable plastic blocks. The value of playing together and having so much Lego to build with is the value of the network, but the effort to maintain trust regarding individual ownership is the transaction cost.

End-to-end markets are capable of creating a considerable amount of complexity. Through Semantic trust they will admit a swarm of participants (fragments) into one and the same transaction. [....] The complexity is further exacerbated by the existence of exploratory negotiation. Agents trying to evaluate their participation in a deal would need the same transaction mechanisms as those of a firm deal. The trust mechanisms must be in place regardless."

The image of a teacher assuring these kids that they will get back 'their' exact Lego pieces is powerful.

Tim Berners-Lee in addressing XML 2000 is said to have described the Semantic test for such trust as being that "... which is passed if, when you give data to a machine, it will do the right thing with it".

Outside Submission to Xerox

What follows is my submission to the Office of Outside Submissions for Xerox Corporation. I made it soon after I received word that Australia would be issuing a Notice of Acceptance regarding Pardalis' parent U.S. patent for the Common Point Authoring™ system.

July 2, 2007

Office of Outside Submissions
XEROX CORPORATION
Mailstop 0147-55F E-mailed to xigwebmaster@crt.xerox.com
800 Phillips Road Faxed to 585-231-8479
Webster, NY 13580-9720

Re: Xerox U.S. Patent #5,220,657

Dear Reviewer,

This submission is made without the signing of a Xerox non-confidential disclosure agreement because all references are to publicly available information. Notwithstanding, accompanying this submission is a signed and dated Outside Submissions Agreement.

Pardalis, Inc. has received a Notice of Acceptance from the Australian Government regarding Pardalis' U.S. Patent #6,671,696 issued in 2003 and entitled “Informational object authoring and distribution system”. The Notice of Acceptance signifies that the issuance of an equivalent Australian patent will soon be forthcoming. Significantly, Xerox’s 1993 U.S. patent #5,220,657 was specifically distinguished by the Australian patent examiners from Pardalis' 696 patent.

Pardalis' mission is to promote the sharing of confidential, trustworthy and traceable data along complex and poorly coordinated supply chains with innovative Common Point Authoring™ methods for protecting the granular ownership rights of information producers. Pardalis' 696 patent is also known as the parent patent for the Common Point Authoring™ system. The critical benefit and characteristic of the Common Point Authoring™ system is granular information ownership. In addition go the 696 patent, Pardalis also holds a continuation patent in U.S. Patent #7,136,869 entitled "Common point authoring system for tracking and authenticating objects in a distribution chain", issued on November 14, 2006. Mr. James Graziano, out of the Denver office for Patton Boggs LLP, Washington, D.C., has been our patent attorney since the filing of the 696 patent.

The Xerox 657 patent is a significant, long-standing patent that covers collaborative document editing systems where multiple parties share in the creation of a single document. In contrast, Pardalis' 696 patent involves the creation by multiple parties of many documents in the form of informational objects without the necessity of any collaboration, and, additionally with the critical use of a plurality of granular immutable data elements.

Before the action taken by the Australian examiners, Pardalis' 696 patent had previously been distinguished by U.S. patent examiners from Microsoft’s U.S. Patent #5,511,197 entitled ‘Method and system for network marshalling of interface pointers for remote procedure calls’ (issued April 23, 1996), Microsoft’s U.S. Patent #5,724,588 also entitled ‘Method and system for network marshalling of interface pointers for remote procedure calls’ (issued March 3, 1998), Microsoft’s U.S. Patent #6,493,719 entitled ‘Method and system for scripting for system management information’ (issued December 10, 2002), IBM’s U.S. Patent #6,438,560 entitled ‘Reuse of immutable objects during object creation’ (issued August 20, 2002), and SAP AG's U.S. Patent #7,225,302 entitled ‘Method and software application for avoiding data loss’ (issued May 29, 2007).

What is particularly significant about being distinguished for the first time from Xerox's 657 patent is that the Xerox patent is a document collaboration patent while the Microsoft, IBM and SAP AG patents are computer run-time patents. The approach taken by the Australian examiners provides additional validation, from a fresh, new direction previously not taken by the U.S. patent examiners, to the seminal nature of the Common Point Authoring ™ system.

Pardalis’ Common Point Authoring ™ system represents much more than a simple, iterative-step improvement in the use of informational objects for either run-time efficiencies or document collaboration. It represents instead a paradigm shift in the application of object-oriented programming to provide previously unseen means for granular information ownership. More detailed information is available in Pardalis’ recent white paper, Banking on Granular Information Ownership, retrievable from Pardalis’ homepage.

This information is being submitted for review with intent of opening a dialogue with Xerox regarding opportunities for business development revolving around Xerox’s 657 patent and Pardalis’ 696 patent. Furthermore, Xerox’s 657 patent is rapidly approaching the end of its enforceable lifetime, and I would like to explore opportunities with Xerox for essentially ‘extending’ the life of Xerox’s 657 patent via licensing of Pardalis’ 696 patent. The 696 patent will be enforceable into at least the year 2021.

The market trends and the future applications of the Common Point Authoring system point to a vast and growing market. The growth in on-demand businesses, the increased privacy efforts by the government, massive growth in corporate data, and the increasing privacy concern of individuals all drive the vast potential for Pardalis’ technology. In a partnership between Xerox and Pardalis, implementing this unique granular information ownership solution would be a key market differentiator for Xerox and would bring about a strong competitive advantage for its customers.

This concludes the outside submission by Pardalis, Inc.

Best regards,

Steven Holcombe, CEO
Pardalis, Inc.

Never have received any response from Xerox (which I assume is not unusual).

By the way, the Australian patent application #2002323103 issued on August 9, 2007.  

Update on Sunday, April 20, 2008 at 9:50PM by Steve Holcombe

Xerox's U.S. Patent #5,220,657 is a division of an application filed Dec. 2, 1987, now US Pat. No. 5,008,853. Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 154(c)(1), the Xerox 657 patent grant likely expired Dec. 2, 2007.