Adam Torres and Vlad Teplitskiy discuss Octane’s Medical Innovation Forum.
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Show Notes:
Listen to Octane’s Medical Innovation Forum coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Vlad Teplitskiy, Partner at Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP. Explore Octane’s Medical Innovation Forum.
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About Vlad Teplitskiy
Vlad is a partner in Knobbe Martens’ Irvine office. His practice focuses on patent protection and other forms of intellectual property protection in the electronics, communications, semiconductors, computer, information technology, medical devices, and healthcare fields. Vlad advises clients in the areas of strategic patent procurement, patent portfolio management, and contested proceedings in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and other related issues. Vlad is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So today I’m in Irvine, California, and I’m at the medical tech forum powered by Octane.
And let me tell you today, my guest is Vlad Teplitskiy. Welcome to the show, Vlad. Thank you, Adam. All right. So what brings you to the conference today? Oh, It’s a very interesting event and what really brings me here is the focus on AI. I’m a local patent attorney here, work for a firm just across the street and we have been interested in AI for quite some time and this focus is something that has been quite right up our alley.
So AI has been a big buzzword, a big theme in many different industries. Like what interest is, what, what is your interest in it and what is the interest? Have you seen anything interesting today? I have. I have. There is, there, there was a company making a presentation where they are looking at wound care.
So they’re putting, I don’t remember the company’s name, unfortunately, but they’re putting cameras into wound dressings. They’re taking that data out, then they’re processing that data, and then they’re predicting what’s going to happen with the wound. They’re predicting all the infection, and that type of thing.
Basically, having a. You know, camera in your dressing at home that tells your doctor that something is going on and then That doctor should do something about it before the wound gets, you know, before the infection happens or before surgery is needed. This is, this is incredible. This is next level. So how does that relate?
Because a lot of people are talking about AI, but I don’t, I feel like the discussion doesn’t happen enough to when it comes to protecting your IP and protecting whatever you’re creating. So how do those two things relate? So AI, AI inventions are just like any other invention. You know, there are different forms of protection.
And for inventions, the right form of protection is patents. Usually there is also an opposite form of protection, which is trade secrets. So patents is applying for protection and getting protection in in exchange for disclosing everything and publishing it. And trade secret is, is the exact opposite type of protection where you keep it secret to yourself but then the protection is different and as long as it stays secret then it is protected.
So AI is just like everything else. AI can be patented or it can be kept as a trade secret depending on the goals. Now, I know this may seem obvious to you, but a lot, a lot of business owners, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of executives out there that watch this show, like what are some of the dangers of when you don’t protect it?
Like what are some of the dangers that can happen? Well, the danger is that someone takes your invention that you have spent so much time developing. It hurts for me even to hear you say that, and I know you’ve seen that before, I’m sure. I have, and copies, I mean, it could just be a shameless copy. Say a company.
Like the one that makes that wound care product does not protect its inventions and then a competitor looks at it Determines that there is no protection and makes the exact same device and what’s undercuts the price Yeah, and so and that can happen like you’ve seen things like that happen in the past or maybe not in this extreme example Maybe not in an example of a medical device like this one.
But yes, it’s wrongly happens. It happens all the time It’s a competitive world out there and there’s always price competition. Someone could do it cheaper. Someone could also do it as a less expensive. Product that has less quality but would still be desired. Mm-Hmm. . And then they can undercut the price.
Yes. Hmm. At what stage of, of an, and obviously you, you we’re speaking a little bit general here, so if somebody wants to like, obviously contact them, don’t worry, we’ll give you a, we’ll give you an opportunity to website all that other good stuff. But in general, at what stage should an entrepreneur, whether it’s medical device or otherwise, when should they start be going down that route of.
thinking of protecting it as early as possible, but certainly before anything is made public. Because so probably before entering a pitch competition, unless that pitch competition is presented in a confidential manner and people present at that pitch competition are under some obligation confidentiality.
Because the problem is that once the invention is made public, then the all sorts of clocks start going off in the legal sense. So in most countries, for example, outside of us, once something becomes public, it can no longer be patented. It doesn’t matter that the disclosure, the public disclosure was made by the inventor of him or herself in the U S rules are slightly different.
The U S has a permissive, it’s called the grace period, the one year grace period, but still. You have to watch for that. So the best time is to do it before. And if that is impossible, then at least for us, the best time is to do it as quickly as possible after. Awesome. Vlad, last question. If somebody wants to follow up, connect, learn more about you and your team, how do they do that?
Website I’m, I’m as, as a registered plant attorney and as a registered lawyer, You can easily find me on the internet. You can just type in my firm, Kenobi Martens. Kenobi, as in Obi Wan Kenobi, Martens, and my name, and then you’ll find me. Amazing. And for everybody at home, just so you know, we’ll put the links to the website and the show notes and all that good stuff so that you can just click on them and head right on over.
And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with us and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show. We release a new episode each and every day, and we want you to catch the next one and get that push notification. So hit that subscribe button. And Vlad, thanks again for coming on.
Appreciate you. Thank you.