Elixir (Volume 1, Issue 3)
Going with the Lateral Flow
There was time when finding out whether or not a woman was pregnant involved the slaying of a rabbit. In the age of Juno however, pregnancy tests are cruelty free and as easy to access as the corner store, some contrived banter, and a bathroom. And it’s all thanks to lateral flow technology.
Nectar partner company Diagnostic Consulting Network ( DCN ), a contract developer, is at the forefront of harnessing this versatile technology for a wide variety of applications. Lateral flow essentially works by targeting analytes, substances that act as markers for antibodies, hormones, bacteria, psychoactive drugs, and other substances and organisms. DCN has mined the technology to create applications that include a range of medical and veterinary diagnostics, food science, forensics (including technology that detects and amplifies DNA and RNA from crime scenes), agriculture, environmental testing, industrial health and safety, and even detection of possible agents of biological warfare, such as anthrax.
DCN’s Irish-born founder and president, medical microbiologist Dr. Brendan O’Farrell, describes lateral flow technology as an essentially simple process that, while widely used, has more potential than some manufacturers may realize. “A large part of the service we provide for our clients revolves around educating them on some of the more recent and leading edge facets of the technology,” said Dr. O’ Farrell. “For example, we’ve recently seen expansion in the utilization of fluorescents to create detection products that not only more accurately identify markers for a range of substances and organisms, but more accurately tells us the quantity of these factors. As we like to say, lateral flow technology is a field that’s pregnant with possibility.”
Support Your Local Farmer
One of the reasons we love our East Long Beach community is, like most of the best neighborhoods, it’s a little bit unpredictable. Alongside homes, a small park, and entrepreneurial and creative businesses like Nectar, we also have a farm. It’s one of several urban lots cultivated by Long Beach Organic, an organization devoted to spreading the practice of organic gardening by educating local residents both young and old on the hows and whys of growing their own fruits and vegetables, free of pesticides and chemical fertilizers
Founded in 1994 by noted marine researcher and community activist Charles Moore, and headquartered just up the street from Nectar on Gladys Avenue, Long Beach Organic has built organic gardens on low- or zero-fee lots, growing an array of crops that, as their website proclaims, ranges from “sugar cane and lemongrass to sunflowers and tomatoes.” Their location on Pacific and Sixth Street features senior citizen-friendly, wheelchair-accessible garden beds and involved area students in its design as well as an original mural. The Signal Hill location is reclaimed from abandoned industrial land and emphasizes traditional plants frequently used by the local Southeast Asian community. A third garden at First and Elm in the Arts District is in operation, as is a fourth, somewhat larger, mini-farm subsidized by Wild Oats Market, at Tenth and Grace. A fifth community garden at Grace Park is currently being prepared.
For more information on how to get involved with Long Beach Organic and help their gardens grow, see their website , e-mail them at info@longbeachorganic.com , or call them at 562-438-9000.
Knocking Out Knock-Offs
Protecting intellectual property from cheap copies or outright theft is obviously a major threat to the bottom line and an ongoing concern of everyone involved with product development, especially those who work in foreign nations. So, we asked an expert, our friend and colleague, IP attorney Jennifer H. Hamilton of The Eclipse Group LLP , for some thoughts on the subject.
Many companies are aware that they can prevent “knock-offs” by seeking utility patent protection for the functional aspects of their products. Utility patent protection is, however, very expensive to obtain both domestically and internationally. Moreover, it can take 2-3 years to obtain a utility patent in the United States and even longer in many foreign nations. This is a problem because, until a utility patent is issued, a company cannot use the utility patent application to enforce its rights against infringers.
In this situation, it may be beneficial for companies to seek design patent protection on their product designs, as well as copyright protection. Both copyright registrations and design patents may be utilized to protect the “ornamental features” of a product, which may include its overall shape or various individual components or designs. Copyright registrations can be obtained over the course of several months, or more quickly with a request and payment to expedite registration. (Design patent protection can be obtained in as little as six months, but rarely takes more than a year and a half once an application is filed.) Besides being quicker, both copyright registrations and design patents are much less expensive than utility patents.
Depending upon the degree of similarity between a design protected by a copyright registration and a design patent, either or both may be used to prevent the importation of “infringing products” — i.e., knock-offs — and/or sale of those infringing products in the United States. Thus, if a company has concerns that a particular protect may be copied before a utility application is issued, consideration should be given to the benefits of seeking design patents and copyright registrations on non-functional aspects of a product design. In any case, because design patents, copyrights and utility applications are all utilized to protect different aspects of a product, a carefully thought-out strategy for seeking the parallel protections should be instituted.
Jennifer H. Hamilton practices law at the Granada Hills offices of The Eclipse Group. She may be reached at (818) 488-8141 or via e-mail at jhh@eclipsegrp.com