Carr & Ferrell LLP, Intellectual Property Law Firm, to Attend World Ag Expo 2015
Carr & Ferrell LLP, a key player in the Silicon Valley startup environment, will be present at World Ag Expo 2015 for the first time this year.
Patent protection offers a number of significant advantages to the inventor and entrepreneur, especially in a disruptive market. “When one looks for what is commonly referred to as a ‘market disruptor’ in neighboring Silicon Valley, most would not look to agriculture,” explains Carr & Ferrell LLP Senior Counsel Brian Bathurst. “Yet, agriculture is poised for a massive market disruption and World Ag Expo 2015 is the stage to watch for it.”
In an effort to support continued innovation in agriculture, visitors to the Carr & Ferrell booth may enter to win free preparation and filing of a U.S. Provisional Patent Application for protection of the recipient’s technology. To participate in the drawing, attendees of the World Ag Expo should visit the Carr & Ferrell booth, #4008 in Pavilion D, February 10-12, 2015.
Agriculture is ripe with innovation. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (e.g. “drones”), satellite imagery and remote sensing technologies for water, moisture, soil, nutrient, and pest information are just the beginning. The “big data” generated from all of these developments will drive the need for data management solutions and next generation analytics. Based on this information, agribusiness professionals will be able to manage operations through such tools as precision irrigation, precision fertilizer application, GPS guided crop spraying and robotics.
In addition to the market disruption caused by developments in information technology, market disruption is also being caused by developments in the life sciences. Microbial solutions for pest and soil management are gaining traction. The dramatically reduced cost of sequencing a human genome equally applies to the dramatically reduced cost of sequencing crop and animal genomes.
Even more fascinating is the intersection of agriculturally driven bioinformatics and human driven bioinformatics. For example, a person may currently have access to his or her genomic data, blood-based data and daily metrics that are automatically uploaded to the Internet by way of human sensors, such as exercise watches and networked bathroom scales. Human nutrient deficiencies and issues such as increased susceptibility to a particular disease may be readily identified and remedied by a personalized diet based on specifically identified crop and animal products. Moreover, such data may motivate the biological modification of crop and animal products to make them more beneficial for human consumption.
Bathurst summarizes the technology that will be demonstrated by saying, “There will be a wealth of innovation on display and we look forward to meeting some of the technology driven companies at World Ag Expo 2015 and discussing how we might protect their investment in developing their intellectual property.”