At Avory & Co, we are always digging into recently filed and issued patents for some of the companies which we own, follow, or directly track for competitive purposes. I wanted to share a couple of interesting patents from Google and Square.
I will start with Square as everything else is Google related.
SQUARE: Dynamic Point of Sales System
This is an interesting idea and could be very valuable for a restaurant or an event. The filed patent is made to dynamically change what is on the screen of the point of sale device based on inputs of data. The display can vary based on user location, time, and user habits. For example, if a user with a point of sale device like an iPad moves from the restaurant seating area to the bar area, the point of sale will automatically adjust. Another example is if the kitchen is low on a particular item, or if the kitchen is backed up, the waiter can naturally adapt and approach customers differently.
Google: DUAL SCREEN LAPTOP
Google filed a patent for a dual screen laptop. This is interesting as we have only seen things like this from Razor at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). I see a use case for business meetings and gaming.
Google: SENSITIVE CHATBOTS
Chatbots have been the rage for the developer community as they try to build out useful enterprise solutions. Google with its massive suite of data and machine learning capabilities puts them in the driver's seat. The patent looks to communicate, store prior data, and naturally pickup where the conversation left off. It is somewhat scary behavior honestly, but if its good enough, a user won't know if they are communicating with a chatbot or not.
Google: MOTION CAPTURE ROBOTS
Robotics is the future. We already see robots in smaller scales moving into hospitals, manufacturing facilities, and hotel environments. Google's patent shows a device measuring the movements of a human and in this case replicating those with a robotic arm.
Google: BANDWIDTH THROTTLING
With the whole talk about net neutrality, it is interesting to see a Google patent which automatically distributes bandwidth across a network. While this is to improve the efficiency of one versus the other, the pessimist will say that this structure can be used for mal-intentions.
There's plenty more we have internally but that is it today. I think the key takeaway is that the world is moving rapidly and many of the innovations detailed above use data to solve efficiency problems.
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Sean D. Emory
Avory & Co. Founder & Chief Investment Officer
Disclaimer: This is not a recommendation for purchase or sale of any securities. As of this writing Avory does own Square, and has no position in Google/Alphabet. This may change in the future.
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