For Sleep Tech, Keep an Eye on Estonia?
Estonia has been taking active steps to position itself as an attractive place for entrepreneurs to start their businesses. Tax policies, e-residencies, and digital infrastructure are all part of the country’s startup-friendly…
Flexa Returns to Patenting
In May of 2021, digital payments platform Flexa announced that its payments platform could be used to convert between currencies within a single transaction. A customer could make a purchase using a currency of their choice, while a seller…
Can Facebook Find Success with Crypto?
In 2019, Facebook announced Libra, its own cryptocurrency, along with the Libra Association, which boasted many major tech companies, as an overseeing body. Companies such as PayPal, Mastercard, and Stripe backed out of the Association…
Will Interaxon Act on Patent Portfolio?
Interaxon creates headbands that monitor brain activity via electroencephalogram (EEG) in order to provide meditation and sleep cues. The company announced in October 2021 that it was releasing an updated product with improved battery life…
Patents Predict: LG Moving into Smart Beds
LG Electronics had five patent applications publish in October 2021 for a bed with a built-in dryer system. The applications detail two purposes for these features — first, dry mattresses and bedding are more hygienic. Second, the system…
Coinbase is Launching an NFT Platform. Should it Keep an Eye on Patents?
Cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase has announced that it is launching an NFT marketplace by the end of 2021. The company is hoping that this new venture will help with its recent troubles, including falling stock prices and a…
tZero Opening to Crypto
Digital securities platform tZero announced in October 2021 that it was opening its accounts to Bitcoin and Ethereum. Users can now transfer cryptocurrency from third-party wallets and/or custodial accounts, which is useful as…
You’ve Heard of the Pandemic Pivot — What about the Consumer Sleep Pivot?
As non-contact sleep tracking continues to grow, Patent Forecast is noticing companies in the imaging industry shifting their technologies to consumer sleep. We covered Google and its Soli chip, as well as ObjectVideo Labs using its video…
BitGo Gets a Green Light on its First Patent
In September 2021, BitGo received its first patent for generating addresses, e.g., for storing cryptocurrency, using key pairs. The company offers a distributed wallet as well as custodial services for digital assets. The patent was filed…
Is Apple Also Interested in Posture Detection?
Earlier in September 2021, Patent Forecast highlighted Philips and its subsidiary Nightbalance, speculating that the company may want to focus on posture detection and correction as an alternative to sleep apnea masks given recent recalls…
Standard Chartered Moving into Uncharted Territory
Standard Chartered, a British financial services company, is moving into blockchain technology with two patent applications published in the spring of 2021 for managing digital assets with a custodian. In August 2021, Standard Chartered…
Can Philips Lean on Nightbalance?
In 2018, Philips acquired Nightbalance, a Dutch digital health company that had developed a device for correcting sleep posture to mitigate sleep apnea. The device is a band worn around the chest that vibrates to alert the wearer in…
Where Should Supermoon Invest Next?
Supermoon Capital is a new venture capital fund focusing solely on sleep technology. The fund is looking to invest in startups through pre-seed and Series A rounds and has raised $36M so far. Supermoon’s existing portfolio includes…
Fox Corp Taps Eluvio for Blockchain Tech — Who Else is in the Running?
Eluvio is a blockchain platform provider specializing in handling digital media, from creation and ownership to distribution. The startup has two issued patents for its decentralized media distribution network, which includes a partitioned…
Spotify Will Help You Sleep
Music streaming service Spotify has long used user data to power personalized playlists and recommendations, which increases user loyalty to the app and opens the company up for partnership deals and royalties. If you’re anticipating…
Can Blockchain Help Save AT&T?
AT&T has not been having a good year. The company is $180B in debt, and acquisitions of DirecTV and WarnerMedia have not brought in the expected amount of profit. AT&T announced in the summer of 2021 that it is divesting its media…
Whoop Grows Funding, Continues to Develop Sleep Tech
Wearables company Whoop had a patent application publish in August 2021 for tracking and managing sleep cycles by combining biometric data with calendar data. The application shows that the company is continuing to advance its sleep…
FV Receives Funding, Integrates Patent-Pending Wallet Security
Puerto Rico-based FV Bank is an online-only financial institution that combines traditional banking services with digital asset management. The company, which was founded in 2018, raised $8M in Series A funding in August 2021. That same…
Contactless Sleep Tracking is Growing — Who’s Patenting?
Tech giants Google and Amazon have both been in the news for their interest in contactless sleep tracing using radar or infrared monitoring. Google has the stronger patent portfolio to support such products, thanks to its Soli chip and…
Alibaba Launches NFT Marketplace… What’s Next?
Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce and technology company affiliated with the Ant Group and Alipay, is one of the largest patent holders in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space, with over 800 patent assets. In early 2020, the company filed…
Helium Isn’t Full of Hot Air
Internet of Things and blockchain-based network provider Helium has raised $111M in a fundraising token sale, led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). A16z was behind investments for many successful cryptocurrency startups,…
Samsung Updates Watch — No Surprise to Patent Forecast
After partnering with Google to jointly develop a wearables operating system, Samsung has released its latest smartwatch, which uses the new OS and which has updates to sleep tracking and other health-related functionalities. One of the…
When Will Casper Pivot to Temperature Control?
Casper, the direct-to-consumer bedding company that had a rocky IPO in 2020, is reporting strong numbers for Q2 2021, including 45% increased revenue year over year and retail partnership revenue growth of 79%. Casper is continuing to…
PNC Has No Patents, Finds Someone Who Does
When it comes to banks, Bank of America and Capital One lead in cryptocurrency investment, with 142 patent assets and 62 patent assets, respectively. TD Bank is in third place with 37 assets. One bank that is not present in the patent…
Amazon Wants to Watch You Sleep
In March of 2021, Patent Forecast highlighted that patent data predicted that Google would be developing an IR-based sleep detector almost a year before Google confirmed it with an FCC filing. The new Nest Hub integrates products from the…
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