HTC Patents and Foray into AI

The Taipei Times recently published an update on domestic patent filers. The article highlights HTC's rise back into the top ten. Check out the article: HTC returns to top 10 for local patent applications.

The article focuses on the movement of major companies with respect to year-over-year domestic (Taiwan) patent filings, and includes some very interesting insights from IP Office Director-General Sherry Hong (洪淑敏). Catching my eye, however, was a comment about HTC branching out into more technological areas (initially appearing separate from core smartphone tech):

The result reflects the company’s pursuit of opportunities in the healthcare solutions market by combining artificial intelligence and virtual reality

This is an interesting direction for the company. A patent family filed in Taiwan, China and the US describes at least one development in the area. The application, entitled "Medical System and Method for Providing Medical Prediction" discloses an interface for intaking user symptom data and using a prediction model to give the user feedback, even assisting in scheduling a doctor appointment. These sort of predictive diagnostic tools can be a useful application of AI technology, and a company with a smartphone technology backbone may be poised take advantage. This is, however, not the first we have seen of this sort of circumstance - Apple is clearly invested in the space as well with its HealthKit technologies - see www.apple.com/healthcare.

The HTC application family is published as TW201805887, CN107729710, and US20180046773.

Regarding the increased filings from HTC, analytic data does confirm nearly 20% growth in HTC US patent filings between 2016 and 2017 (2018 data is still too early to tell, but initial publication data appears to support continued filings near that trend).

As an off-topic side note, reading further into the article, the activity of other companies is discussed. I am a big proponent of good patent portfolio management - especially culling unused technologies to save/divert annuity fees (which can make up a substantial portion of a corporate IP budget). Because of this, I have to draw some attention to the comment regarding Foxconn's (Hon Hai) activity. Quality and value over quantity:

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海) applications fell 49 percent annually to 246 to leave it sixth, as the contract electronics manufacturing giant shifts toward quality over quantity to make better use of patent maintenance fees