In case you are not familiar with this acronym, IoT stand for the “Internet of Things.” IoT is the connection of multiple and various “things” (everyday devices, equipment and other objects) via the Internet to keep people informed about what is going on. A key element in the Internet of Things is that the monitoring and reporting back on these “things” over the “Internet” is done automatically and passively while we go about our dreary lives. Looking up a local restaurant on your smart phone, or finding the locations of the local gas stations and if they are still open, are typical applications for IoT. A critical growth area for Internet of Things is in the gas and electric utilities sector as these companies need to communicate with everything from substations to customer meters.
The “Internet of Things” is generally sourced to Kevin Ashton of MIT who supposed that “If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things – using data they gathered without any help from us – we would be able to track and count everything and greatly reduce waste, loss and cost.”
And since the Internet of Things is hot, IoT patents are hot, too. Softbank just paid $32 billion for ARM Holdings, the UK-based chip designer, primarily to acquire its Internet of Things patents. Both Qualcomm and Intel have been building portfolios of Internet of Things patents. Each company has been granted over 500 Internet of Things patents.
One of Qualcomm’s newest IoT properties is U.S. Patent No. 9,413,827 for a “Context Aware Actions Among Heterogeneous Internet of Things (IOT) Devices.” IBM was just assigned U.S. Patent No. 9,372,886 for “Data Filtering in the Internet of Things.”