Invent Anything™

ipCapital Group

In this series, John Cronin and Seth Cronin share insights relating to invention, creativity, and intellectual property. These insights were collected over 17 years at IBM (John became its top inventor with over 100 patents and 150 patent publications) and 35 combined years as intellectual property and innovation consultants at ipCapital Group (working with over 800 companies and approximately 15% of the Fortune 500, hundreds of mid-size companies and hundreds of startups and governmental laboratories).

  1. 5d ago

    Studios Are Hiding Their Games So AI Can’t Copy Them | This Week in IP

    When AI makes copying cheap, where does the value go? This week, the studio behind Moonlighter pulled back its public playtest over cloning fears, and another studio cancelled its free Steam demo, saying a copy could be produced quickly with AI. Xbox's own memo on Xbox Labs says rapid ports and coding agents challenge its existing business models. Seth Cronin works through where the value moves when building and copying get cheap: down to chips and power, to trust and security, to community, and back into hiding, the very tension the patent system was built for. Also this week: about 300 authors file individual suits against Meta, and a judge orders Meta to name everyone who approved downloading the pirated books; Amazon and Google both bring PyTorch to their own AI chips; Google loses twice in patent law on the same Monday; the Supreme Court can't hear BMG v. Vetter for lack of a quorum; one hacker uses AI agents to break into sites at more than 100 companies; and AI helps find critical bugs in PHP. Patent of the Week: Dell's modular AI appliance. If AI could clone what you're building from a two-minute demo, what would you still be selling? Tell us in the comments. More on AI-built clones: Invent Anything Talks with Mike D'Andrea: https://youtu.be/EeYTlSRpxW0 Chapters 0:00 Why game studios are pulling their demos 0:45 Meta has to name everyone who approved the pirated books 1:38 Amazon and Google go after Nvidia's real advantage 2:20 Google's rough week in patent law 2:51 The Supreme Court couldn't hear a case at all 3:22 Main story: Xbox says its business model is being challenged 4:20 AI moves the value to different parts of the stack 5:04 People are using AI to declutter their smart TVs 5:39 One hacker, AI agents, 100 companies 6:21 AI found critical bugs in PHP 7:18 So where does the value go? 7:42 The patent bargain vs. the cancelled demo 8:08 Invent at the right layer 8:34 More in our Adobe conversation with Mike D'Andrea 8:58 Patent of the Week: Dell's modular AI appliance 9:55 Future Seth update: "Black October" 12:18 What would you still be selling? Full sources are in the YouTube description: https://youtu.be/29-8AwkejKU The Meta claims are allegations in pending lawsuits. The $50-per-hack figure is the NorForge researcher's estimate; Reuters could not determine whether data was taken. TorchNeuron and TorchTPU compatibility claims are the companies' own. Amazon's reactors are a proposal. A granted patent does not establish that a product uses the invention, and Dell has not announced a device like it. The drawings are our own sketches unless labeled as patent drawings. Strategy education from ipCapital Group, an IP strategy consulting firm (not a law firm). Nothing here is legal advice. Music: "The Crate Desk", original for Invent Anything. Piano: Versilian Studios via tonejs-instruments (Nicholaus P. Brosowsky), CC BY 3.0; arranged and processed. No endorsement implied.

  2. Oct 21

    Someone Rebuilt Photoshop With AI. What Can Adobe Still Own? | Invent Anything Talks

    Someone used AI coding agents to rebuild Photoshop from scratch, and copyright may not be able to stop it. So what can a software company still own? Seth Cronin talks with his ipCapital Group colleague Mike D'Andrea about the AI-built Adobe clones (ArtCraft's PhotoCraft and its sibling apps). Copyright protects the code you wrote, the way it protects the words and recording of a song. A patent protects how a feature works, whoever writes the code. They walk through the Adobe patents behind Content-Aware Fill and Generative Fill (and read the actual claim), how a clean-room rebuild works, and who a patent really stops: individual users, enterprises or competitors. Mike's practical takeaway: run the test on your own product. Have AI rebuild it feature for feature, see what it couldn't do, and sort what's left into two piles: what's visible from outside, which a patent can cover, and what isn't, which can stay a trade secret. If someone rebuilt your product next week, what would still be yours? Tell us in the comments. Mike and Seth aren't lawyers. This is a conversation about invention and business, not legal advice, and not a view on whether any project infringes any patent. Mike's article, "Someone Cloned Photoshop in a Week. Copyright Can't Stop It. Patents Can." (Oct. 11, 2026): https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/someone-cloned-photoshop-week-copyright-cant-stop-patents-d-andrea-jd3ne/ Watch the full video with the on-screen sources: https://youtu.be/EeYTlSRpxW0 Chapters 0:00 Someone rebuilt Photoshop 1:00 What copyright can't stop 2:13 Mike D'Andrea on what caught his attention 2:40 How the story spread 3:23 Copyright protects the song 4:10 The idea vs. the recording 5:39 Adobe's fill patents 6:30 Turn the gondola into a bird 7:17 The clean-room rebuild 8:49 Reading the actual claim 9:29 From ones and zeros back to ideas 11:46 Does AI end the first-mover advantage? 13:02 Run the test yourself 14:13 Who a patent actually stops 15:27 Competitors, not customers 16:09 The FilmCraft review 17:26 Why Napster lost 17:53 When a patent comes into play 19:09 Reverse engineer your own software 19:48 Write the spec for every way it could be built Corrections "Future Seth" pops in a few times with fixes we found after recording: the Word, Excel and PowerPoint clones came out Oct. 7, a few days before Mike's article; PhotoCraft hasn't built Generative Fill yet; REA (Reverse Engineer Anything) is a separate project, and ArtCraft's developer says he doesn't use it or decompiled binaries; the Premiere-style clone is FilmCraft; and DaVinci Resolve's free version isn't open source (it's free proprietary software, available since 2011). Key sources PhotoCraft (ArtCraft): https://github.com/storytold/photocraft US 10,706,509 B2 (Adobe): https://patents.google.com/patent/US10706509B2/en US 12,462,456 B2 (Adobe): https://patents.google.com/patent/US12462456B2/en Invent Anything Talks, from Invent Anything Hosted by Seth Cronin | ipCapital Group, an IP strategy consulting firm Recorded October 15, 2026.

  3. Oct 20

    Would You Take the AI’s Cancer Cure? | This Week in IP

    When an AI hands you an answer you can’t check yourself, what earns your trust? OpenAI posted 722 AI-written math papers. A day later, three were withdrawn after a sign error, and as of the latest update about 42% of the 719 that remain have their main result checked in the Lean proof checker. Then Terence Tao asked a sharper question in his Caltech lecture “Math 2.0”: if an AI found a cancer cure nobody understands, and it passed the trial, would you take it? Seth Cronin works through reward hacking, Goodhart’s law, why people game metrics too, and what he learned building Frix AI before going back to consulting. Proof got cheap. Trust didn’t. Also this week: an open-source project rebuilding Adobe-style apps with AI coding agents; an OpenAI employee arrested over an alleged recording device in an executive conference room; Character.AI files for Chapter 11, with Disney as the opening bidder for a non-exclusive license to some of its IP; Microsoft Research’s StudentSim, simulated students for testing AI tutors; and Patent of the Week, Intuit’s patent on keeping the math out of the LLM. Think of the last time an AI gave you an answer at work that looked right. What would you have needed to see before you bet your trust on it? Tell us in the comments. Chapters 0:00 Would you take an AI’s cancer cure? 0:51 Somebody rebuilt Adobe 1:26 An alleged recording device at OpenAI 2:29 Character.AI’s bankruptcy and Disney’s bid 3:35 StudentSim: fake students for testing AI tutors 4:34 Main story: OpenAI’s 722 math papers 5:33 Terence Tao, reward hacking and Goodhart’s law 6:11 Would you want a human who understands it? 7:11 The fair argument on the other side 7:40 People reward-hack too 8:30 Why I went back to consulting 9:35 What an expert still has to do 10:10 Proof got cheap. Trust didn’t. 10:35 Patent of the Week: Intuit keeps the math out of the LLM 12:11 What would you need to see? Sources and notes are in the YouTube description. Strategy education from ipCapital Group, an IP strategy consulting firm (not a law firm). Nothing here is legal advice. Music: “The Crate Desk” — original composition for Invent Anything. Piano recordings by Versilian Studios, packaged by Nicholaus P. Brosowsky (tonejs-instruments), CC BY 3.0; pitch-shifted, arranged and processed. No endorsement implied. https://github.com/nbrosowsky/tonejs-instruments https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Additional sounds: Karoryfer Black and Blue Basses and VCSL (CC0); GeneralUser GS by S. Christian Collins. Jev LevelDrive saturation used under its MIT license. https://schristiancollins.com/generaluser.php

  4. Oct 13

    Is Your AI a Fighter or a Wizard? | This Week in IP

    Same AI, different character. How much of an AI product is its personality? Seth Cronin starts with a new VR study in which people paid a female-presenting AI assistant 10.25% less than an otherwise identical male-presenting one, even though many said gender didn't matter. Then the model's own disposition: an agent so cautious it wouldn't retry a banal video request, which Seth calls anti-alignment. Borrowing from Dungeons & Dragons and Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats, he makes the case for agent "classes" (fighter, wizard, rogue, cleric) and shows how to use deliberately different roles as an invention tool. Plus the IP angle: a Tokyo court recognized a publicity right in a person's voice. Also: blue light against Campylobacter on raw chicken; NC State's laser-made plasma antenna (and the earlier work behind "first"); Reka's Rho-1 research preview; and Patent of the Week, Samsung's robot cleaner that looks for where the mess comes from. Chapters 0:00 The scene my agent wouldn't retry 0:51 Blue light against food-poisoning bacteria 1:53 An antenna made with a laser 2:58 Reka's Rho-1: video and robot actions in one model 4:06 Main story: how much of an AI product is its personality? 5:24 Who is the model when it answers you? 5:55 When safety turns into anti-alignment 7:02 Classes for agents: fighter, wizard, rogue, cleric 8:05 Six Thinking Hats 8:55 An invention tool you can use today 9:38 Personality as an IP question 10:39 Patent of the Week: Samsung's pollution-source robot cleaner 11:50 Which class would you pick? Seth's article, "What D&D Can Teach Personal Agent Labs": https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-dd-can-teach-personal-agent-labs-seth-cronin-d8sje/ Sources, transcript and captions: https://youtu.be/OJx3MW0HImY The blue-light results are from lab cultures, not tests on meat. The plasma antenna has transmitted over a short range; reception has not been shown. Rho-1 is a research preview, and its robot demo ran in simulation. The VR study is one experiment in which participants split a payment; it is not a salary survey. A patent does not establish that a product is shipping. Illustrative live-action scenes were generated with AI. Music: "The Crate Desk," original for Invent Anything. Piano recordings by Versilian Studios (tonejs-instruments), CC BY 3.0. Additional sounds: Karoryfer Black and Blue Basses and VCSL (CC0); GeneralUser GS by S. Christian Collins.

  5. Oct 6

    When Everyone Has the Same AI, How Do You Stand Out? | This Week in IP

    If you and your competitors can buy roughly the same AI, where does the difference come from? Seth Cronin looks at three personal agents launched in about seven weeks (OpenAI's Dots, Meta's Muse and Grok Bot) and how to keep a divergent outlook when everyone has the same model: bring AI a problem you've actually observed, widen the approaches before choosing one, run small tests, and ask what you have specifically figured out. Plus the IP side: a patent covers its claims, not a product category. Also: Thomson Reuters v. ROSS, the first U.S. appeals ruling on fair use in AI training; Microsoft's Quine and Anthropic's Model Hardware Standard; Northwestern's protective-clothing particles; and Patent of the Week, Toyota's smart vehicle-to-home patent. Chapters 0:00 Same AI. How do you stand out? 0:45 Thomson Reuters v. ROSS: the first appeals ruling on AI training 1:37 Microsoft’s Quine and Anthropic’s Model Hardware Standard 2:50 Clothing that could break down toxic compounds 3:23 Dots, Muse and Grok Bot: the personal agents converge 4:12 Main story: same tools, different questions 5:03 When everyone uses the same algorithm 5:47 A worked example: the irrigation controller 7:41 The IP side: claims, backlog and know-how 8:52 Patent of the Week: Toyota’s smart V2H 10:12 Your examples Sources, transcript and captions: https://youtu.be/i6UgQwGRzak The MIT paper is a philosophical analysis of hiring and similar decisions; applying it to invention is Seth's interpretation. The irrigation controller is a hypothetical example. Illustrative live-action scenes were generated with AI. Music: "The Crate Desk," original for Invent Anything. Piano recordings by Versilian Studios (tonejs-instruments), CC BY 3.0. Additional sounds: Karoryfer Black and Blue Basses and VCSL (CC0); GeneralUser GS by S. Christian Collins.

  6. Sep 29

    AI Gave You 100 Invention Ideas. Now What? | This Week in IP

    AI can give you a hundred invention ideas. Which one solves a problem somebody actually cares about—and what would you build to find out? Seth Cronin looks at where AI belongs in invention: new Atlassian research on brainstorming, a Procore patent for smart safety glasses, and a simple travel-mug problem that turns a list of features into something you can test. Also: MIT’s dissolving batteries, Microchip’s completed Hailo acquisition, a robotic wine server, eleven Purdue patents, and Subaru’s exterior-airbag design for protecting people outside the vehicle. Where has AI helped you get from a plausible idea to a useful test? Share the specific example. This Week in IP, from Invent Anything. Hosted by Seth Cronin | ipCapital Group. Recorded September 23, 2026; sources dated September 21–22. CHAPTERS0:00 100 ideas. Now what?0:36 MIT’s dissolving batteries1:19 Microchip buys Hailo2:04 A robotic wine server2:54 Purdue’s eleven patents3:42 AI and the first spark of invention5:42 Procore’s smart safety glasses patent6:24 A better travel mug: problem, constraints, test8:22 What is different? The prior-art question9:37 Subaru’s exterior-airbag patent Sources, links and the full video: https://youtu.be/vw_ruDzFTD0 The Atlassian result concerns brainstorming tasks, not patentability. The MIT work includes animal testing. Patent disclosures do not establish a product launch, performance or safety. Generated illustrative scenes are not footage of the companies’ products. MUSIC: “The Crate Desk” — original composition for Invent Anything. Piano recordings by Versilian Studios, packaged by Nicholaus P. Brosowsky (tonejs-instruments), CC BY 3.0; pitch-shifted, arranged and processed. No endorsement implied. Additional sounds: Karoryfer Black and Blue Basses and VCSL (CC0); GeneralUser GS by S. Christian Collins. Jev LevelDrive saturation used under its MIT license.

  7. Sep 22

    Can 3 Patents Block Apple, Samsung & Google Devices?

    BoomCloud 360 is asking to block imports of certain Apple, Samsung and Google devices. What happens when a patent dispute becomes a product-launch problem? In the first Unofficial Patent Gazette from Invent Anything, Seth Cronin looks at three audio patents, the U.S. International Trade Commission, and what the requested import restrictions could mean for product teams. At the time covered by this episode, the ITC had opened an investigation, with no infringement finding or import ban in this case. Also this week: the reported $27.6 million Stratasys/Bambu Lab jury verdict, Oxford Nanopore's announcement of a preliminary injunction against MGI Tech, a focused spatial-audio patent search, and a published swimming-pool rescue application that raises a net from the pool floor. If infringement is proven, should one patented feature be enough to keep an entire product out of the country? Or should compensation be enough? Let me know in the comments. Subscribe to Invent Anything for more on patents, inventions, and the business of innovation. CHAPTERS 0:00 Three patents and the U.S. border 0:47 Stratasys vs. Bambu Lab: the jury verdict 1:34 Oxford Nanopore and MGI Tech 2:16 BoomCloud vs. Apple, Samsung and Google 2:50 Why an ITC case becomes a product problem 3:37 The domestic-industry requirement 4:01 Apple's separate Supreme Court petition 5:02 What the spatial-audio patent data tells us 6:20 Beyond counting patents 6:51 Patent of the Week: a pool-rescue system 7:57 What changes for the product? EPISODE The Unofficial Patent Gazette, Episode 001: Patents at the Border Host: Seth Cronin Recorded September 21, 2026. News window: September 14-18, 2026. Apple's September 3 petition is included as background. SOURCES BoomCloud investigation, USITC 337-TA-1521: https://www.usitc.gov/press_room/news_release/2026/er0916_69235.htm Official notice identifying the three asserted patents, US 10,524,078; US 11,533,560; US 11,051,121: https://www.usitc.gov/secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_1521_notice09162026sgl.pdf Stratasys/Bambu Lab verdict reporting, Bloomberg Law: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tech-and-telecom-law/stratasys-wins-27-million-from-bambu-in-3d-printing-patent-suit Oxford Nanopore company announcement, RNS 9084U: https://www.tradingview.com/news/reuters.com,2026-09-16:newsml_RSP9084Ua:0-reg-oxford-nanopore-tech-preliminary-injunction-against-mgi-tech-gmbh/ Apple v. ITC, Supreme Court docket 26-316: https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/26-316.html Patent of the Week: Automatic Rescue System for Swimming Pools, US 2026/0274385 A1, Amir Rahimpour: https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/20260274385 PATENT DATA Minesoft Origin searches, September 18, 2026. BoomCloud: 45 U.S. applications, grouped by application; continuations remain separate. Spatial audio: 642 results in the defined U.S. keyword search, published since 2016. These searches have different scopes. Counts are not separate inventions, market shares, or predictions of the case's outcome. The pool-rescue document is a published application, not evidence of a validated commercial product.

  8. May 31

    Your Provisional Patent Is Filed: Now What? - IA #72

    You filed a provisional patent application. The clock is ticking on your year of protection. So what should you actually do with it? In this episode of Invent Anything, John Cronin, who has spent three decades in intellectual property at IP Capital Group, walks through a practical, six-topic game plan for getting the most out of your provisional: - Taking stock: what kind of provisional did you really file? - Immediate actions to take in the first weeks - What to do at the three-month and six-month marks - How different players (inventors, CEOs, investors, CTOs) view your provisional - Closing it out: abandon, or convert to a full patent? - The future of intellectual asset management, and how agentic AI may soon handle much of this for you Whether you're a first-time inventor, a startup, or part of a larger organization, this is a clear, business-minded plan for turning a provisional into real value.

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About

In this series, John Cronin and Seth Cronin share insights relating to invention, creativity, and intellectual property. These insights were collected over 17 years at IBM (John became its top inventor with over 100 patents and 150 patent publications) and 35 combined years as intellectual property and innovation consultants at ipCapital Group (working with over 800 companies and approximately 15% of the Fortune 500, hundreds of mid-size companies and hundreds of startups and governmental laboratories).

Information

  • Creator
    ipCapital Group
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    77
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © ipCapital Group
  • Show Website
    Invent Anything™