Patent drop: Record numbers of patents are being granted

1/8/23 7:00PM

Yesterday was the final day of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the world's largest tech trade show, which has been offering a glimpse into the future of consumer tech for more than 50 years. This year's show, attended by roughly 100,000 tech enthusiasts, included color-changing cars, urine-scanning devices and an oven that prevents burnt food.

‍The innovation acceleration...

‍Many of the innovative technologies displayed at CES are likely covered by a patent — and digging through patent filings is a good way of picking up on future tech trends. Filings mentioning "metaverse", for example, have risen significantly, as have those mentioning "foldable technology", "electric vehicles" and "sustainable technology".

The total number of patents filed in the US has also risen, with record numbers being granted in recent years. That trend has also been reflected globally, with 2021 setting a new global record number of IP filings for patents, trademarks and designs to protect innovations — with Asia filing 64% of the 1.7 million patents filed worldwide.

‍**... or just a paperwork pile-up?**

‍Preparing a patent submission usually requires lawyers or experts, and total costs can routinely run into the many thousands for complex ideas or submissions. That is why tech giants, who can monetize their intellectual property more efficiently than individual inventors, always top the patent tables.

Interestingly, IBM — which topped the patent league tables for 29 years in a row before losing its crown to Samsung — has just switched tack. The company dropped its patent count by 44% last year in a bid to free up resources from the time-consuming patent process.

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Bot bias

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Prediction markets have, predictably, been given a boost by the summer of sports

Major platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have seen huge upticks in users of late, thanks in no small part to what’s felt like a recent sporting smorgasbord, with major competitions across hockey, basketball, and soccer soaking up fans’ time (and spending, clearly) at the outset of summer.

While gaming industry groups may not like it, there’s been a huge change in the methods people are using to put money on the big games, with everyone from fortunate NYC bar owners, to a far less fortunate Spanish supporter, turning to prediction markets to try and turn their sports know-how into cold, hard cash.

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

2026 World Cup Reverses Seasonal Lull for Sports Betting Apps

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

South by Southwest Conference and Festivals

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Anthropic pulls Fable and Mythos access worldwide after Trump administration bars their use by foreign nationals

Only days after releasing two versions of its next-gen AI model, Anthropic has disabled them for users worldwide.

Anthropic says it received a Friday night order from the Trump administration to suspend access to the models for any foreign national (anywhere in the world) — a group that included some Anthropic employees. In response, the company turned off access to everyone.

Last week, the company released to the public its much-anticipated Claude Fable 5 model (and its restricted version Claude Mythos 5, which is still being tested with trusted partners). Anthropic said in a blog post announcing the action that officials cited national security concerns with the new models, while offering few specific details.

The post said that the government gave the company “verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak” of the public Fable 5 model. A jailbreak is a means by which users can evade restrictions built into the code to unlock prohibited functionality. Anthropic downplayed the significance of the attack, and said other major models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, could also be affected by the technique described.

Fears of these first Mythos-class models being misused are running high, after Anthropic warned the cybersecurity world in May that the advanced cyber capabilities of Mythos have rapidly discovered thousands of vulnerabilities in ubiquitous software, leading to the decision to restrict the full version of the model to a close group of trusted partners for testing.

This morning, Axios reported that Anthropic technical staff have flown to Washington to meet with White House officials to resolve the issue.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Trump administration’s decision to take action against Anthropic was prompted by discussions that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had with officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. According to the report, Amazon researchers said they had been able to evade some of Fable 5’s security restrictions using specific prompts. Amazon is a major investor in Anthropic.

Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the Pentagon’s blacklisting of the company on national security grounds.

Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5