Biotech start-up Theranos has been granted more than 50 US patents by disclosing prophetic examples. Prophetic examples are often based on fictitious claims, while working examples are based on proven experimentations.

On June 15, Ms. Mei Yun Lai presented a paper about this topic at the DRUID conference in Copenhagen. The paper is co-authored by Prof. Dr. Martin G. Moehrle. By combining computer vision and natural language processing techniques, the authors distinguish patents with prophetic examples from from patents with working examples. Their findings show that there are some positive aspects of prophetic patents which have been overlooked by prior researchers.

The IPMI would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Prof. Dr. Lars Hornuf and his co-author Dr. Daniel Blaseg, who have been nominated for the DRUID best paper award. Their paper is titled “Playing the Business Angel – The Impact of Business Angel Publicity and Congruency on New Venture Performance”.

For more information, please visit the DRUID Conference homepage (www.druid.dk).