We often report the latest court cases for patent infringement, followed by some encouragement to tech companies and product developers to return to their innovative roots. The spirit of innovation has historically been to share developments, even with the protection of a patent, so that technology can continue to be improved upon and to grow.

Once upon a time, the US patent system was created to share advances in technology so that others might learn from what’s available and improve upon it. The protection the patent system offered to the original inventor was meant to serve as an incentive to share that technology with the rest of the world.

It happens all too often: A company hits big and then slowly fades into obscurity when they fail to produce follow-up products or develop a business plan that can introduce additional revenue streams.

’Tis the (football) season but they’re trying to ring less bells on the head injury front. Amazon drones on, while WalMart seeks to improve your shopping experience. Since it’s also close to the start of the holiday shopping season, we’ll start there.

For everyone who ever wondered why we couldn’t track planes in flight, a professor from SUNY Fredonia has answered the call. We’ll get into that in a bit. First, we’ll talk about Blackberry bursting back on the scene with a patent license deal to Timex, a few fun Tesla patents, iRobot’s big court win, and, of course, Apple. Let’s get started.

Many great—or seemingly great—ideas come to fruition during the course of drinking a beer. When you’re out with the guys (or girls), one or two cold ones could have you rhapsodizing about how you’re going to change the world. This is most likely when self-lowering toilet seats, automatic pet petters, and self-twirling ice cream cones were all dreamed into existence.

The Lemelson-MIT committee has announced the 2017 winner of the Lemelson-MIT prize, Feng Zhang. Zhang is an Investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, an Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and a core member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. He received his AB in chemistry and physics and his PhD in chemistry from Stanford University.

Even now, years after Elon Musk made the announcement that Tesla would not pursue litigation for anyone who used Tesla patents in good faith, people still don’t know how to react. How could anyone give up that kind of power? Isn’t the point of a patent to enjoy some form of monopoly on the industry?

In patent news this week, most are talking about Amazon’s famed 1-Click patent finally running its course, but other exciting and unusual things happened too. For a complete rundown of Apple, Samsung, Amazon, Qualcomm, and more, just read on.

Have you hit a wall when it comes to innovation? Maybe you’ve created products that you counted on to help you regain your share of the market, only to watch them fall flat with buyers. Or maybe, just maybe, you’re at the top of your game and just want to know how you can keep holding on.