"press: here" is sponsored in part by barracuda network, security and storage solutions to simplify i.t. city national bank. providing loans and lines of credit to help northern california businesses grow. this morning, the head of the new silicon valley patent office sits down with me for a patently interesting conversation. we'll go behind the scenes of one of the most popular video series on youtube. and announce the ten entrepreneurs who will compete in the extreme tech challenge. our reporters, quentin harvey of "the new york times." and hannah of the financial "times," this week on "press: here." good morning, everyone, i'm

scott mcgrew. we talk about invention in silicon valley, we often invoke the cliche of the better mousetrap. turns out there really was an invention called the better mousetrap. the kind you'd actually use to. patent 179323 filed in 1927, and the lives of mice were never the same. or as long. now patenting and invention protect against copying and protects an inventor's investment. so you can understand why silicon valley got so excited after years of delay, the u.s. patent and trademark office last month opened its first satellite office in silicon valley. in fact, right in san jose city hall. one out of ten patents filed in america come from silicon valley. now, presumably very few of them are for mousetraps, though maybe computer mice. john kubeka is the director of the patent office. what did take so long?

detroit got a patent office before we did. right? why did it take so long for the mecca of invention to get a patent office? >> it's a really good question. and actually, you know, tconcep of establishing regional offices for the u.s. patent and trademark office is not a new concept, but it was one that actually took the path of the americans in 2011 to motivate us to open these offices around the country. and through that process we actually went on a nationwide search, we actually asked the country where should we be opening these brick and mortar -- >> was silicon valley just an obvious off the top? or am i just such a fan? >> i will say a lot of the analysis that we did as a result of over 600 comments coming from across the country for vying for the u.s. cpos avery heavily weighed in favor of opening in one of the most innovative

regions, not just in the country but on the world. >> what's the benefit of opening an office here? they could just send this stuff to washington. does the local office have people who are specialized in software and biotech? is there some speed of time that e-mail can't deliver? what -- >> so, and actually that's a really good point. with the electronic age, and our emphasis on electronic filing, we don't want you to bring your papers and your filings to the regional office. we want you to take advantage of our electronic processing so we don't accept papers in the regional office but the regional service instead provides customized services for the innovative community not just here in the silicon valley and the san francisco bay area, but for the broader state of california, and actually a seven-state region. >> you can't just say customized services and no we don't want your patent. what do they do? i mean, are we going to surprise you and say oh, wow, we just walked in the door? >> we actually have -- we use our satellite offices for three

primary goals. one is to actually help us in attracting and retaining top talent in to the u.s. cpos to help us in the examination of the patents and in the adjudication before the patent trial and appeal board or patent judges. so we definitely have a primary goal with establishing and building our workforce regionally. the other goals are actually bringing the u.s. cpo services that you can only get at headquarters. you can't mail a letter or send an e-mail you actually have to fly to alexandria, virginia, to take advantage of our public search facilities, to take advantage of our interview rooms which can connect you with patent examiners, working across the country, or in any of the other regional offices or headquarters. we can remotely connect you to it. obviating the need for you to have to fly across country. and we have a hearing room as well. >> so you're trying to give entrepreneurs a helping hand as they try and get through this incredibly complex patent process. at what point are they coming to you? when you've just got a brand new

idea? or is it further down the line? or if you've got a whole bank of patents, would you also be adding to them every time you come up with a tweak? >> well, that's a very good question, very good question that's going to take me a long time to answer. but i -- >> we don't have -- >> i don't have a lot of time. i also say that when should you come to the u.s. pto? any time. you should always feel comfortable to use our web services, call assistance centers, or another feature of having a regional office here in the silicon valley is just to come in, walk in, take advantage of the services we have in the facility to learn about the patents. learn about trade -- >> and to hannah's point i can imagine that silicon valley inventor who's got this thing that he's built in his garage, or she, and can she walk in and say, is this patentable? i mean, to her question, how do i know when i've built a thing that is worthy of a patent? >> well, again, a very good question.

and the best way to find out whether you have something that's patentable is to do a search of related technologies. and we can help you with that in our public search facilities in the regional office, and city hall at san jose. >> are people just patenting too many things now? because some of the big companies, they all have licensing deals constantly because they patent every small, sort of development to their product. and you guys just got a backlog, right? >> we do have a backlog but it's come down dramatically in recent years. and we're also still receiving a lot of patent applications. last year we received over 580,000 patent applications. across the country. and we very much focus on whether or not are people patenting too much. i really think that that's a testament to the growth of our economy. because the more that we patent, the patent system itself is a property right. so we give patent holders a limited right to exclude others

from making, using and selling that invention. and in return for that, you have to tell the world how to make and use that invention. and that disclosure is not only spurs competition because people either want to contact you for a licensing arkment, or perhaps try to buy your patent, but they'll also be motivated to innovate around your invention which creates more follow-on technology. so when you see growth in patent filings it tells you that innovation is alive and well. >> it brings development out here which is the speed of invention. things are being invented so quickly. that means they're outmoded quickly, too. for example, google has technology it doesn't want to patent because it doesn't even want to indicate the prior argument you have to show in a patent. they feel it's noncompetitive to make a patent. and if you did, what's the point for holding it for seven years because it's going to be outmoded in four. you're not getting as much advantage. if an environment like that of

hyperinventiveness. do we have the right patent system? is the process too slow? >> so i think that, you know, with effect to the process itself, is the process can take several months, many months. it could take many years in some instances. but we also have a program called track one, where you can accelerate the filing of your -- not the filing of your invention but the exam nation of your invention and once that petition is granted you can get a response from the patent office within two months so we do have mechanisms within the agency to get very speedy indications of whether or not your intention is patented. the fees are larger for large companies. they're half off for small companies, and they're 75% for micro -- >> there's been a criticism that software shouldn't be patentable. and there have been lots of cases in which there have been software trolls, patent trolls, rather, who buy up these little patents that may or may not

apply to my start-up and then sue me with them. you must be intimately familiar with this. is there something the patent office can be doing to help solve this? because it's hurting small start-ups. >> with respect to software in general, i think that we've all seen software creeping in to every single form of technology. software enabled technology, the internet of things movement. and so again, i think that the growth of the use of software to make things better faster, less expensive to produce, are all things that promote innovation and advanced technology. but when it comes to the abusive litigation that you mentioned, the patent trolls. i don't think i've ever heard a definition of patent trolls that i can get a group to agree with. but i think what we do want to prevent is the abusive behaviors of -- >> and how do you do that? i'm rushing you along because i know our time is short. but how do you -- can the patent office prevent abusive behavior? and if so, how? >> so, at the u.s. pto we have a

series of information tool kits that we can office to better inform and educate the invent of, the patent holder, about being attacked by someone who is abusing the system. but more importantly, congress right now is working very hard top create legislation to address this very issue. >> and this is a congressional problem, not a patent office problem. you can try to help mitigate it, but it's got to go through congress. >> yeah. >> all right. john cabeca with the new silicon valley patent and trade mark office. up next taking the elevator pitch to a whole new level. sir richard branson will open up his private island to a bunch of entrepreneurs who get to pitch him personally.

welcome back to "press: here." if you're perused youtube for even a few minutes you have no doubt come across the 100 years series. 100 years of women's fashion. ♪ this video has received more than a quarter billion views, and it's one of just many. there's a video called 100 years of lingerie that we really can't show you on television. certainly not on a sunday morning. now these videos are created by a company called mode media, formerly glam media. here you see behind the scenes,

as they shoot 100 years of cars. between all the videos, the 100 series is just a fraction, mode media brings in $100 million -- no, 400 million viewers every month. you might expend that the founder of mode is a fashionista of some sort. from vogue, or the runways of paris. but, in fact, he is a former software engineer at apple. sam irra credited with helping to shape the early days of the world wide web. now you're shaping, among other things, women's fashion. so i've got to ask you, how does an apple engineer end up making videos about 100 years of women's wedding dresses? >> the personal story is i actually started in theater and tv since i was very young. and apple recruited me to some on the engineering and design side. >> it's got to be a strange pass. not many theater people come to be engineers. >> you know, it's all about what you love. and it's all what you love. and you know, someone told me a

long time ago you're an artist, you can also be very technical like playing the violin. >> sure. >> and the reverse is true, too. i see them both the very same path for me. >> would have been the most popular ones, and one of the surprisingly popular ones where you thought, don't really go and it just took off. >> i think the secret sauce we have is we have a studio content, video content and we have a lot of creators, 10,000 creators, studios that produce content. the secret sauce for technology that makes the answer to your question important is we actually test every video, even at the episode level out with a live audience on line, on facebook and other social media. so in that period, the formative period, we internally all sit around and ask this question, which is, you know, is this going to flop? how big is the list? who will love it? and we're finding slowly, we mere human beings are not very good at answering that question. >> i can't help but notice the

100 years of lingerie did fairly well. i don't know -- >> i don't know if i can figure out the formula for that. by the way, we sent our photographer to shoot one of your 100 years, you saw behind the scenes on some of that and i can't tell you how disappointed he was it was 100 years of cars. >> the 100 years format, was that a bit of a surprise when that popped? did you not think you were going to be spending quite so much time in the archives of dresses and cars? >> well, knowing where technology -- we've been going after and answering the real question is, bingeing, is there an equivalent of the tonight show or a mini series and we've been doing that for awhile. we tried 1 minute episodes. we tried 17 minute videos. we kept trying and we ended up with this 100 years format. and it's working. what we've found is a certain series of time there's a cadence that seems to work and resonates with hundreds of millions of

consumers. and we're pretty excited about that. so, it's kind of a slow evolution, and i think we nailed it. we just 100 years of food. so we tested it for non, you know, fashion and style, and it worked really well as well. >> and you can taste stuff. >> you can see it, though. >> everybody kind of knows it's just beyond your grandparents. you know, it's not sort of the 16th century where it would just seem impossibly remote. this is sort of inside your experience just a little beyond. >> yeah, that word internally i would say, if you've seen our videos, you know, they're stylish, they're above a youtube level so it's not just a young audience. we want to go after adults, as well. and, they have always a style and they have a message. and i think people it ally resonates with the consumer -- >> a very open ended message. >> yes. >> the pets -- >> we don't know. >> dogs -- >> dogs. usually dogs, dogs, dogs.

>> oh -- [ everyone talking at once ] >> the advent of corgis, a watershed. >> two things we decided to do, everywanted to find what is viral. without doing animals. >> oh. >> it was -- >> that's why we ask you -- >> we don't want to be a buzzfeed. they're doing it well. they understand it. the second thing we did is we wanted it to pop inside youtube or facebook. because we launched a platform this year, mode.com, we actually made a rule that 80% of all the videos watched should be on our own streaming player. now that's very important. i could build an alternative to a youtube or a facebook is very hard. >> i know it's hard but why -- >> very good question. >> i think if you look at the ways video is evolving, there's a really big gap between, you know, broadcast television and netflix and youtube. we all know that. in that gap is where

professional premium content will be produced soon. that's almost the same kind of rules as cable or broadcast, but will have different sitcom formats or show formats. >> and you need to control the format -- >> absolutely. >> -- do you find it hard -- >> i think for us our relationship with youtube and now building with facebook is really great because we work with a lot of youtube creators. and because if you see like take a michelle, if you see some of the videos with us versus their own, they are different. so when you talk about the creative process of building great content, there is a difference of professional shooting. >> the entry level has come up. i mean, it used to be a webcam and michelle fan was a web cam and now it has become this level of professional. it's really good news for the movie crews and the tv crews who are suddenly alarmed about what's the future of television? well you still need it because the youtube video has become a much more professional platform.

>> yeah. you know, i think youtube, kudos to them. they actually bought a company, google did, and gave it all the time it needed to blossom into what it is. and on one end, it's still user generated content. we know that. and on the other hand it's a land of music. >> absolutely. >> one of the most used. and the professional level, as you said, is going up every day. we still think there's a gap between that and contents, in a platform that's only produced by professionals. >> right. no i think you can -- you found that i totally believe in your model. let me ask you, as the last question if somebody were okay have not seen this genre that they're talking about and they went to mode.com what's the one video -- >> oh, that's a really tough one. >> pick your favorite shot. >> i would have them start at 100 years of fashion, only because it has -- it's actually gotten just this one episode more than 200 million views. >> yeah. >> and it's men and women so you can creelly see that the cross audiences, it really shows what

this new digital video format can give you. that's where i would start. >> samir, thank you. >> thank you for having me. >> "press: here" will be right back.

welcome back to "press: here." each year a very select group of entrepreneurs travels to the caribbean to pitch their companies to richard branson, and they do it on his private

island. now to get there, in this case you have to be voted onto the island. >> excited to take richard branson -- >> it's amazing -- >> hi, guys. welcome. >> nobody gets to the island unless they go through a panel of judges, including the president of samsung, venture capitalist tim draper, and kim mcnicolas. kim is the director of the scream tech challenge. she may seem familiar to you and that's because she was actually on the show for years as a panelist when she was at "forbes" magazine. now you are with the extreme tech challenge. tell me about this contest. what is richard branson getting out of it? >> well, he's getting deals. actually brought to his island. that was the reason he wanted to get involved, he know bill was always connected, and he said why don't you actually bring one here. do the finals here. >> so hear about all these tech companies? >> exactly. >> so there are ten companies that are going to go to ces.

>> that's right. the top ten. >> and a division of those will go to the island. >> the top three. >> you have the top ten, nobody's ever heard the top ten until right now what can the top ten. >> captive media. genomic expression, kick further. mass roots. megabots. giroptic. sixense. sphero, smartplate and bloom technologies. >> and sphero i think i know. it's the little robot that rolls around star wars right? >> i love it because this is a company out of boulder, colorado, that ends up in pixar disney with a top incubator on day three they get to meet with the president of disney who says, do you know your spherical toy robot looks like our droid in our upcoming star wars film, do you think you could make one?

now they have the officially licensed product. >> day four must have been rough. >> a new hot star wars toy right yes. there's one mega bots. this is the giant robot with the how is this even investment i mean it's a bunch of guys who have built a fire breathing robot. >> an entire sports entertainment franchise and it's been successful with battle bots a reality show this is like that next generation of large, life size duelling robots. >> on the big consumer electronic shows you're going to bring in fire breathing robot drag dragons. >> exactly. >> if they go to the island will they bring the gigantic robot to the british virgin islands? >> they are going to have to. they said it will travel. >> just checking i just want to double check richard branson who owns his own island may have a fire breathing robot on the island. >> yes. >> just like in the movie the evil genius.

>> -- as well. >> well, done. >> exactly. >> -- to go through -- >> we had more than 1,000 applicants from around the world. we had companies from south africa. we had companies from syria. a couple of these in our top ten including one of my very favorites and i think it's one bill and i got a chuckle over, captive media from interactive advertising platform and it's absolutely brilliant. >> why? >> because everybody's trying to reach millennials, right? and particularly a hard-to-reach audience is millennial men. this company reaches them where they're at. >> which is? >> at the urinal. >> these are the screens -- >> these are the monitors that go over urinals. they have more than 10,000 bars across the uk that have these monitors and they put sensors within the urinals and they create games. so every single advertiser can have a pee powered game. >> so what kind of -- >> it's brilliant. >> you have to -- >> but you're really -- >> let's hannah for moving on.

go right ahead. >> what kinds of marketing -- advertising in urinals. sometimes people are a bit anxious about being in unconventional situations. >> if you think about it it's so fun because on average men spend i guess according to the company 60 seconds at the urinal. >> it's a lot faster than the women spend -- >> that's why we have no lines. >> you do have a leader board. >> yes. what is the, what is the -- there's a smart play i don't like the smart play and i'll tell you what, that is it is a smart diet plate that helps you know if i realize dieting industry makes a lot of money. if you would listen to your smart plate about not eating a cheeseburger would don't you listen to your doctor? you know what i mean? >> because it gives you advise. reminder in the moment. >> you're going to

>> and then think oh, my doctor was right this is a plate nagging me. >> do i need an app that tells me to go exercise. what am i -- >> yes, you do. >> but also what i love about this is that they've taken the facial recognition technology and adopted it to do food recognition. and they have an actual camera that's in these smart plates. i love the form factor. they travel well, they go in the microwave. >> so it can tell a boiled chicken from fried chicken? >> oh, my gosh. >> it's a smart polite. >> kyn mcnicolas is the director of the extreme tech challenge from ces and then to nekar island.

that's our show. my thanks to our guests, john cabeca, the new director of the patent office, samir aroa, and kym mcnicolas, and i'm scott

mcgrew. thank you for making us part of your sunday.

hello and welcome to "comunidad del valle." today the director of child support services is here plus a boot camp for students on your "comunidad del valle." >> nbc bay area presents "comunidad del valle" with damion trujillo. >> we begin today with innovation in education, it's happening at the cristo rey jesuit high school. with me today sophomores at cristo rey. welcome to the show. >> thank you. >> we do have a slide show that you have up on your website of this school. tell us about your experiences what kind of a high school atmosphere is there -- >> so cristo rey is a jesuit high school, also