Howard Kerr at Oak Ridge put the first type radio transmitting chip on a
bee and patented it, I believe.
Riley in the UK used harmonic radar, a similar technology to RFID
We worked with PNNL to put a chip on a bee, but it weighed too much. We
did get global press on the chip, and it worked, but we determined that our
chip was too heavy, altered bee behavior. We did not patent rfid chips on
bees, since we documented worldwide that we pioneered the use of RFID on
bees. We effectively placed this technology in the public domain, even if
we didn't go on to use it for our applications.
That same research (at PNNL) group that put a chip on a bee for us later
pioneered the nanochip used by Walmart and others. That chip is very tiny
and can store information in addition to being used to locate and track
assets.
The Germans produced more recently the first RFID chip small enough to be
readily used for bee studies such as the German and French used for
neonicotinoid and fipronil studies published over the last year or two.
RFID dust has been on the scene for almost a decade. Still waiting to see
it as a real technology. Two problems - you still need an antenna on the
chip for any long range detection (i.e., queen in a box), and RFID's can be
hard to triangulate accurately. Easy to know chip is in the vicinity, not
so easy to find it.
I recently saw, courtesy of Randy, a US patent for RIFD chips and other
markers on queens. That patent will be hard to protect, 1) it is not
unique, chips on bees have been in the public domain, queen breeders have marked
queens with paint and tags for a long time, and the queen is just another
female bee, so the patent could be challenged, but ultimately 2) there's no
way to protect such a patent, anyone can buy RFID chips and glue them to
bees - of course the readers are spendy.
I am not advocating challenging the patent, just pointing out that the
patent examiner missed the fact use of tags and chips on bees is not unique.
Under recent changes in US patent law, one could readily challenge such a
patent. I for one can document our own use of RFID chips since the late
1990s, including the press release from PNNL.
Jerry
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