Smart Grids and Smart Energy

Most cybsersecurity solutions are still defending the model of the 1980s local area network (LAN). Detect and block network traffic. Protect the file server. Ensure the integrity of the database.

Cyberphysical systems present new classes of challenges. A physical attack on sensor may serve the same purpose as a software exploit. Systems must still provide service safely even if their performance is degraded. System resilience is often more important than exploit defense.

Fashion law is a little bit like the Wild West. There’s a lot of potential, but the rules can be convoluted and vague at best. Protecting a brand or even a single design involves intellectual property, copyrights, trademarks, and patents. A successful case requires creativity and flexibility. Harris Ingram represents boutique design houses like Marta and Thorne, individual designers like Mara Bond, and illustrators and graphic designers. We protect their products against copycats large and small, and guide them through manufacturing ethics and labeling laws.

Old things are set and forget. New things interact dynamically with us and the wider world using the internet. Commercial buildings interact with tenants to improve amenity, increase security, and to improve worker productivity. Internal systems are now expected to respond not only to use, but also to participate in the wider environment of smart energy, smart water, and smart agriculture. Modular infrastructure is expected to self-assemble into self-optimizing systems, whether in the industrial park or during disaster relief and reconstruction.

Sometimes the barrier between your product and a larger market is how to communicate. Toby Considine has developed a number of standards, from OBIX generic web service communications with control systems and smart televisions, to the Smart Energy communications developed to meet the requirements identified in the US National Smart Grid Roadmap to M2M Schedule negotiation to meet the needs of smart energy and smart medicine. Our team has also worked on meta-standards to redefine whole industries, as it did on the EPRI Team that created the Smart Grid Roadmap. Standards make markets, and markets make for more sales.

Your new technology is a game changer—but what are the rules of the new game? The success of your product may rely on its ability to interact with other systems—or may require other systems that are not yet on the market. You are an expert in your new stuff, but you may need help with the database, or the network. You may just need an “ignorant expert”, to talk through your new technology without the assumptions that are now built into your team.

You need to transform programmers into high-performing architects. You need powerful whitepapers and tutorials to educate and develop customers and staff. You must define and convey the business value of your technology.

Call us to help.

We are passionate about our work, and we love to describe it to people. Audiences know when the speaker likes his subject. Toby Considine has spoken around the country and around the world in conferences, charrettes, round-tables, and  workshops. We have spoken to audiences from engineers to academics, from equity traders to policy makers, and from real estate investors to venture capitalists. Let us know what you are looking for.