Posts in Government

Dmitry Brant, a DC patent attorney at a top patent law firm, recently launched a new software product aimed at the patent market named Patent ClaimMaster.  Patent ClaimMaster is a Microsoft Word plugin that helps you improve the quality of your patent documents while reducing costs. With Patent ClaimMaster you can turn cumbersome and time consuming tasks into simple tasks…

Yet another high profile senior level management position has been filed at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and the trend of qualified “get it” people continues.  Rob Clarke, who is currently the Director of the Office of Patent Legal Administration (OPLA), has been asked by Director David Kappos to become the new USPTO Chief of Staff.  I know…

I wish I had some inside information to pass along, but I do not.  All I can seem to come up with is unsubstantiated rumor and innuendo, but the report the other day from Patently-O that Duke Law Professor Arti Rai is heading to the Patent Office to fill a long vacant policy setting position has too much of a…

Earlier today James Love and James Glassman published what can only be described as an intellectually dishonest op-ed piece on RollCall.com.  The two James either simply do not understand patent law, the biologics legislation they detest or have an agenda that requires lying and obscuring the truth using scare tactics and falsehoods.  I don’t really know whether they are as…

One month ago today David Kappos was confirmed at the Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and the Director of the Patent and Trademark Office, and days later he was sworn in by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.  Since Kappos took control of the USPTO the outward appearance of things has been slow, save his nomination of Robert (“Bob”) Stoll to…

On Tuesday, September 2, 2009, the mighty 1600 pound gorilla in the room, also known as Google, was granted a design patent on the look of its search webpage found at Google.com.  Yes, the United States Patent and Trademark Office awarded Design Patent No. 599,372 to Google just days ago on an application that was filed on March 6, 2006,…

Lets be perfectly clear, the Patent Office does not call me and ask my input regarding anything, which should be readily apparent to those who read IPWatchdog.com regularly.  Had the Patent Office done so, and actually taken my suggestions to heart the Department of Justice would not have needed to ask the Federal Circuit to hold off on taking the…

We argue, hour by hour, day by day, about large issues of morality and ethics and discuss how to make our nation “green”. We discuss large high-level issues like “should we have a public option for healthcare?”, but we give less attention to the details regarding what such an option might look like. Similarly, in the patent system, the public…

Something came up in the comments to a post earlier today and I want to address it and definitively debunk the rewriting of history that seems to already be started with respect to who is to blame for the problems of the patent system.  The question arises with respect to whether the Patent Office has created their own mess by…

On Thursday morning, August 13, 2009, CNBC aired a segment titled Fixing America’s Health Care System on Squawk Box, which is CNBC’s longest running program.  Appearing on the program were Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who is a former FDA deputy commissioner, Tommy Thompson, former Health & Human Services Secretary and Wisconsin Governor and Jim Greenwood, a former Republican Congressman who is…

On Thursday, August 13, 2009, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke conducted a ceremonial swearing-in of Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David Kappos. In his remarks before thousands of employees on the USPTO campus, Secretary Locke said “David is taking on a big job… Promoting and protecting U.S. inventions, innovation and creativity directly…

The United States Patent Office announced on March 13, 2007 that it had just issued the first patent granted under the then newly minted accelerated examination program, which was first brought into effect in August of 2006. The patent in question, , U.S. Patent No. 7,188,939, was granted to Brother International, Ltd. from an application filed on September 29, 2006,…

With no notice to the public, and after the Senate was reported to have adjourned for their August recess, on Friday, August 7, 2009, David Kappos was confirmed as Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. While I applaud the quick action by the Senate to get Kappos confirmed, I must…

Earlier today the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance the nomination of David Kappos, former Vice President and Assistant General Counsel for IBM, to be Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, a job that also comes with the title of Director of the Patent and Trademark Office.  The vote in the Judiciary Committee was unanimous, with all Democrats and Republicans…

Dr. Chris Mammen On August 4, 2009, the Federal Circuit decided Exergen Corp. v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., et al., Case Nos. 2006-1491, 2007-1180 (Fed. Cir. 2009). In a post to this blog several months ago, I argued that Congress, the Supreme Court or the Federal Circuit should reform the doctrine of inequitable conduct this year, to rein in the resurgent…