Posts in IP News

The Intellectual Property Committee of the Dade County Bar Association had grown weary of the typical attorney cocktail reception thrown to raise money for a good cause, so the Committee devised The Patently Impossible Project, which was a charity race to assemble a patented invention based only on patent provided, various parts and tools. The patent selected was US Design Patent No. D366,908, simply titled Toy Catapult. The event was staged on Friday, December 3, 2010, at the Miami Science Museum, with proceeds going to The Legal Aid Society, which is the oldest legal services provider for the indigent in Miami-Dade County.

Today marks the 30th Anniversary of the most forward thinking patent legislation since Thomas Jefferson wrote the Patent Act in 1790, which was the third Act of Congress. Truthfully, the Bayh-Dole legislation is likely more forward thinking and inspired than even Jefferson’s work, given that the patent law written by Jefferson was merely an attempt to codify and improve upon the patent regime of Great Britain. The Bayh-Dole Act, which was enacted on December 12, 1980, has lead to the creation of 7,000 new businesses based on the research conducted at U.S. universities. As a direct result of the passage of Bayh-Dole countless technologies have been developed, including life saving cures and treatments for a variety of diseases and afflictions.

Article One Partners announced yesterday that patents held by NTP Incorporated are the focus of three new requests for research, which Article One Partners refers to as Patent Studies. NTP was made famous for its litigation against BlackBerry maker Research-in-Motion (RIM) that resulted in a settlement north of $600 million. New litigation by NTP has expanded the assertion of patent infringement to other top players in the mobile and smartphone industry, which is prompting Article One Partners to engage their global community of researchers by challenging them to identify evidence predating the patents in question and which can be used to invalidate one or more of the patent claims owned by NTP.

Copyright trolls are a relatively new beast, and it’s hard to nail down a definition, so I’m just going to fall back on the immortal words of Justice Stewart’s famed copout “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . but I know it when I see it . . .” Boy, you said it, Justice Stewart. Of course, he was talking about obscenity and I’m talking about troglodytes. But to me, copyright trolls are like patent trolls. They have very little or no interest in the progress of the arts and brandish their copyright like a sword. They threaten to sue anyone and everyone who even looks at their copyrighted material without permission.

Yesterday Director Kappos deviated a bit from his routine and utilized a powerpoint presentation, which was titled: “The USPTO by the Numbers: Progress and Reform at Our Nation’s Innovation Agency.” While some of the slides tell what appears to be a remarkable turn around story, the real news to come out of Director Kappos’ presentation is that he is challenging the Patent Office to get down to a patent application backlog of 650,000 by the end of fiscal year 2011. To paraphrase Sam Cooke: what a wonderful world it would be!

At lunch Director Kappos explained that the goal for fiscal year 2010, which ended on September 30, 2010, was to get the backlog down to 699,000 — dubbed “project 699.” The Office was not successful, but Kappos says they will get well below 700,000 for fiscal year 2011, perhaps as low as a backlog of 650,000. Kappos’ immediate follow-up: “I say that as Commissioner Stoll starts to choke at me saying that.” Indeed, there are ambitious goals at the USPTO for FY 2011, including a move to unity of invention.

Bayh-Dole was created because of a glaring problem– billions of hard earned tax dollars invested annually in government R&D were being squandered by ineffective government patent policies. If this research cannot be taken out of the labs and turned into products, the public is being short changed. Even so, it was a long, tough road to travel, and we only succeeded by the smallest of margins. Turning around long standing government policies, no matter how ineffective, is never easy.

Two months ago I wrote about one of my favorite patents — The Animal Toy — which is U.S. Patent No. 6,360,693. See Patent on a Stick: Learning from the Animal Toy Patent. Shortly after writing that article, which was not intended to poke fun at the Patent Office but to merely teach a point relative to claim drafting, I received an e-mail from Stephen Kunin, who is a partner at Oblon Spivak, LLP. Steve wrote to me indicating that this patent was reexamined by the Patent Office and none of the claims exited reexamination. This in and of itself may not be very odd, but something didn’t seem quite right.

I am pleased to announce that the Editors of the ABA Journal yesterday announced they have selected IPWatchdog.com as one of the top 100 best law blogs by lawyers, for lawyers. Now readers are being asked to vote on their favorites in each of the 4th Annual Blawg 100’s 12 categories. IPWatchdog.com is in the “IP Law” category. To vote, please visit The 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100.

In this edition of News, Notes & Announcements, websites engaged in the sale of counterfeit merchandise were ordered seized as part of a joint investigation coordinated between the Department of Justice and ICE. Additionally, there will be an event celebrating the 30th Anniversary of passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in Washington, DC on Wednesday morning; the USPTO will hold a roundtable on Friday, December 3, 2010 to discuss trademark prosecution best practices; FIRST, the company founded by Dean Kamen, received a 5 year contract from NASA to provide support for hands-on robotics competitions aimed at inspiring our youth to pursue science and technology; ITT launches an innovative new graduate program that combines engineering, design and intellectual property; the mother of all patent trolls is back at it both in terms of licensing and in terms of acquiring more patents; and patented software that makes it possible to find plagiarized code is released.

Earlier today the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in Microsoft Corporation v. i4i Limited Partnership, with Chief Justice John Roberts taking no part in the decision or petition. This comes only days after the United States Patent and Trademark Office refused to grant reexamination of the patent in question. Given Microsoft doesn’t even have strong enough prior art to provoke a reexamination by the USPTO it seems absurd to think they could have been victorious even if the district court reviewed the patent claims de novo and without any presumption.

We caught the tide– but just barely. That the Bayh-Dole Act passed was amazing. That it passed in a lame duck session of Congress with its principal author defeated, the US Senate changing hands, and a sitting president thrown out, was a miracle. Even then success was not assured. Fortunately, we launched and caught the tide. This is my “staff’s eye view” of how it happened.

In a recent article, Mobile Business Tools – Social Media Apps for Apple iPad, iPhone & iPod, I discussed the topic of Social Media/Networking applications that are available for download on the iPhone, iPad and iPod that can help you stay connected to your Social Media. There are thousands of other Mobile Business Tools available to you an can be found in multiple different application categories. Following is a guide to several of the more popular Mobile Business Apps that one can use when on the go to essentially take the office with you. Heed my warning, however, once you start using this tools you will never know when to “go home!”

The pardoning of the Presidential turkey caught my imagination as I was trying to figure out what holiday patents to profile for this Thanksgiving, something I always try and do whenever possible. So what better thing to focus on than on turkey patents, and there are many of them. I easily found multiple dozens of turkey callers and all kinds of turkey transportation devices used by hunters to carry their prey home, but these were the ones that really caught my attention for one reason or another.