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…

    An updated version of this article is available at:   http://ipwatchdog.com/2013/08/17/patent-drafting-what-is-the-patentable-feature/id=44713/    

It is no longer news that the United States Patent Office is hopelessly behind, and many inventors and the companies they work for are waiting extraordinary periods of time to even get a patent examiner to pick up their patent applications for a substantive review. This has caused many inventors to indefinitely have their dreams, hopes and aspirations put on…

Scriptured outdoor furniture [ PDF ] [ HTML ] US Patent No. 6,705,334 Issued March 16, 2004 I am almost speechless. This “invention” covers furniture with scripture passages displayed thereon. The broadest claim, however, includes an umbrella, chair, table and much more, so I suppose if you were to just print scripture on an umbrella you would not be infringing.…

In order to jump start a constructive debate I throw out the following nine suggestions that would, in my view, assist in solving the patent crisis that we are in; a crisis that could easily lead to the irrelevance of the US patent system as a whole. 1. Revise the Examiner Quota System This is not the first time I…

To start the confirmation proceedings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced David Kappos this morning with a lengthy and impressive recitation of Kappos’ credentials and experience.  He started out with IBM as an engineer after graduating with highest honors from the University of California Davis with a degree in electrical and computer engineering, and moved to…

About 18 months ago while I was at PLI headquarters in New York City teaching a Patent Bar Review Course, my friend Bob Spar suggested that my view of Patent Office rulemaking was not helpful and in fact was part of the problem and that patent attorneys are at least as responsible for the state of the patent system as…

Once upon a time I used to not get worked up at all about proposals for patent reform, because after all they almost always didn’t seem to go through, or even if they did what was passed was hardly what was suggested. Then, my good friend John White told me several years ago that this time patent reform was going to…

Earlier today Rodger Gooch, a client of mine appeared on the national morning show — Fox & Friends.  Rodger came to me some time ago in order to protect his invention, which he dubbed Data Center in a Row.  We have filed a couple patent applications for Rodger, and there are more inventions in the works.  Rodger is a great…

I will be officially on vacation from Monday July 27, 2009, through Sunday, August 2, 2009, and then Monday, August 3, 2009, is a travel day to get to Chicago for the last PLI Patent Bar Review Course of the summer, which will take place from from Tuesday, August 4, 2009, through Saturday, August 8, 2009, at John Marshall Law…

In honor of National Inventors Month in August, Inventors Digest magazine and partners are sponsoring the 2059 Essay Contest for middle school and high school students.  IPWatchdog.com is proud to be one of the sponsors for this exciting essay contest, which asks those in ages 12 to 17 to write a 500 word (or less) essay on a technology, tool,…

PRESS RELEASE: The National Association of Patent Practitioners (NAPP) held its annual meeting and conference and elected a new slate of officers and directors July 18-21 in San Diego, CA. On Saturday, July 18, the NAPP held a CLE approved “Nuts and Bolts” prosecution seminar for attendees covering topics including Inventorship; Searching; Claiming; Drawings; Combating obviousness rejections; Examiner interviews; Allowance,…

On that fateful day some 27 months ago, April 30, 2007 to be precise, the United States Supreme Court decided that the well established and functional bright line rule for obviousness was too rigid.  No longer must there be a teaching, motiviation or suggestion to render an invention unpatentable for obviousness reasons.  No in this new brave world we need…

The Senate Judiciary Committee has announced that the confirmation hearing for David Kappos, who is President Barack Obama’s nominee to be Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, will be held on Wednesday, July 29, 2009 at 10:00 am Eastern Time in the in Room 226 of the Senate Dirksen…