QUESTION: I have a few ideas that I think could really be a success. I started researching “how to patent an idea” but have been bombarded with information.  I have no clue where to start, and I have only a limited budget. What should be my first step? ANSWER: Your question is one I get a lot.  The patent process can be complex…

Carry-out food container US Patent No. 7,451,889 Issued November 18, 2008 Did you know that on Tuesday, November 18, 2008, a carry out food container was patented? I discussed this patent in a post last week titled Unequal Treatment at the US Patent Office, where I discussed the unfair and inequal treatment that seems to be plaguing the Patent Office.  After…

Process for Deboning a Turkey US Patent No. 6,572,467 Issued June 3, 2003 Being in a festive mood on turkey day I thought I would profile this patent, which covers a process for deboning a turkey.  Happy Thanksgiving!

On Monday, November 24, 2008, CA announced the immediate availability of its CA Internet Security Suite Plus 2009. Each element of the suite, which includes a personal firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-spam and anti-phishing software has been enhanced to provide even stronger protection against a wide-range of emerging online threats. This latest edition of CA Internet Security also includes at no…

On Monday, November 24, 2008, the Federal Trade Commission filed a petition for certiorari with the United States Supreme Court (see also Appendix Vol 1 and Appendix Vol 2) seeking review of the April 22, 2008 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Rambus Inc. v. Federal Trade Commission, which turned out to…

Something is seriously wrong at the United States Patent & Trademark Office, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to believe anything other than that there is ongoing unequal treatment of inventors who file patent applications. In the United States everyone is supposed to enjoy the same rights and privileges, and this concept manifests itself in the ideal that everyone is…

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that RPX Corp will take on patent trolls. The trouble is that what RPX wants to do is raise money to acquire patents for defensive purposes. This is hardly something new, and it not something that those in the industry will tell you is calculated to succeed. You see, there just isn’t enough money to buy up all the relevant patents that patent trolls could get their hands on to use to sue.

The United States Patent & Trademark Office has just released the 2008 Performance and Accountability Report, which is the annual report explaining the activities of the Office during fiscal year 2008.  While so much of the report is a self congratulating look back at what the Dudas Administration believes it effectively achieved over the past year, the report should be anything…

Increasingly on the Internet invention advertising is taking an odd and seemingly inexplicable turn toward advising independent inventors to not seek patent protection, which is undeniably bad advice that will undoubtedly cause much disappointment and heart break for those who actually follow it.  But why is it that you are starting to see more and more advertisements that say it is…

Arcutis Pharmaceuticals, a privately held specialty pharmaceutical organization focusing in medical dermatology, announced yesterday that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the new drug application (NDA) of Acanya Gel (clindamycin phosphate 1.2% and benzoyl peroxide 2.5%) for the once-daily treatment of acne vulgaris in patients 12 years and older. Evaluated in clinical studies enrolling over 3,200 subjects…

This means that for inter partes reexamination 74% of requests result in all claims being canceled and 14% of the time certificates issue with at least some claims being changed. This is staggering because if you can eliminate all claims then the patent is worthless, but even if you can only change claims you have effectively prevented retrospective infringement of changed claims because the claim that is changed can only be enforced moving forward from the point of change. Thus, quality reexamination representation is far better than paying a bounty for the collection of prior art references.

Purchasing domain names at auction or in the aftermarket may be the only way to acquire a descriptive domain name given that so many of the best domain names have been taken and those that can be purchased directly from domain name vendors are not nearly as desirable. So often domain name searches do not produce suitable web addresses for a company, and those searching find that the web domain that they really want has already been purchased.

UPDATED JANUARY 7, 2009 Originally this page had a post containing discussion of a patent infringement lawsuit between American Science & Engineering, Inc. and AutoClear, LLC.  The facts used in this original post were take from a press release issued by AutoClear, LLC through Business Wire.  It has come to my attention that the press release issued by AutoClear was…

Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), a diversified energy company with 2.1 million electric and 1.7 million natural gas customers located throughout New Jersey (NYSE:PEG) and Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P., headquartered in Los Angeles, today announced the settlement of patent litigation between the parties. As part of the settlement, PSEG has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum for a nonexclusive license under a comprehensive portfolio of patents that Katz owns relating to interactive voice applications.

Personally, I think the PC VS Mac commercials are right on. The thought that Microsoft would put out a product that requires their users to potentially need to purchase all new software and hardware components for their PCs is rather baffling. The fact that they are willing to budget hundreds of millions of dollars to advertise a product that does not work nearly as well as it should and is not compatible with most software and hardware currently on the market, is almost surreal.