Posts Tagged: "patent office"

There is a lot of money sitting on the sidelines just waiting for the climate to change enough to warrant investment.  By some estimates the amount of capital lying in wait is perhaps as much as $10 trillion.  With no end in sight on just how low the Dow will fall, fears that banks will become nationalized have spooked investors. …

Rob Clarke, the Director of the Office of Patent Legal Administration at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, just finished his presentation at the 3rd Annual Patent Law Institutesponsored by PLI.  It was an extremely interesting presentation with quite a number of interesting factoids coming out.  Chief among them is that the Patent Office is extremely worried about its…

Earlier today I was contacted by the Wall Street Journal asking whether I had heard about the United States Patent and Trademark Office laying off employees in such a way that it would create problems for the Office with respect to keeping up with the growing backlog of patent applications.  From what I can tell this rumor was started by…

I have been critical of Jon Dudas and the way that the USPTO was run during his Administration.  I think much could have been done better, including working together with the patent bar to attempt sensible fixes to the US patent system.  Now that Jon Dudas has entered private it is time to move forward and attempt to continue efforts…

John Doll has wasted no time moving forward to try and put his stamp on the United States Patent Office.  One week ago today Doll, who became Acting Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Acting Director of the United States Patent & Trademark Office when Jon Dudas resigned, announced in the Federal Register that the USPTO will hold a…

Not long ago the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in Abbott Laboratories v. Sandoz, Inc., a decision that just screams for Congress to codify Rule 56 and settle once and for all the duty of candor that is owed to the Patent Office during the patent application process. To be perfectly clear, it…

There have been many rumors about the impending resignation about Jon Dudas, the Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property appointed by President Bush in 2004.  Patently-O announced on January 6, 2009, that Dudas would be stepping down by mid-January, which does not appear to have happened.  What is clear, however, is that President Obama has not yet chosen a new…

I hope and dream of the day when we get leadership at the PTO that will try and solve problems and reach out to the Patent Bar and see us as a part of the solution instead of the problem.  But as I said in my post yesterday on 7 reform suggestions for Congress, I doubt any of these will be…

After being told that patent reform in 2008 was all but a done deal, once again nothing happened.  I am happy that patent reform died in 2008 because the reforms that were being proposed were largely bad ideas, and they would have done absolutely nothing to address the many real and substantial problems that are facing the US patent system…

Over the past several years I have been a harsh critic of the United States Patent & Trademark Office because there are substantial problems facing the US patent system and I do not believe any of the reforms urged by the USPTO are calculated in any meaningful way to address those problems.  According to the recently released 2008 USPTO Performance…

Those who regularly read IPWatchdog.com may remember that on August 25, 2008, I wrote that the United States Patent & Trademark Office had finally, once and for all put an end to invention scams thanks to the fact that they had adopted new rules that would significantly impact who can engage in the representation of clients before the USPTO on…

The United States Patent & Trademark Office finally posted on its website an announcement that the new appeals rules that were to go into effect today, December 10, 2008, have been held up and will not go into effect.  Here is the announcement on the Patent Office website: In the December 10, 2008 edition of the Federal Register, the USPTO…

To quote Lee Corso of ESPN College Football Gameday fame — not so fast my friend!  The Office of Management & Budget (OMB) will not be able to complete its review of the Final USPTO Appeal Rules before they were to go into effect tomorrow, December 10, 2008, so OMB is forcing Jon Dudas and the Patent Office to delay implementation…

Anyone who has followed my writings over the past couple years knows that I have become increasingly critical of the political appointees who have been put in positions of authority at the Patent Office.  Nevertheless, I do want to be a part of the solution to the greatest extent possible.  With this in mind I have been writing about individuals…

The Wall Street Journal reported this weekend that in November the US economy lost over 500,000 jobs, the largest single month job loss since 1974.  So why would any branch of our government seek to assault one of the largest industries we have?  Lets face it, the banks and financial institutions are in horrendous shape, the US auto makers have…