Posts Tagged: "pto budget"

Mike Drummond, the Editor of Inventors Digest, sat down for an interview with David Kappos a few weeks ago while he was in Alexandria, Virginia, attending the Independent Inventors Conference. As has probably become apparent over the last several months Mike and I have been cooperating on a number of projects, sharing articles and doing some cross promotion. While I…

Last week David Kappos addressed the IPO annual meeting in Chicago, Illinois.  Kappos’ remarks were varied and really set a new tone for the future of the USPTO under his watch.  Kappos continued the theme he has already established in differentiating how the USPTO will run under his regime, as compared to how it ran under the previous regime.  Specifically,…

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…

UPDATED: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 6:59pm Pacific Time The last presentation at the NAPP Annual Conference is presently ongoing, with William Smith of Woodcock Washburn giving a presentation regarding hot topics before the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. Smith is a former member of the Board while at the USPTO. His presentation is a good one, and sobering…

I am extremely encouraged by the fact that the US Patent Office seems to be increasingly coming under the direction of those who have a sincere desire to see the system succeed and be better.  I think Acting Commissioner Peggy Focarino is making real progress with important initiatives, I think it is a step in the right direction for President…

Last night the United States Senate passed a bill that authorizes the United States Patent and Trademark Office to shift funds between different USPTO accounts in order to avoid the Patent Office having to furlough or terminate patent examiners.  Under the Senate bill the USPTO would be able to shift funds from the Trademark side of the building, which is…

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has been out in front on patent and intellectual property issues for years, and he is at it once again.  Senator Hatch has recently been very active with respect to writing op-ed articles explaining what all of us in the patent community have known for a very long time.  My hope is that his profile will…

Yesterday I posted an article titled Innovation Held Hostage by the Patent Office.  In the article I detailed some troubling things I have learned regarding what appears to be best explained by patent examiners taking cases out of order.  The Patent Office is a first-in-first-out (FIFO) system, or at least it is supposed to be.  A couple patent attorneys have…

I am writing from New York City today.  I am here for the PLI Patent Bar Review Course, which kicks off our summer run of courses.  Over the next couple months John White and I will crisscross the country from New York, Houston, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta, spreading patent teachings to aspiring patent attorneys and patent agents.  Right…

For some time now I have been writing about how a patent stimulus plan would revitalize the economy, but I am all fired up today after a flurry of comments and e-mail exchanges regarding some of my recent blog articles. It is way past time to rethink the patent application process and how patent prosecution is carried out by patent examiners. …

Many readers will recall that on March 16, 2009, I posted an article titled Perspective of an Anonymous Patent Examiner.  That post was and has been one of the most popular posts ever on the IPWatchdog.com Blog.  Therefore, I was quite pleased to receive another e-mail from the same anonymous patent examiner over the weekend.  Not only is this type…

On March 2, 2009, the Practising Law Institute kicked off the Third Annual Patent Law Institute at its New York City headquarters.  The West Coast version of this live program started today and will conclude tomorrow, live at the California offices of PLI in downtown San Francisco, CA.  Right about now the participants are probably seeing a video of Robert Clarke,…

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. …

As scary as it is, it is becoming harder and harder to believe anything other than that we are in another period of depression, call it the Great Depression II.  The Dow Jones industrial average closed today at 6,763.29, which marks the lowest close of the Dow since April 25, 1997.  It also means that we are now 52.4% off…

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…