“The ePetitions program is an instrumental part of the USPTO’s continuing efforts to expand its eCommerce capabilities and augment its ability to provide new tools and services to patent practitioners,” said Commissioner for Patents Robert Stoll. “Online filing of these specific ePetitions offers an important time saving advantage to petitioners as these submitted petitions are auto-processed and decided immediately upon receipt by the USPTO.”

The United States Senate voted 93 to 5 earlier this evening to end debate on patent reform, which should set up a vote on H.R. 1249 in the coming days. Debate on patent reform is now over in the Senate. In the coming days the Senate will vote on and almost certainly pass H.R. 1249, sending it to the White House for the signature of President Obama. The Obama Administration has lobbied hard for this patent reform and although they are not getting everything they wanted, most notably an end to the practice of fee diversion, President Obama’s signature is guaranteed.

Kickstarter is becoming more popular given the press it has received from the New York Times, CNN and NPR, but are they successful at raising money for people? According to Kickstarter just over 10,000 projects have been started and a little less than half have been fully funded and have gone forward. Of particular interest to those seeking funding is that Kickstarter takes no ownership interest in any underlying intellectual property rights associated with the projects, it is free to post a project, and the fees collected if a project is successful are under 10% (i.e., Kickstarter collects a 5% fee from the project’s funding total if and only if a project is successfully funded and credit card processing fees generally take up another 3-5%).

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will host a ceremonial signing Thursday for patent no. 8 million at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Acting U.S. Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank and Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David Kappos will present the patent to Second Sight Medical Products, Inc., for a visual prosthesis apparatus that enhances visual perception for people who have gone blind due to outer retinal degeneration. Following the signing, company President and CEO Robert Greenberg will demonstrate the new product, Argus® II.

In addition to a diverse international faculty focusing on “Enhancing IP Rights in a Time of Erosion” and other innovative IP topics, AIPF offers its Brand of Excellence programming which will include topics like eLawyering, Mentoring, Legal Project Management and Social Media for the Attorney. PWatchdog’s own Renee Quinn, the Social Media Diva™, will present at 11:35am on Tuesday, September 20, 2011 on “Marketing, Brand Building and Social Media for the Attorney.” Renee will also be covering the AIPF Annual Meeting for IPWatchdog.com.

Why would we expect a new post-issuance review to work any better than the current prosecution process? Why are we to expect the Patent Office, which is certainly not equipped to handle litigation-like proceedings, could adequately and appropriately resolve issues of patentability in a post grant review proceeding when they are so horribly under-funded? Why would anyone think this is a good idea? Simply stated, the America Invents Act layers on more and more responsibility for the USPTO but without any additional funding. For years the federal government has been notoriously adept at layering unfunded mandates onto the States, but with this legislation they will layer unfunded mandates onto the USPTO; an agency that accepts absolutely no taxpayer funding.

Changes were made in the copyright laws of the United States in order to ensure that what David LaMacchia did would be criminal in the future. Nevertheless, those changes to the copyright laws did not put an end to piracy on the Internet, nor could they have been realistically expected to do so. Corporations, entrepreneurs, artists and creators have lobbied the United States Congress for changes in the law to help them protect their copyrighted works, but they have also increasingly relied upon technological measures to protect their copyrighted works. While there is no legal requirement that a copyright holder take steps to secure or sequester material in order to avail themselves of the protection offered by U.S. copyright laws, there is no prohibition against copyright owners seeking to use technological means to preserve their rights. Prudence dictates content creators continually monitor to see if there is ongoing infringement, take steps to make such infringement more difficut and do whatever can be done to address infringement when (not if) it is discovered.

According to the Maya Archaeology Initiative press release, a detailed response was sent by their legal representative to Kellogg’s, which among other things asserted that the toucan in MAI’s logo looks nothing like Kellogg’s cartoon character and said the two entities are not in competition. The press release goes on to say that the MAI’s logo is based upon a realistic toucan native to Mesoamerica, while Kellogg’s Toucan Sam is a cartoon character with colors that represent the Froot Loops® food coloring. Really? Wow! Let’s take those one at a time.

That there was a majority (and a dissenting) opinion in the remand of Classen wasn’t surprising. But that there was yet a third “additional views” opinion would likely not have been predicted by anyone. And it is that “additional views” opinion, along with the majority and dissenting opinions, that will certainly generate a “firestorm” through the Federal Circuit, and which may eventually reach the Supreme Court. The judicial donnybrook on the question of what the standard is (or should be) for patent-eligibility under 35 U.S.C. §101 is about to begin in earnest.

Now, we’re about to toss it out in favor of a “first to file” bent with post grant challenges and derivation proceedings? Say what…….why? What did the statute do wrong? 8 million patents is a reasonable figure to have achieved. The US is the cross roads of the world’s technology with a statutory “negative pressure” that draws innovators and their ideas here. This country has flourished.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today announced the designation of Iowa’s Davenport Public Library as a Patent and Trademark Resource Center (PTRC). As the 81st library in the nationwide network, Davenport marks Iowa’s return to the PTRC program and serves as the first center geared away from the “paper depository” concept towards electronic access and training for patent and trademark information.

As a general rule, a copyright lasts for the life of the creator PLUS another 70 years. So your grandchildren and great-grandchildren can benefit from your creation well after you have left this earth. For the price the rights you obtain with a federal registration are a true bargain! File early and often my friends! You can never have too many copyrights, and invariably if you pick and choose when to file you will wish you had applied for a copyright sooner once someone is infringing. By then it will be too late for statutory damages and attorneys fees, which is unfortunate. The early bird gets the worm, and those quick to file a copyright application reap the most rewards.

Most patents are obtained simply on the “refrigeration theory” as I call it. Just like if you are in food service you won’t get far without the preserving effects of refrigeration. Everything spoils unless eaten immediately. Likewise in technology; without the coverage of a patent, everything spoils unless consumed forthwith (first mover advantage). The decision is simple: if it is worth doing, i.e., putting resources into, it is worth patenting.

Licensing your invention is a lot easier if you can show that it’s selling. That means you have to produce a small quantity of your product. Nice idea – until you learn that a plastic injection mold costs $25,000. Now what? Fortunately, there are options. You just have to know where to look.