Posts in IPWatchdog Articles

At this time of the year many attorneys and agents are not paying all that much attention to the rules and requests for comments coming out of the Patent Office. Truthfully, with the number of changes that have taken place under the Kappos run Patent Office and the enormity of the America Invents Act many patent attorneys, including myself, are worn out! Add to that the typical end of the year matters for clients and our own businesses and it is easy to miss announcements in November and December.

As I read through the patents and patent applications discussed below, and the many more I did not include, I started to wonder whether anyone has any reasonable expectation of privacy at all any more. I am a big fan of the CBS drama Person of Interest, and the surveillance system from that show that ferrets out dangerous on both macro and micro levels doesn’t seem quite so far fetched. I suppose that is why the FTC is seeking comments on facial recognition technologies and the government is attempting to get its hands around the enormous issues and promulgate some rules or guidelines.

Thanks to social media everyone has the ability to connect with like-minded individuals all over the world. But if you want to exploit social media you need to have an effective strategy. It doesn’t take an enormous amount of time each day. In fact with only 15 minutes a day, you can really make quite an impact. But like everything you hope to succeed with in life it does take planning and forethought. Here are suggestions on how you might be able to use social media to develop your brand, monitor quality, engage customers, expand upon ideas and connect with others within your industry.

The American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) is pleased to announce that Albert Tramposch, Administrator for Policy and External Affairs at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), willresume his former post as AIPLA Deputy Executive Director for International and Regulatory Affairs, beginning January 16, 2012.

At his speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Commerce Secretary Bryson outlined his top three priorities to help American businesses “build it here and sell it everywhere,” focusing on supporting advanced manufacturing, increasing our exports, and attracting more investment to America from all over the world. The key to emerging from the Great Recession is, of course, manufacturing. Manufacturing jobs have left the U.S. in favor of more business friendly climates in other countries, taking with them U.S. jobs and U.S. intellectual property. But moving into a Presidential election year will government be able to do anything that is at all likely to help?

The holiday season is about having fun, spreading cheer and spending time with family and friends. So in that spirit we put together a few video Christmas cards for our readers. From our family to yours – Merry Christmas! Thank you for reading IPWatchdog.com!

The question, however, is whether this increased inventive activity is sustainable in light of the overwhelming backlogs faced by Patent Offices around the world. It is great to have a lot of inventive activity and interest in obtaining patents. That shows that there is increased interest in business activities because few, if any, pursue a patent for the sole purpose of obtaining a patent. There is almost universally some business goal with associated hopes, dreams and potential positive impact for the economy. Whether this increased innovative activity can and will be something that produces an associated economic boon remains to be seen and is largely, if not completely, dependent on the political machinations of those in Washington, DC and other capitals around the world. Talk about a depressing though!

Hello everyone. I am writing today to provide an update to our readers on several matters (i.e., Renee’s surgery and our server issues), and to make a plea for votes in the ABA Blawg 100 contest — IPWatchdog is in the IP Law category. So please vote for IPWatchdog and if you could help spread the word to family, friends and co-workers and get them to vote that would be greatly appreciated.

So here’s what I learned about Kickstarter specifically, and crowd funding in general, after running a campaign. Setting your goal correctly is at least as important as setting your rewards. The FAQs on all of these sites all say to set your goal to the minimum that you need to launch the product, and after running a campaign I completely agree. I still could have produced my book with a goal of $5,000, and that would have been a much more reachable and less nerve-racking goal. But I wanted to hit five-figures, and when perusing all of those successful campaigns (some of which had hit six figures) it’s easy to have delusions of grandeur. I just barely made my goal, but I was sweating bullets at day 22 or so with another $2,500 to go and no good ideas for additional marketing of the campaign. Instead of risking the backing I had received by setting a goal too high, it would have been smarter for me to set a lower goal and hope for a 150% funding success instead of the 105% I did barely obtain.

After meeting with my doctor, discussing the results of my tests, reading through all of the documentation and talking to my mother who had a similar surgery in 2000, I realized that there have been so many medical breakthroughs over the years. These medical breakthroughs make surgeries like this possible, and in many cases with far better outcomes. So I thought I would write about some of those revolutionary technologies and the Hall of Fame inventors who were responsible for them.

In cooperation with the Practising Law Institute, I will be giving away 1 free PLI Patent Bar Review Course to one lucky individual. Entry is free, but to be eligible you must vote for IPWatchdog.com and tweet the vote count after your vote.