Dad left this mortal world this past Thursday, December 27, at the age of 94, having experienced a full life and after a final year and a half of fairly steady (and occasionally precipitous) physical and mental decline. For about 11 years, Dad was a patent examiner at the USPTO in one of the chemical art units. Dad then spent another 30 years or so as a patent attorney with the former IP law firm of Cushman, Darby, and Cushman, first as an associate, and later as a partner. In all, Dad prosecuted and obtained several thousand patents for his clients, mostly in the chemical arts. (That’s correct, several thousand patents.) Dad often wrote patent applications the old fashioned way, by hand, usually starting with the abstract, and going forward from there.

The interview took place on the Alexandria Campus of the USPTO in the Madison Building. We sat around a modest conference table in the office of Chief Judge Smith. We chatted for approximately 60 minutes. Smith and Moore give us a rare glimpse into the Board and the day-to-day inner workings of the two top Administrators who also work hard to seek opportunities to stay engaged and join panels whenever possible.

Every year we all gather around and celebrate the new year. So that got us to thinking — what patents are there for devices that any self respecting raucous reveler ought to have on New Years Eve? As you might imagine, we found a few that seem appropriate to the occasion, proving that patented innovations are not only fun but they are everywhere! Here is hoping that your night is safe and magical! Happy new year! See you in 2013!

Todd Sherer: “And what we’re seeing, what the AUTM survey is showing, is that patent budgets are going down. And that’s of concern to me, because everything has to go through that funnel. You can do a lot of research, basic and then applied research and have translational funding, but that technology has to come through the Tech Transfer Office and through the patent budget. So it doesn’t do us a lot of good just to have funding targeted at programs at the front end of that funnel to try to shove it through, through the right limiting step, or pull it out the other side. We need to also be mindful of the fact that we need to invest in those fundamentals, that patent and licensing part. Because we’ve also seen that the number of licensing professionals has gone down over the last couple of years in the Tech Transfer Offices. So, what we don’t want to see is that trend continue. We don’t want to see the number of our staff go down and the patent budgets go down at a time when we want to improve impact.”

Without doubt, the biggest patent deal of the month related to Kodak’s sale of its non-core patent portfolio to Intellectual Ventures, RPX and others for $525 million. But there were other interesting patent business deals, including: (1) Microsoft and EINS Sign Android Patent Agreement; (2) NIH Awards Contract for Improved Anthrax Vaccine; (3) ARRIS To Acquire Motorola Home Business For $2.35 Billion; (4) Mylan Announces Comtan® Settlement Agreement; (5) Trovagene Licenses Duke University, Novartis; (6) Amgen Finalizes Agreement Resolving Federal Investigations; (7) GE Healthcare, CDI Agree to Sublicense for Cellular Assay Patents; and more.

Another benefit of the straws is that in addition to milk and other beverages, it can also be used as a delivery method for children who usually have an aversion to medicines and other necessary vitamins or tonics. According to the press release from the company, “the technology can be used to deliver not only flavorings, but nutritional and therapeutic compositions such as probiotics and medications, greatly expanding its uses.” This could be good news for any parent who has fought with their child to take their medication. Ill-tasting medication can be disguised with a more favorable taste by using a flavored straw to drink it.

you might want to take this with a grain of salt, but Arris announced on November 1, 2012, that its Board of Directors authorized an additional $150 million in share repurchases of the company’s common stock. ARRIS currently has $19.6 million available under its prior authorization for share repurchase, and since 2008 the company has repurchased 34.2 million shares at an aggregate cost of $306.3 million. Thus, we have a big deal to acquire the Motorola Home business from Motorola Mobility and an ongoing stock repurchase plan with Google owning nearly 16% of the company? Call me crazy but I think this warrants serious investors taking a closer look at the fundamentals.

Todd Sherer, Ph.D. is the director of technology transfer at Emory University, and is also currently President of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). Recently AUTM concluded its annual survey and found, not surprisingly, that University technology licensing has substantial positive impact on the U.S. economy. On the heels of that survey I reached out to my friends at AUTM and requested an interview with Sherer. Our interview took place on Friday, December 14, 2012. During our interview we talked about the nearly constant challenges to gut Bayh-Dole, which is the very foundation of university technology licensing and the piece of legislation called the most successful domestic legislation in the post World War II era by none other than The Economist. We also discussed what it is that universities do and how, despite what the critics say, the basic research done by universities is hardly ready for the marketplace.

For this inaugural edition of ?Biggest Moments in IP? we have a variety of reflections on a wide array of IP issues. Former Commissioner for Patents Bob Stoll walked through some of the biggest items on the patent docket for the year. Former staffer to Senator Leahy (D-VT) and current lobbyist Marla Grossman reflects on Senator Leahy’s decision to refuse the Chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee to stay on as Chair of the Judiciary Committee. IP attorney and frequent feature contributor to IPWatchdog.com Beth Hutchens focuses on several copyright and first amendment issues. Then Stephen Kunin of Oblon Spivak gives us his Top 10 list in David Letterman style.

Many countries came to the WCIT to genuinely solve problems with access, infrastructure, security issues related to phishing and other challenges. And some countries wanted to maintain a close relationship with the ITU in hopes they would support the telecommunications infrastructure in their less developed countries, such as Africa. In fact, most African countries signed the treaty, except for Kenya. But it would be incorrect, I believe, to think their motivations included a desire for greater control over the Internet.

In 1906, when Upton Sinclair published “The Jungle,” that expose of unsanitary conditions in the meat industry shocked the nation, ranging from the public to regulators. Today, it is too well known how much can go wrong in the food supply chain, which is increasingly global. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that in the U.S. alone, each year there are 37.2 million foodborne diseases, 228,744 hospitalizations, and 2,612 deaths. In addition to this human tragedy there are the negative commercial impacts such as the cost of recalls, which can bankrupt a company as it did the Peanut Corporation of America after the 2008 outbreak of Salmonella in its products. That means jobs are lost and communities financially devastated. Also, reputational capital takes a hit, demand could be down for exports, and lawsuits are filed. The full extent of these effects is unknown which is why WHO created the Initiative to Estimate the Global Burden of Foodborne Diseases.

The patent process can be expensive, so the last thing you want to do is spend a lot of time and money preparing and filing an application when there is easy to find prior art that will likely prevent a patent from issuing. Likewise, a patent search can give you a good idea about the likely scope of any patent claim that you may be able to anticipate. Still further, a patent search will give you an opportunity to discover which aspects of your invention are most likely to contribute to patentability, thereby allowing the description in any filed patent application to focus on those aspects most likely to contribute to patentability. Without a patent search you would just be describing all the various aspects of your invention as if they are equally important, which we know won’t be the case.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today announced the launch of a permanent Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program with the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO). The permanent PPH program, which started on September 1, 2012, will continue to permit each office to benefit from work previously done by the other office, which reduces the examination workload and improves patent quality.