Posts Tagged: "Authors"

Consider, for example, the old axiom that entrepreneurs must be unwaveringly fixated on a single goal. Most startups are built around a single product or service that is assumed (but not yet proven) to meet a real consumer need and offer a lucrative market opportunity. The CEO of that startup is likewise singularly focused on getting a fully-baked product out the door as soon as possible in order to start generating revenues while at the same time building a pipeline for future offerings. Given the limited resources in most startups, this often means that the engineers are building Version 2 of the product before Version 1 has even been tested in the market.

Therefore, returning to my hypothetical inquiry above, assume a continuation is filed on or after March 13, 2013, but is accomplished in such a manner so that its does not qualify to be treated as a patent application under current law. This means, as a consequence, that if, for example, the parent application when originally filed relied upon the one year grace period or if someone else files a patent application describing the subject matter of the invention before the filing of the parent application (but otherwise was not the “first to invent”), the claims of the continuation will be rendered unpatentable. Furthermore, since it would have been possible to file the continuation in a manner so that current law continued to apply even after March 13, 2013, one might imagine that a patent prosecutor in this situation may be subject to liability and/or perhaps a bar complaint. If I now have your attention, continue reading, because this situation can take place much more easily than I certainly would have imagined.

I spoke to five patent practitioners (attorneys and agents) who filed successful 12 month accelerated examination cases in 2011 to get their input on how the process went for them and what subjects should be considered by applicants and their patent counsel before embarking on it.

Early in my career, I encountered a series of approximately 20 patent applications that were assigned to a small number of different art units. During the time it took to bring the cases to resolution, I kept detailed notes of my experiences prosecuting each case. It eventually occurred to me that the information I’d collected might be useful to other prosecutors working with the same examiners and/or art units. I wondered whether my colleagues, by reviewing my notes and gaining insight from my experiences, might be able to accomplish resolution more effectively and efficiently. However, the subjective and anecdotal nature of my notes limited their practicality. Recognizing that fact, I began to consider strategies for facilitating ways in which practitioners could more effectively share their prosecution experiences with one another.

It is that time of the year where we all start to look ahead to the new year, perhaps making some New Year resolutions that are sure to last for at least a few days. Resurrecting something done two years ago, I once again contacted some of my friends to get them to go on the record with their patent and innovation related wishes for 2012. I was lucky enough to get a number of very thoughtful responses from individuals with a variety of experiences.

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.

The CAFC’s split panel decision this past week – In re Construction Equipment Company – extends the PTO’s authority to reexamine a patent even where its validity has already been adjudicated and confirmed by the courts. Yet the CAFC once again fails to explain how a PTO reexamination finding that a patent is invalid effects an earlier judicial determination that the same patent is valid and infringed.

Frustration with registration and login isn’t limited to mobile devices, of course. As the web has become more participatory and an integral component of our lives, the average web user has accumulated dozens of accounts at different websites — each with a distinct username and password to remember. Even more problematic, many people try to cope with this problem by recycling the same password across multiple sites, thereby jeopardizing their online security. Social login alleviates this “password fatigue” problem and offers up benefits both for online users and online businesses and other websites.

This was a very interesting discussion, although I was surprised at how little Bilski was mentioned. Although the hearing did digress on some tangents, the Justices’ questioning was generally on point and indicative of the difficult questions a case like this presents. Surely, the Court will be thinking of the impact a decision might have on the healthcare industry, as well as the information technology industry. Also, Justices are no doubt aware of other pending cases which may find their way to the Supreme Court, such as AMP v. USPTO, Classen v. Biogen, and the divided infringement cases of McKesson and Akamai. I will leave the reader to reach their own conclusions, but my best guess is that the Court is leaning toward the position that §101 should be a coarse filter and that §102 and §103 would be more appropriate to challenge the validity of the claims in this case. We will learn the answer in the spring.

The doctrines of “secret prior art” and “inherency” both merged in the case Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. v. AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP to surprise, and unpleasantly upend the patentee. Judge Linn’s opinion ruled that “[a]n inventor need not understand precisely why his invention works in order to achieve an actual reduction to practice.” Relying upon the collective holdings in Dow Chemical, Mycogen Plant Science, and Invitrogen, the Federal Circuit panel then concluded that “it is apparent that the district court correctly entered summary judgment” of invalidity of the asserted claims in the ‘502 patent under 35 § 102(g)(2).

Over the years IPWatchdog.com has continued to try and add additional perspectives from a wide variety of guest contributors, ranging from well respected practicing attorneys and agents to high profile academics to inventors and pro-patent lobbyists. It is hard to imagine providing such depth of analysis on such an array of topics without having truly wonderful guest authors. So we take this moment to say a very special thank you and to shine the spotlight on them. Each deserve to share in any recognition of IPWatchdog.com. Without further ado, here are the guest contributors in alphabetical order, along with their contributions for 2011.

Many people situated variously within and outside of the patent system of the United States urged the adoption of first-to-file. There are, however, many questions about the scope and possible impact of the AIA. Exactly how it will all play out remains to be seen. A significant question is what will be the likely impact of the AIA upon the operations of the USPTO, an organization that has been so greatly over-burdened in recent times. Anyone interested in reading this is likely old enough to have heard the old saying “Be careful what you wish for – you may get it.” Now we have it.

Lovin has received exceptional attention in the patent law blogosphere. In short, Lovin permits an examiner to wait until an examiner’s answer to explain how and why dependent claims are rejected. What’s worse, Lovin permits the examiner to require the applicant to provide a substantive reason for patentability before the examiner explains the rejection. The Federal Circuit is considering whether to hear In re Lovin en banc, and indeed they should rehear Lovin en banc. The Federal Circuit should defend the applicant’s right to receive a meaningful explanation of claim rejections before the applicant is required to rebut the rejections.

As you click through to each of the blogs, you will notice the content on each of the blogs is different. Patentlyo.com appears to be statistically driven. Mr. Crouch produces many different patent stats. We appreciate him for that. Gene’s IPWatchDog.com blog is filled with opinion of legal patent developments. Againstmonopoly.com highlights how patents and other IP protection hurt society. The list goes on and on. Instead of visiting only the top blogs, I recommend that you spend some time reviewing each of the blogs because each blog infuses a bit of their own perspective and personality into the online conversations currently occurring in the blogosphere.

When copying has occurred, much of the code may have changed by the time it’s examined due to the normal development process or to disguise the copying. For example identifiers may have been renamed, code reordered, instructions replaced with similar instructions, and so forth. However, perhaps one comment remains the same and it’s an unusual comment. Or a small sequence of critical instructions is identical. Correlation is designed to produce a relatively high value based on that comment or that sequence, to direct the detective toward that similarity. If correlation were simply a percentage of copied lines, the number could be small and thus missed entirely among the noise of normal similarities that occur in all programs.