Category Archives: News

Finding and Hiring Reputable Patent Practitioners

Posted on July 1, 2010 by tom

When you’ve come up with an invention and are looking for someone to help you obtain a patent, do your comparison shopping and choose carefully.   Whether you choose a patent attorney, a patent agent, or an invention promotion service, … Continue reading →

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Secrecy, PR, and Media Intrigue

Posted on June 29, 2010 by tom

Marc Graser and Dave McNary wrote a great piece over at Variety regarding the difficulties in keeping a blockbuster movie under wraps during production.  Pre-release leakage of information, pictures, scripts can destroy a movie – but it can also make … Continue reading →

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Bilski v. Kappos – Patentability Tests

Posted on June 28, 2010 by tom

The long awaited Bilski decision was released today, and while I haven’t had the chance to read it yet, I have skimmed the blogosphere enough to know what it said.  Basically, the Federal Circuit went a little too far, and … Continue reading →

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Patience Urged for Bilski

Posted on June 25, 2010 by tom

Patent thinkers are going crazy for the Supreme Court to issue Bilski v. Kappos, a case with potential to change the patent landscape: Inventive Step Patently-O – guest post from my old Munich professor John Duffy IPWatchdog ABAJournal 271 Patent … Continue reading →

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Expediting the Patent Examination Process for Age or Health

Posted on June 11, 2010 by tom

Patent applications typically take quite a while to become actual patents. It’s currently taking between 2 and 4 years just to get the First Office Action from the Patent Office. There are a few ways to speed up the examination … Continue reading →

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Enlighted Designs bridges copyright-patent gap with lighted clothing

Posted on June 7, 2010 by tom

Fellow Harvey Mudd College grad Janet Hansen, who is President and Chief Fashion engineer of Enlighted Designs, has found, perhaps inadvertently, a way to combat the inability to get copyright protection in clothing design.  While you generally can’t protect the … Continue reading →

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Past Future of Computing

Posted on June 2, 2010 by tom

With the D: All Things Digital conference going on right now, there is a great video posted over on Kara Swisher’s digital column: an interview of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs at the D5 conference back in 2007.  Interesting to … Continue reading →

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More Open Source Development In Large Companies

Posted on May 25, 2010 by tom

I blogged about open-source solutions a bit ago, and it looks like the open-source / crowdsourcing / community-based design approach is being applied again.  GE is soliciting ideas from the public for their next ad campaign.  Another example of leveraging … Continue reading →

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Preventing Trademark Dilution by Monitoring Potentially Infringing Use

Posted on May 18, 2010 by tom

Steve O’Donnell, over at 3C Patent Law, has a nice, quick description of how a trademark owner can lose its rights through dilution. I’ve excerpted some of it here, but read the whole post for a better explanation: Consider this … Continue reading →

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TMZ and the Right of Publicity

Posted on March 5, 2010 by tom

A podcast I listen to was ranting about the worthlessness of TMZ and wondering how TMZ can publish pictures of celebrities without their approval.  The host’s point was that celebrities make their money on their image and would be compensated … Continue reading →

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