The Invent Blog®

FedCirc.us (Matt/Doug/I) announced earlier today the availability of a free preview issue (The Resolution) of our quarterly magazine, The FedCirc.us Reader.  Download the .pdf here.

The Resolution will give you a sneak-peak at the features of the magazine.  It’s jam-packed with all sorts of patent-caselaw goodness, including a ‘Trend Spotting’ article, a featured case review, prosecution- and litigation-focused digests, chronological and alphabetical listings of cases from last quarter (including summaries), and a fun “Quotables” section that includes some of our favorite quotes from cases issued during last quarter.

For this issue, we’ve even included a brief note about the story behind the FedCirc.us name and domain.

We think you’ll agree that the magazine is an exciting and effective new tool for staying current on patent caselaw developments.

Of course, the free preview issue includes subscription details for the magazine.  The site will be ready to accept subscription payments starting tomorrow.

Please do download our first copy and let us know what you think.

I previously blogged on "Accelerated Examination."  Without giving my opinion, it was clear from the post that I had my doubts in the usefulness of the procedure.  Those doubts were reinforced when Greg Aharonian’s (in his free newsletter PATNEWS (it is worth subscribing to)) recently printed an email from an anon reader regarding Accelerated Examination.  Part of that email noted that:

The first batch have been returned – With Absolutely No Applications Approved.  If this does not peg your crap-o-meter, the majority of the rejections by the SPRE corps can be classed as fowl defecation, by far the most egregious grounds is couched in the best language of the novel "Catch-22" that would make Joseph Heller proud.

Briefly stated, one of the conditions is to include a statement, made based on a Good Faith Belief, that a pre-examination search in compliance with the following requirements, was conducted, including an identification of the field of search by United States class and subclass, where applicable.  "Sanitized" to avoid retaliation, the rejection stated in part that,

"…the petition lacks an indication of a pre-examination search that encompasses all of the features of the claims. Specifically, with respect to the classification search, in addition to searching class 123, subclass 234 (which is the class and subclass where the application will be classified), subclasses 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 are necessary subclasses to be searched. In addition, class 345, subclasses 10 and 11, as well as class 456, subclasses 222, 333, 444.4, 555.5 and 666 are required areas of search."

See the Catch-22?

Class/subclass are assigned AFTER the preliminary search.  You need a crystal ball to know which class/subclass will be assigned.  If you honestly guess wrong (not to hard given the poor design of many PTO classes), they reject your Special application.

Wow.  Add another item to my "why I won’t recommend AE" list.

Link:  USPTO Statement on Ceasing Annual Top 10 Patents Holders List

In a Special Report for BusinessWeek.com, Rachel King describes how a lawyer and a professional juggler became a sensation—and led one of the world’s biggest companies to embrace viral marketing.

One November afternoon in 2005, lawyer Stephen Voltz traveled to the tiny town of Buckfield, Me., to watch his friend, professional juggler Fritz Grobe, perform in a sketch comedy show. While Grobe prepared for that evening’s show at the Oddfellow Theater, Voltz passed the time by dropping Mentos candy into Diet Coke bottles. Just as another friend had predicted, the bottle exploded, releasing a fountain of soda. After doing this experiment several times, both Voltz and Grobe became so intrigued by the effect that they decided to record a video for a segment on that evening’s show. "We kept thinking, are we crazy or is this cool?" says Voltz.

Click here to watch the latest Diet Coke and Mentos video.

Voltz, ever the lawyer, isn’t releasing any financial details of the deal. "I haven’t felt the impact financially," he says. But, he says, he has felt a huge difference in terms of notoriety. For the future, both Voltz and Grobe are brimming with ideas, and they’re eager to continue working with Coke, Mentos, and other companies to create quality online video content. As for Coke, the company says it will continue to spend more ad dollars online. "We really do take it in a serious way and we are absolutely committed to reinventing marketing," says Kopp. "Our percent of ad spending is following consumers online." Voltz says he’s amazed at the potential that viral online videos have created, not only for himself but for his many friends who do sketch comedy. "You don’t have to wait for a Hollywood studio," he says. "Now, if you have work that resonates with others, it’s a lot easier to get to your audience."

Some lawyers are amazing. Others just have amazing clients.

TGIF. 

Interesting new product…a ceramic toaster that automatically feeds the bread through the toaster.  Very cool.

It would have been fun to see the “guess what it is” guesses with a picture sans bread slice.

[Via Ed. via J-Walk]

And we thought patent reform only happen in the US. 

An attorney with the Canadian firm of Oyen Wiggs Green & Mutala LLP was kind enough to send me a memorandum ( Download forthcoming_changes_in_canadian_patent_practice.pdf) which thoroughly discusses the proposed amendments, including:   

Via Evan, the History of the Yellow Legal Pad.

Trivia Question:  How many secrecy orders were in effect at the end of fiscal year 2006?

49?
494?
4942?

According to this interesting collection of resources regarding secrecy orders sent to me by a reader, the correct answer is 4942.

It’s a question we all regularly hear from clients:  “what foreign countries should I file my patent application in?  Add this chart to your list of visual aids for explaining the topic to your clients:

Countries GDP as US States

Keith at IP-Discover sent me a nice email earlier mentioning their newest version of IP-Discover which integrates the new Google Patent Search features.  Very cool.

IP-Discover combines the best parts of each of the patent document servers in one convenient package.  For example, you can use Google patent search for pre ‘76 US documents, then highlight the search results and download them all from the USPTO document server.  Or, you can use the powerful search engine from Depatisnet and download bulk results from Espacenet.  Stored searches are also supported, as well as tools to manage your documents after you retrieve them.  We currently support four document servers, USPTO,  Espacenet, WIPO, and Depatisnet, with more to come.  The software has been on the market since 2001.

I’ve used IP-Discover in the past, and it really is a great program…particularly if you spend lots of time searching and organizing search data.  A free demo version can be downloaded if you want to try it out yourself.