The Invent Blog®

I’m starting work outlining a future CLE/Article on “Online Resources and Tools That Will Make You a More Competent and Skilled Patent Practitioner.”

Here’s one resource I highly recommend:

PLI Lawyer’s Toolbox provides indispensable weekly practice tools to help you seal the deal for your clients. Each issue features links to downloadable forms and checklists that will keep you up-to-date on a range of current practice issues, ensuring that you’ve got them nailed down tight. Lawyer’s Toolbox helps build a stronger legal foundation.

The “Toolbox” typically consists of excerpts from PLI publications on a wide range of legal topics. While only 10-20% are intellectual property related, the wide variety of subject matter disseminated can be very useful in helping you spot issues (and are excellent for forwarding to in-house counsel as “a FYI”).

Which is creepier?  The fact that “cat o’nine tails” is an actual identification listed in the “Trademark Acceptable Identification of Goods & Services” OR the fact that 38 trademarks included it in their listing of goods/services?

One of those trademarks is a pending design for “AEROFLOT RUSSIAN AIRLINES” (Ser.No. 79/046430).  You apparently don’t want to mess with Russian air marshals.

Nice summary!

This entry is divided into three sections -
(1) Getting U.S. Patent Materials;
(2) Researching U.S. Patents
(3) Other U.S. Patent-Related Issues
“Other U.S. Patent-Related Issues” include: Arbitration, Applications, Families, File Histories, Litigation, Reassignments, Shepardizing and patent-related Web Sites.

Patents – U.S. – LexisNexis InfoPro – Zimmermans Research Guide

SOLO Independent IP Practitioners — “A community discussion group for sole IP practitioners, wherever they are in the world – whether in their own businesses or working for others – as well as new small firms on a growth curve.” [via Inter-Alia]

New, free, worldwide patent search site:  PriorSmart.com

see more icanhascheezburger.com
Details:

Patent Prospector – Twarted

Patently-O – Tafas v. Dudas: PTO’s Proposed Limitations on Continuations and Claims are Invalid

271 Patent Blog – *** USPTO Continuation Ruled Dead (For Now) ***

• 7-Zip [http://7zip.com/] — Free, open source program for opening zip, rar, 7z, gzip, etc files.
• Alternatiff – The plug in for Internet Explorer/Firefox which allows you to view patent images from the Patent Office’s website [http://www.alternatiff.com]
• CrapCleaner- A program that you run occasionally and the computer will through and delete temp files and junk and files without dates [http://www.ccleaner.com/]
• Irfanview – An excellent free image editing software perfect for touching up trademark drawings, screen captures, etc. [http://www.irfanview.com/]
• PDFCreator. If you don’t have “Print to PDF” as an option on your computer, try PDFCreator (free): [http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator].
• Google Browser Sync for Firefox. “An extension that continuously synchronizes your browser settings – including bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords – across your computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across different machines and browser sessions.” [http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/browsersync/]
• Auslogic Disk Degragmenter. Free. [http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/]