Bits and Bytes No. 116

  • Comments on Patently-O: I have updated the commenting software. Now there are threaded comments, so it is easier to reply directly to a prior comment. If you sign-up for a free Typepad account then you can personalize the image associated with your moniker.
  • Law Firms as Patent Owners: Photo site SmugMug recently filed a declaratory judgment action against the patent holding entity VPS, LLC. VPS previously settled with Pictage earning a "multi-million dollar fee" as well as with Kodak Gallery and Shutterfly. VPS's ownership is interesting. Its managing partners are all patent attorneys: Carl Moore (patent attorney at Marshall Gerstein); Timothy Vezeau (patent attorney at Katten Muchin); and Nate Sarpelli. The VPS patents were originally assigned to Monet, Inc. but subsequently assigned to the Marshall Gerstein firm. In 2002, the law firm assigned the rights to VPS. (See Pat. No. 6,321,231). SmugMug Complaint for Declaratory Judgment.pdf
  • Design Patent Customs Registration: The IPO has voted to support a statutory change that would create a design patent registry within the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bureau of the Department of Homeland Security. The CBP already keeps a registry of trademarks and copyrights to assist customs agents in preventing infringing importation through any of the 317 official ports of entry into the US. [CBP E-Recordation System] (No bill has been proposed.)
  • Tivo v. DISH and EchoStar: $190 million.
  • Update Your PTO Registration Data Online: Link. Before you can use the system, the OED will first send a letter to you with a User ID. After you respond, you will be sent a password.

64 thoughts on “Bits and Bytes No. 116

  1. 64

    I just wanted to acknowledge that, within the past couple months, I have been very pleased by the responsiveness and general way things are going at the PTO. I’ve had three applications get FOAMs within 6 months of filing, I’ve had petitions and other minor submissions acted on within a week of submitting them, and I’ve found Examiner’s attitudes generally more pleasant and less combatitive. I’ve dogged mightily on the USPTO in the past, but I wanted to recognize good behavior when I see it. ::gold star::

  2. 63

    MaxDrei,

    Officially not noticed.

    ;-p

  3. 62

    Dennis I like the numbers too.

    (I only said that because I see I have contributed nothing at all yet to this thread. But, reading comment 61 above, from the Noise, I feel I should. Not that Noise will notice of course.)

  4. 61

    The XXX said part merely places the author at the beginning of the message rather than at the end.

    I prefer this, not that I couldn’t identify the usual characters by the message, but now I am finding that I can immediately skip over those posts such as MaxDrei’s which contain purposeful conflation of US and EP practices.

    Dennis,

    The messages still do not appear on my handheld.

    The addition of the number to the comment is helpful – would it make sense to include that number in a replying post (such as NAL responds to post 56 We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat)?

  5. 60

    Mooney likes movies about Gladiators AND Pirates…

  6. 59

    “Add a more, more, more … addition to the recent comments.”

    I agree.

    If you don’t check every hour you may not be aware of recent comments made to relatively old articles.

  7. 58

    Leave it to the Swedes:

    link to washingtonmonthly.com

    Sweden’s Pirate Party has won a seat in the European Parliament.

    The group – which campaigned on reformation of copyright and patent law – secured 7.1% of the Swedish vote.

    The result puts the Pirate Party in fifth place, behind the Social Democrats, Greens, Liberals and the Moderate Party….

    “The Pirate Party wants to fundamentally reform copyright law, get rid of the patent system, and ensure that citizens’ rights to privacy are respected. With this agenda, and only this, we are making a bid for representation in the European and Swedish parliaments.”

  8. 57

    I agree with We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat.

    And, why doesn’t my pseudonym and email address fill automatically?

    Two possible improvements for Patently-O:
    Get rid of this multi-page format for a single thread.
    Add a more, more, more … addition to the recent comments.

  9. 56

    Okay, I see that we have gone back to sequential comments. Good. But please also lose the “XXX said” part – it’s just a bit too cutesy for what should be a professional blog. Not sure why you felt the need to make any changes in the first place.

  10. 55

    I don’t like this particular version of threaded comments. It would be good if there was an option to view things unthreaded. The pictures might be helpful in identifying posters to avoid reading. If only someone would bell all of the cats…

  11. 54

    Frequently examiners don’t get serious about their rejections until applicant has gone to the time and expense of prosecuting the application for a couple of years and then preparing and filing his Appeal Brief.

  12. 53

    broje,

    Are you willing to supply samples for Malcolm’s avatars, or do you have a policy against pornography?

  13. 52

    Threaded comments are annoying… I liked the previous improvement, where you could click on the most recent posts on the right side, and it took you directly to the most recent post. There’s no way I’ll even attempt to read the convoluted discussions when they are threaded like this.

  14. 51

    Other forums I’ve frequented with threaded comments have an option to click a button and get a flattened, chronological view, sort of like we used to have. Is it possible to implement that so we can choose or switch back and forth as we like?

    Also, we need to be able to do polls, such as a “vote for mooney’s avatar” poll. Just kidding about that one, sort of.

  15. 50

    why not make them alternative rejections in your first OA?

  16. 49

    yeah and that kind of thing is why I use 102. then I put an alternative 103 in the response to argument if they get uppity.

  17. 48

    Hi Lawrence B Ebert.

    link to ipbiz.blogspot.com

    I believe you are mistaken. Perhaps it isn’t Mr. Moatz who decides in the end, but effectively it will likely be his determination that wins the day.

    It turns out in this case though, the applicant already argued against the new way of construing the reference, so he was aware of this manner of construing the reference. I think it’d be fair. If he doesn’t get back to me on the phone here soon, he’s getting an E answer with the same basic thrust and one small designation changed. And it isn’t going to be a new grounds. Heck, it doesn’t really matter to me if you call it a new grounds or not. Apparently I have to send the answer anyway even if it is.

    Feel free to use your first name Lawrence.

  18. 47

    as posted elsewhere it would be useful it the posts were labeled “New” for an hour or two (like the Huffington Post does) — to help us easily identify the new ones

  19. 46

    a 103 allows the applicant to present evidence of secondary considerations too

  20. 45

    Sir, K, get right on that sir. Yes sir!

    Sir, I note that asking this question on here saved me a lot of interpreting the MPEP chapters which are vague and confusing, sir. Sir, thank you sir.

    Sir, lol sir.

  21. 44

    I’ve been looking through the family portrait album and cannot find that perfect picture. If someone out there has the perfect picture to go with my account, I think I will win your dare. Anyone who has a good picture for me can send it to big_hairy_rat@yahoo.com

    Thanks

  22. 43

    This is why I haven’t done a 102 rejection in the past 2 years.

    Clearly a single anticipatory ref? I’ll still do a 103 in view of the single ref. More wiggle room.

  23. 42

    sounds like a new ground

  24. 41

    Ms Rai wrote:
    “…incremental reform that gave the new PTO administration greater control over its procedures and its budgetary outlook would move us a long way toward a more efficient system of patent examination.”

    Ugh.

  25. 40

    Arti Rai reads 6 et al. at patentlyo.

    Arti Rai advises Obama of the situation.

    Arti Rai writes an article putting forth everything discussed for the last two years in a very neat and organized manner.

    link to papers.ssrn.com

    Thanks Arti, you’re the best.

    Sincerly,
    6

  26. 39

    I concur with We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat and Noise above the law — these images make this IP blog look like it was set up for kindergarten.

    Perhaps we can persuade Prof. Crouch to run a survey – Yeh or Nay, to go back to the old format. I bet there will be an overwhelming response to go back to the old format.

    If it ain’t broke don’t fix it is advice we should all live by. And I’d strongly vote to do whatever necessary to get rid of this multipage format for a single thread.

    And I’d love to see a more, more, more … addition to the recent comments.

    Prof. Crouch I’d bet there are many students on campus who could assist in making these changes and I urge you to run a survey so that your readers can have input into the format that we work with — most of us work with it daily.

  27. 38

    I just called and OED said the system is not up yet. User names will be automatically mailed to practitioners sometime in the future. Too bad this info was not posted on the OED website.

  28. 37

    Could be worse – ever been on Slashdot?

    Of course, the best blog commenting solution is covered by a patent that’s owned by a Hideous Patent Troll…

  29. 36

    Agreed. In addition, with the narrow column format, you have to scroll a lot just to get to the next comment. Not really an improvement in my book.

  30. 35

    Raymond Stantz accepts your offer.

  31. 34

    You’re not the only one; I also thought it was absurd. In response to reading Dennis’s announcement, I called the OED today to ask what I had to to to get a username and password. I was told that I didn’t need to do anything; the necessary paapers were going to be mailed to me. I said “Great! When might that happen?” The woman told me that she didn’t know, but probably within “the year.” Can you believe it? I think it’s crazy that the PTO is bragging about a service that it does not even provide. (Dudas has sure done his damage.)

  32. 33

    Regarding the online registration updates, I called to get a username/password and OED said the system wasn’t up yet? Does anyone actually have a username/password?
    Also, when does the annual practitioner fee start getting collected?

  33. 31

    1. nobody is obligated to answer your insanity NAL
    2. this is true
    3. we’ll miss u

  34. 30

    “VPS’s ownership is interesting. Its managing partners are all patent attorneys: Carl Moore (patent attorney at Marshall Gerstein); Timothy Vezeau (patent attorney at Katten Muchin); and Nate Sarpelli.”

    Patent attorneys as trolls – “interesting” indeed, doesn’t fit the money-whore attorney stereotype at all.

  35. 29

    And the successful false marking qui tam suit was?

    Enlighten, please.

  36. 28

    “I have updated the commenting software.”

    Dennis, a number of reasons why the new stuff is less than stellar:

    1) any time someone can post to (and cause) mutating threads and drag the discussion into briar patches, the ease to evade actually answering the tough threads is diminished. Although the intent is to make it easier to follow along, enabling multiple discussions may not meet the intent.

    2) let’s see, we had three new comments, where in the 5 pages of threads and mini-threads are those new comments… scroll down, next, scroll down, next – Oh screw it.

    3) The comments do not show up on my handheld… Now my transit time will be spent on other sites.

  37. 27

    Unbelievable. Instead of wacking off on patentlyo all day, 6, you should try doing your job and noticing the PERTINENT part of the pub and basing your 102 on that. Instead of waiting until the fricking appeal brief has been filed. Huge waste of time and money for the applicant while you masturbate on this blog. While you’re at it, get an attitude adjustment: you’re supposed to knock out the stuff that’s not patentable AND LET THROUGH THE STUFF THAT IS. That’s what encourages innovation and investment.

  38. 26

    Hmmmmmm,

    No mention of the successful false marking qui tam suit…

    I would expect better.

  39. 25

    “My response is as always: Resolve your issues over the phone before you send in the appeal. As in this case, a simple interview would have drawn the attention of my spe to the specific issue, and caused him to suggest the exact same thing.”

    The SPE is supposed to be signing off on your Final, and should have caught it then.

    The rep should have (and may have) filed an after final that was a preview of the appeal brief — all the substance, and none of the idiotic requirements of form. Of course, in my experience juniors w/ SPEs don’t pay any attention to those either, and primaries aren’t necessarily much better. Telephone interviews are only useful if you’re trying to get a better handle on the Office’s broadest reasonable interpretation. For anything else, in my experience, examiners tend to fob you off with “I’ll have to consider that… put the argument down and I’ll get back to you with an AA.”

  40. 24

    MPEP 1207.03

    I. REQUIREMENTS FOR A NEW GROUND OF REJECTION
    Any new ground of rejection made by an examiner in an answer must be:
    (A) approved by a Technology Center (TC) Director or designee; and
    (B) prominently identified in the “Grounds of Rejection to be Reviewed on
    Appeal” section and the “Grounds of Rejection” section of the answer (see
    MPEP § 1207.02). The examiner may use form paragraph 12.154.04.
    The examiner’s answer must provide appellant a two-month time period for reply.
    The examiner may use form paragraph 12.179.01 to notify appellant of the period for
    reply and to include the approval of the TC Director or designee. In response to an
    examiner’s answer that contains a new ground of rejection, appellant must either file:
    (A) a reply in compliance with 37 CFR 1.111 to request that prosecution be
    reopened; or
    (B) a reply brief that addresses each new ground of rejection in compliance with
    37 CFR 41.37(c)(1)(vii) to maintain the appeal.

    That seems just fine to me. He can decide to request reopening and then I guess it gets reopened.

    “There is no new ground of rejection when the basic thrust of the rejection remains the
    same such that an appellant has been given a fair opportunity to react to the rejection.”

    Technically speaking my rejection was only off by less than a hair.

    Man the discussion goes on to get so convoluted that I can’t even tell if this really is a new grounds. It says in one place that it generally is, then in another place it says that it isn’t. So I guess it isn’t. Except for any new 103’s I might need to make for deps. Whatever, seems fine to me to send out the E answer no matter which way. I might call him up first and let him know, and see if he wants to change his mind.

  41. 23

    So now we have 1 for sending out an E answer and 1 for calling the attorney and reopening prosecution for him. Course, the one guy has a nice cite to the MPEP.

  42. 22

    “If you couldn’t be bothered to read the entire reference, why should the attorney be bothered?”

    I probably did read the whole reference, but didn’t realize that it would make a great rejection. We all think about formulating rejections differently you know, there’s a million ways sometimes. And, I don’t expect him to, quite frankly I expect him not to. But then again, I don’t want to hear any bichin later on.

    “Regardless, if you treated your job properly, you would call the attorney, say that based upon this “new” interpretation, you think you’ve 102’d his independent claims. ”

    See that’s what I thought about doing. But, I just read the guy below us who commented, and it seems like sending out the E answer would be just fine.

    “If you couldn’t find a good 103 rejection to make as to some of the the dependent claims, you would offer them up, in an examiner’s amendment, as placing the claims in condition for allowance.

    That’s the thing though, given an hour or so I most likely could find a decent 103 on them.

    “However, if you have a good 103 rejection, you should reopen prosecution and make the new 102 rejection in addition to the new 103 rejection.”

    The guy below you just said that officially I should change the grounds and send out the Examiner’s answer.

    “Otherwise, what are you going to do at the BPAI? Are you going to argue one interpretation as to the independent claim and then another interpretation as to some of the dependent claims? ”

    Good question. New 103’s?

    “BTW … he obviously enunciated it in Englih if he was able to convince you to take another look at your rejection, and you were able to understand what he was getting at.”

    Uh, no, there’s a difference between stating a claim construction, and in stating a claim. Maybe you’ve heard of construing claims? He didn’t enunciate a claim construction that meets the above terms. In fact, I’d wager 100$ that he cannot.

    “The sole purpose of patent attorneys and their client is not to provide you with steady counts so that you can make your bonus. ”

    That’s merely your opinion good sir.

    “However, if you want to be no more than a glorified DMV employee, keep doing what you are doing.”

    Doing what? Trying to contrue claims adequately? Trying to give the applicant mfin wonderful art? Going the extra mile to find out what the proper course of action is at this particular juncture? Yeah, I should totally stop all that nonsense and just send out crp rejections and make a bonus. Take your lip elsewhere. You can only pray to be so be lucky as to get a rejection from me. Or to get decent consideration of your amendment which I provide.

  43. 21

    “He didn’t suddenly get struck in the face with the better rejection…. Besides, I straight up gave the app’s rep the reference, he’s supposed to read the whole thing.”

    Wrong. Harry Moatz does not decide what 37 C.F.R. § 11.18(b) means. If you’ve cited a particular part of a reference, it is “reasonable under the circumstances” to read only the cited part of the reference and to identify any contradictions found in it.

    Personally, once I amend to overcome a reference, I’ll scan the asserted combinations to see if there’s any apparent contradiction, but that’s because I’m the one introducing the new point of distinction. But if the Office is clearly wrong, I am not going spend a client’s money hunting for rejections that the Office could have made but didn’t. That’s your job, end of story.

    1207.03 says “There is no new ground of rejection when the basic thrust of the rejection remains the same such that an appellant has been given a fair opportunity to react to the rejection.” It doesn’t say there’s no new ground of rejection where the reference was previously asserted for any reason. Yes, you can “strike the rep in the face” with the same piece of art — they’re under the same time pressures as you. They can also have a differenct view of the art and the claim than you. The sooner that you learn to look at something from the other’s point of view, the sooner you’ll realize that neither of you are infallible and neither of you are idiots.

    You read the whole reference looking for a rejections and missed it. Why is he supposed to pick it up when you pointed him at a whole different part that was presemptively “the best stuff”? LOL OMG. (Lord, I hate text messaging speak).

  44. 20

    It is in “they just filed an actual appeal brief” stage. That I believe would be after the time when they could have filed a PABC, and right before the time I sit down to write an Examiner’s answer.

    “Some reasons are principled: 37 CFR 1.104(c)(2) should mean something, and ‘missing’ the better argument in a reference that has already been asserted defeats the purpose of the Office’s compact prosecution policy.”

    Yeah the appeals guy mentioned that. Personally, I don’t think it would be the worst thing in the world if the case were to be allowed, the claims are already fairly narrow in my case. The other examiner’s case may have been a diff story though.

    “Some reasons are pragmatic: we understand that you’re time constrained but, unless there’s a new argument, suddenly deciding that a rejection is too weak to sustain in an Examiner’s Answer (after the Appeal Brief) is a cop-out that is quite costly to our clients, and happens far too frequently.”

    My response is as always: Resolve your issues over the phone before you send in the appeal. As in this case, a simple interview would have drawn the attention of my spe to the specific issue, and caused him to suggest the exact same thing.

    “You say that apparently they felt like it robbed them of their right to appeal. ”

    That’s what they told my spe Re a different case that belonged to another examiner. That was my spe’s specific words. The reason the felt robbed I believe is because officially the rejection is based on a reference, not on my designations within the reference. So, they feel robbed because they don’t want to have to spend more time arguing against a reference that they feel like is simply not applicable in any way shape or form. But, of course, that doesn’t jive so well with your everyday attorney who, in our modern times, has been downgraded to a kindergartener demanding to be led through the reference by the hand by the examiner. Attorneys on their A game are justified in being pissed off at having the appeal brief they already filed ripped out from under them and having to resubmit. And yes, the whole time issue you mentioned is valid too.

    “If it’s in the Examiner’s Answer, change the grounds of rejection and let them decide whether they want to reopen prosecution (MPEP 1207.03)”

    Ok, so the official answer is that the correct course of action is to write an Examiners answer with different designations and then let them decide if they want to reopen (by filing an RCE I’m guessing you mean). Meh, seems good to me. Thanks for the cite, you’re the awesome.

  45. 19

    “Besides, I straight up gave the app’s rep the reference, he’s supposed to read the whole thing (which I probably did a long time ago and didn’t realize that one of the many embodiments would just happen to fit better) and certainly they would never knowningly submit an anticipated claim for examination right?”

    The initial prima facie case of anticipation/obviousness rests with you, the Examiner. As a practical matter, he is going to rely upon what, within the reference, you asserted as teaching limitations A, B, C, D, etc. If you couldn’t be bothered to read the entire reference, why should the attorney be bothered?

    Regardless, if you treated your job properly, you would call the attorney, say that based upon this “new” interpretation, you think you’ve 102’d his independent claims. If you couldn’t find a good 103 rejection to make as to some of the the dependent claims, you would offer them up, in an examiner’s amendment, as placing the claims in condition for allowance.

    However, if you have a good 103 rejection, you should reopen prosecution and make the new 102 rejection in addition to the new 103 rejection.

    Otherwise, what are you going to do at the BPAI? Are you going to argue one interpretation as to the independent claim and then another interpretation as to some of the dependent claims? A half-way competent attorney will have field day with those arguments.

    Few things looks better (for applicant) at the BPAI than an Examiner that cannot make up his/her mind as to what feature allegedly teaches a particular limitation or how the Examiner is construing the language of the claims.

    “The applicant’s ‘desired’ construction is of course a magical one which cannot be enunciated in english, but yet somehow includes his embodiment but excludes mine.”
    Uhh duh … what do you think good claim language is supposed to look like? BTW … he obviously enunciated it in Englih if he was able to convince you to take another look at your rejection, and you were able to understand what he was getting at.

    Prosecution is a 2-way street. The sole purpose of patent attorneys and their client is not to provide you with steady counts so that you can make your bonus. The sooner you realize your role in the process, the sooner you will become a good and respected examiner. However, if you want to be no more than a glorified DMV employee, keep doing what you are doing.

  46. 18

    What stage of the appeal process is this? PABC, Examiner’s Answer, or post-reply brief?

    There are many reasons to “get uppity,” although getting uppity should be avoided. Some reasons are misguided: they may believe that they’ll get an allowance out of the Board, and simply want to have a patent in hand. Some reasons are principled: 37 CFR 1.104(c)(2) should mean something, and ‘missing’ the better argument in a reference that has already been asserted defeats the purpose of the Office’s compact prosecution policy. Some reasons are pragmatic: we understand that you’re time constrained but, unless there’s a new argument, suddenly deciding that a rejection is too weak to sustain in an Examiner’s Answer (after the Appeal Brief) is a cop-out that is quite costly to our clients, and happens far too frequently.

    You say that apparently they felt like it robbed them of their right to appeal. Unless you know that they said that, I suspect that it wasn’t the real issue. The one exception I can think of is this: if the examiner reopens prosecution sua sponte, rather than preparing an Examiner’s Answer, the time that it takes to get (1) a final rejection and (2) a different Examiner’s Answer is far longer than your metric for preparing the initial Examiner’s answer. Sometimes that time is important.

    Your question concerning preference is already handled in the rules. If it’s in the PABC, reopen prosecution. If it’s in the Examiner’s Answer, change the grounds of rejection and let them decide whether they want to reopen prosecution (MPEP 1207.03). If it’s after the Reply, then the Office has really screwed up and the uppityness is justified.

  47. 17

    Well, ok, I changed the actual irl situation a bit to simplify the situation. But since you want to bich, I’ll get into the specifics. The SPE was willing to let me convince the appeals guy, even though he wasn’t all the way convinced. Appeals guy wasn’t going for it (probably mostly because I told him my spe wasn’t 100% on board with it, he seems to really like and respect my SPE), and tbh I don’t go for it either. So, that said, he only reason I maintained the rejection was because I felt forced to. I felt forced to go for it because I could not, and still cannot come up with a claim construction that both 1. doesn’t exclude the applicant’s own embodiments and at the same time 2. doesn’t include my old interpretation of the reference. And neither can anyone else. In other words, nobody can actually come up with a construction that excludes my reference, but does include the applicant’s. So this is why the SPE allowed me to persuade the specialist. But, true to form, appeals specialists like to “go with their gut” rather than defend their position in any ennuciated manner.

    So, I was pretty much forced to take that position, because it would present the best rejection of many claims.

    But, since everyone wants to just go with their gut instead of actually taking a defensible position (myself even included somewhat), then now magically the only good designation of parts is the other one, which takes good care of the applicant’s desired construction, but doesn’t get some deps as well. The applicant’s “desired” construction is of course a magical one which cannot be enunciated in english, but yet somehow includes his embodiment but excludes mine.

    And, the reference is kind of long. So, strictly speaking the spe merely suggested that there may be an embodiment in there which would happen to be a specific thing, and if there was one then it would fit better. It just so happened that there was such an embodiment. He didn’t suddenly get struck in the face with the better rejection.

    Besides, I straight up gave the app’s rep the reference, he’s supposed to read the whole thing (which I probably did a long time ago and didn’t realize that one of the many embodiments would just happen to fit better) and certainly they would never knowningly submit an anticipated claim for examination right? Right? Right, lol. He would surely know that we’ll be going to appeal over the ref eventually anyway since he obviously doesn’t think the reference (irrespective of my designations) anticipates the claims. Right? Right lol.

    So, what’ll it be? Reopen, or go straight up there?

    BTW, guess what I got yesterday? An indentured servant. That’s right. 🙂

  48. 16

    The SPE only notices this after the attorney has gone to the time and expense of filing an Appeal Brief?

  49. 15

    Hey guys, let me ask you about your preferences.

    Let’s say you get an OA, it contains a 102 over a very broad reference, which contains many many embodiments. The examiner’s designation of layers simply is a bit unreasonable, so you go to appeal the decision. The SPE agrees with applicant, or at least isn’t fully behind the rejection as designated so the case won’t necessarily go to appeal. However, in reviewing the piece of art, there is a much better designation of parts (really, quite beautiful actually, at least for the ind) that addresses all limitations in the manner the applicant would like the claim to be construed.

    Is your preference:
    1. To have prosecution reopened?
    2. To have the grounds of the rejections changed and proceed directly to the board?

    I ask because apparently some attorney got all uppity with my spe in re someone else’s appeal where they reopened using the exact same piece of art with a different designation. Apparently, they felt like us doing this somehow robbed them of their right to appeal the decision. So, what’s your preference?

  50. 14

    Thank You!

  51. 13

    On the PTO website today, I found a notice that says the PTO will be sending out 2 separate letters to each practitioner this week, so that they can update their information on-line. One letter will contain a User ID, and the other letter will contain a password. There is no guarantee that the letters will arrive on the same day. If I have done this correctly, the link below should take you to the notice.

    link to uspto.gov

  52. 12

    Pat. No. 6,321,231

    68. A digital data storage facility for providing storage for a plurality of third party users comprising:

    a storage device;

    means for receiving digital data from a user in the plurality;

    means for compressing the digital data received by the receiving means in accordance with a parameter set by the user; and,

    means for storing the digital data compressed by the compressing means in the storage device.

    ——————-

    The other claims are just as lame lame except they use more words. Classic bubble patent baloney. Is it possible that a law firm/patentee and/or its patent attorney CEOs can be unaware of art that would invalidate this claim?

  53. 11

    Real original lifting that from Hawk’s site. You’re creativity knows no bounds.

  54. 10

    Dennis –

    The PTO’s “update your address information online” offer is fake!

    I had noticed it earlier and called to get a login an password. The woman told me that it was not possible yet and that it was “expiremental.” That was a couple of months ago. When I saw the posting, I figured that the PTO must have finally decided to implement the program, but I just got off the phone (with the same woman I think), and she indicated that it was not available and that she didn’t know when it would be available.

    Does anyone else find this a little absurd? By looking at the website, one would have no idea that the program was in fact not available.

  55. 9

    If a design patent registry within the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bureau were created, I would likely encourage my clients to file more design applications.

  56. 8

    Before you know it some commenters might start using four (4)letter words offending lord only knows who?,

  57. 7

    Before you know it some commenters might start using four (4)letter words offending lord only knows who?,

  58. 6

    I double dog dare you to find a better pic than mine.

  59. 5

    What happened to the fucking spam filter?

  60. 4

    Oh come onk, this will make it so much easier to skip Mooney.

  61. 3

    Please, give me a break.
    Old dog’s do not like new tricks.

  62. 2

    Its pretty gusty for SmugMugs attorneys to have filed the declaratory judgment action without *ABSOLUTELY* knowing that they would be sued (case in controversy requirement, I believe). Yeah, VPS sent a demand letter, but still its not certain they would have sued, if an agreement could have been reached.

    I would feel pretty disingenuous getting what looks like a startup, SmugMugs, into this declaratory mess without knowing with certainty that the declaratory action was the *only* way.

    Incidentally, the complaint, made a big deal about the inventors being non-practicing entities AND patent attorneys which is completely irrelevant given that these categories have been irrelevant for infringement (or non-infringement, as it were) analysis for the last 100 years of patent jurisprudence and have no place in the complaint.

  63. 1

    First!

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