12:01 am on Tuesday morning is a special time for patent attorneys. That is when the USPTO releases the newest batch of issued patents. Usually, over 3,000 issue each week.
Patent Attorney Aaron Feigelson (Leydig Voit firm) has started a great new blog: 1201tuesday.com covering PTO events. Aaron writes with an eye toward patent prosecution and does a good job of finding examples from recently issued patents that raise important practice issues. He has also been closely following the aftermath of Bilski. Aaron describes his project as follows:
I started regular weekly monitoring of issued patents a few years ago for some particular client-related matters, but my intrigue grew after stumbling upon certain patents, unrelated to client matters, with stories that were too interesting to keep to myself. Like U.S. Patent No. 6,097,812 and its 67-year prosecution history (thanks to a very long lasting secrecy order). Or U.S. Patent No. 7,472,070 for a seemingly innocuous grain aeration system — but granted to Microsoft, that well-known player in agricultural technology. Or trends, like the trickling-off of issuances to applications filed the first week of June 1995 (when there was a pre-GATT filing surge). Or Jerome Lemelson being granted U.S. Patent No. 7,343,660 more than a decade after his death, with priority going back over fifty years to 1954.
Lately, my attention has turned to the fallout from the Federal Circuit’s recent decision of In re Bilski and its effect on patentable subject matter under Section 101. In particular, I was curious (to aid my own practice) to see what sorts of claims had been allowed pre- and post-Bilski, and what techniques applicants had used to address or circumvent the machine-or-transformation test. I began sending my weekly findings internally to a few attorneys in my firm. Then to a few more. Then to a few more..
After a few months of these “Bilski Watch” emails, this blog was created.
I enjoyed Aaron’s recent post regarding patents issuing from applications filed in early June 1995 – just before the patent term reference was switched from the issue date to the filing date.
Notes
- For those of you who don’t know, the IP blogging community is rather inter-connected. For instance, Aaron Feigelson was a 2L at UChicago Law when I started there as a 1L. He was also a summer clerk at the MBHB firm. I started at MBHB soon after Aaron left and actually took over his desk and sat next door to his classmate Aaron Barkoff of the Orange Book Blog. Also at the MBHB firm are the PhD’s who blog at Patent Docs (both Aarons hold PhD’s as well). I interviewed at Matt Buchanan’s (Promote The Progress) former Chicago firm, which is just across the Chicago River from Feigelson’s office. Matt has participated in several business ventures with Steve Nipper (Invent Blog) and Doug Sorocco (PHOSITA). Matt and I are also working on a project for this fall. My old firm also paid for my patent bar review course with PLI partially taught by Gene Quinn (IPWatchdog). I could continue…