Patently-O Bits and Bytes

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  • Trademark / Antitrust: The Supreme Court has ruled against the National Football League (NFL) in an antitrust suit involving the NFL’s exclusive apparel licensing deal with Reebok/Adidas. The court held that the NFL was not a single business entity, but rather 32 separate business entities. Any antitrust violation involves an underlying market. Here, the supreme court identified that as the market for intellectual property: “Directly relevant here, the teams are potentially competing suppliers in the market for intellectual property. When teams license such property, they are not pursuing the common interests of the whole league, but, instead, the interests of each corporation itself.” In Princo, the Federal Circuit is now considering antitrust issues in the scope of patents and standard-setting organizations. [Read NFL v. American Needle] [Read about Princo v. ITC]
  • The Chisum Patent Academy is offering its second annual Intensive Patent Law Training Workshop in Seattle on July 29-31, 2010. See http://www.chisum-patent-academy.com. The workshop will focus on substantive patent law (patentability and enforcement) through analysis of critical Federal Circuit and Supreme Court decisions. [Syllabus for 2009 workshop]. New material for 2010 likely include business method patentability post-Bilski, written description requirement compliance post-Ariad, and the evolving landscape of inequitable conduct as reflected by the Federal Circuit’s recent grant of rehearing en banc in Therasense. The workshop is team-taught in seminar style (maximum of 10 students) by Donald Chisum, author of the treatise Chisum on Patents, and Professor Janice Mueller, author of Patent Law, 3d Edition (Aspen 2009). Chisum and Mueller have a combined total of over 40 years experience teaching patent law. The workshop’s coverage is geared for junior patent attorneys, summer associates, engineers, scientists, paralegals, information specialists, and attorneys experienced in non-patent fields who desire an intensive introduction to patent law. Eighteen hours of CLE credit have been applied for.
  • USPTO News:
    • The USPTO is further developing its patent prosecution highway and has eliminated the associated fee. [Link]
    • USPTO is on Facebook [Link][Me on Facebook]
    • Green Technology: The USPTO has expanded the number of technology classes that count as “green technology” and that are therefore eligible for expedited processing. [Link]

Kathy Bates on NBC as a former patent attorney. Best quote of the clip is 30–seconds-in.

 

 

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19 thoughts on “Patently-O Bits and Bytes”

  3. 17

    Kathy’s always been a superb actress; though every time I see her I’m reminded of her whacking the bottom of James Caan’s feet with that baseball bat in the movie Misery.

    Ouch!

    Good to see her w/another gig; and one which seems ideal for her talents.

  4. 16

    “was dumped by a patent attorney…”

    More likely, his hot girlfriend dumped him for a patent attorney.

  6. 14

    aAgent, I’m puzzled. What good does it do you, to get your US non-pro up on to the PPH? What happens next? An examination report out of the UK-IPO, I suppose.

    I should have thought your chances of overcoming any doubts on “the rules” will be good. After all, nobody else is using the PPH, and the politics of the PPH demands that it be a success. So the USPTO is not very likely to squeeze you out with a narrow interpretation of “the rules”, is it. Give it a go, I say.

  7. 13

    David Kelley has long evinced a low opinion of patent attorneys. There were several snide remarks about them in Allie McBeal, plus the plot device that Allie, who’s not a patent attorney, helped get her secretary a patent on her “nose bra” invention. I wonder if in his past he once dated and was then dumped by a patent attorney. You’d think the fact that he landed Michelle Pfeiffer would have been sufficient consolation…

  8. 12

    Question about the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) – is there any requirement that the FIRST application be filed abroad (for example, in the UK)???
    Or is it just sufficient that the US non-provisional application (for which I desire to use the PPH) claims that benefit of at least one foreign application filed during the “Paris convention period” of one year??

    I wish to do the following:

    (i) file on Oct. 1, 2009 a US Provisional application (thus, the first filing is actually in the US);
    (ii) receive on Nov. 3, 2009 a foreign filing license;
    (iii) file on Sep. 1, 2010 a foreign application application (this is within the Paris convention year) in a country for which there is a patent prosecution highway (PPH) with the USPTO – for example, in the UK or in Australia;
    (iv) file a US non-provisional application claiming priority to BOTH the provisional AS WELL AS the foreign application on Oct. 1, 2010;
    (v) have my non-provisional application THEN be eligible for the PPH even though my FIRST application was NOT filed in the USPTO. The non-provisional STILL claims priority to an earlier-filed foreign application filed in a “PPH country” – it *seems* like this is OK but the rules are not that clear.

    HELP !!!!!!

  9. 11

    More drug references courtesy of Mooney. How’s life in mom’s basement these days?

    RWA = buzzkill.

  10. 10

    I think Moonpie is referring to the first scene of the trailer in which she is seen lounging in her office, watching Woody Woodpecker cartoons while puffing on a suspicious looking prop.

  11. 9

    “toked on that joint”

    More drug references courtesy of Mooney. How’s life in mom’s basement these days?

  12. 8

    After she toked on that joint, I expected her to say, “After 30 years as a patent attorney, I finally realized: everyone has a Constitutional right to a patent.”

  13. 7

    I love the premise:

    I’m already rich….. so I can now lease a downtown office and take nonpaying clients… just like all attorneys … including associates like the character.

  14. 6

    I like the part where she argues for jury nullification and doesn’t get sanctioned. Delicious fairy tale filling.

  16. 4

    The Supremes apparently didn’t like the NFL’s attempt to get a complete antitrust exemption in its brief and argument, so they slapped it around.

  17. 3

    Actually there’s another really nice quote around 1:20. “You’re an as shole” in a great context.

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