Posts

Posted on

I unplug a VOIP phone, and later I receive an email telling me it got unplugged

Yes, just an hour ago I unplugged a VOIP phone, and 45 minutes later I received an email telling me that it had gotten unplugged.  It means that my spiffy new SIP trunk monitor  is working.

It will be recalled (see blog article dated June 25, 2023) that I fished for people to join me in an open-source project.  The idea was to set up some PHP script that would run periodically, interrogating an API at the VOIP.MS company, querying the registration status of a long list of SIP trunks (what the company calls “subaccounts”).  Now I have this working, in a sort of simple way.

This kind of monitoring actually monitors quite a few things.  Suppose the VOIP device being monitored is a desktop phone.  Then this monitor will tip me off if any of these things happen:

    • Somebody unplugging the phone itself.
    • Failure in the power-over-ethernet delivery of power to the phone.
    • Loss of Internet connectivity at the place where the phone is located.

You can read about it here.

Posted on

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity CLE for patent and trademark attorneys

Colorado Rule 250.2(1)(a)(i) says that beginning January 1, 2023, every registered attorney must achieve at least two credit hours per reporting period in the area of equity, diversity, and inclusivity.

The Colorado office in charge of CLE lists three areas that are supposed to be covered in CLE courses about equity, diversity, and inclusivity, namely:

    • equal access to the legal system;
    • competent representation of diverse populations;
    • the recognition, mitigation, or elimination of bias in the legal profession or the legal system.

What may a patent attorney or trademark attorney do to respond in a meaningful way to licensure requirements regarding equity, diversity, and inclusivity?  In this webinar, join your presenter, Carl Oppedahl, in trying to figure out what the problems are, in such areas as patent and trademark prosecution, for which an EDI CLE requirement might be a solution.

When and where?  Thursday, September 5, 2024, Noon to 1:40 PM Mountain Time (100 minutes)

Format: Live webinar

For more information, or to register, click here.

Posted on

Ethics CLE – securing electronic communications

In nearly every state, ethics rules require a lawyer to make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client.  Colorado Rule 1.6(c), for example, says:

A lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client.

Does it violate ethics rules to use email in client communications?  Does it violate ethics rules to use ordinary text messaging on a mobile phone?  What about Skype, or Whatsapp, Viber or Signal?  Continue reading “Ethics CLE – securing electronic communications”

Posted on

EUIPO and Benelux are missing from Trademark Center

The executive summary is that the USPTO developers of Trademark Center made a big mistake in the coding of the priority claims in a trademark application — they failed to provide EUIPO and Benelux as trademark offices in which a priority application might have been filed.  In doing so, they failed to learn from the identical mistake that had been made by the USPTO developers of Patent Center, who had failed to provide EPO and OAPI and ARIPO and EAPO as patent offices in which a priority application might have been filed.  Continue reading “EUIPO and Benelux are missing from Trademark Center”

Posted on

Another try with Bluesky and Mastodon

Well, folks, I am only slowly making progress at setting up Bluesky and Mastodon on this blog.  This is a test posting on this blog to see if it propagates through to Bluesky and Mastodon.

As best I can discern, my Bluesky identifier is “ant-like.bsky.social” and my Mastodon ID is “@ant_like@mastodon.social”.

If any reader is an experienced user of Bluesky or Mastodon, I’d be grateful if you can look to see if I have made progress.

Posted on

Mastodon, Bluesky, and RSS

Recently John Welch, the author of the TTABlog, posted to the e-Trademarks listserv to ask this:

I’ve been tweeting my blog posts for many years now, but I am fed up with the increasingly vile content on X/Twitter.

Can anyone recommend a good alternative?

Several listserv members offered very helpful suggestions.  Perhaps the most helpful response was from Rebecca Tushnet, who wrote:

For my own reading, my current choice is Bluesky + a bunch of RSS feeds, including John’s indispensable TTABlog.​
FWIW: I now have automatic crossposting from my blog to Mastodon, Bluesky, … RSS feed, and LinkedIn.

 

It is true, by the way, that John’s TTABlog is indispensable.

I have just now added a couple of plugins to my blog that I hope will automatically feed my blog postings to both Mastodon and Bluesky.  I would be grateful if a reader who uses Mastodon can take a look to see if I succeeded.  Likewise, I would be grateful if a reader who uses Bluesky can take a look to see if I succeeded.

I have also added an RSS feed icon which you can see at right.  I would be grateful if a reader who uses an RSS reader can take a look to see if I succeeded.