A fun PCT day in Minneapolis!

If you try hard enough, can you think of some activity you could pursue for an eight-hour day that would be more fun than spending that day with, say, a hundred other people discussing the finer points of the Patent Cooperation Treaty?  Yeah, right, loyal readers, you know what I am talking about.  It would not be easy to top that!

But yes, today I get to have more fun than that.  I get to spend the day with over two hundred other people discussing the finer points of the Patent Cooperation Treaty!  Plus a free lunch.  It just doesn’t get better than this.

Thanks to sponsorship and support from the World Intellectual Property Organization and from the firm of Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner, in a couple of hours this program will begin.  It is not possible to over-emphasize how nice a contribution to the patent community we are seeing today.  The Schwegman firm and WIPO make possible an all-day free-of-charge program with a free lunch!  Oh and did I mention this program is CLE accredited in California, Minnesota, and Texas?

Many loyal readers of this blog know some of the really fascinating things that are likely to come up during the day today.

  • If you are in the ePCT system, and if you have the choice of doing an “action” or an “upload”, how do you choose?  Which is better?
  • The difference in cost, if any, as between the first invention and the second invention, if the International Searching Authority has decided that your patent application claims two inventions?
  • What it means, in the patent community, when we say “they drink their own champagne”?
  • What the countries of Tanzania, Uganda, and Luxembourg have in common?

See what I mean?  You want to slap the buzzer and say “I know!  I know!”  And I get to spend all day today with over two hundred people on these kinds of topics.

Most of the good things that have happened for me professionally over the years are things that happened during a coffee break or a lunch at a professional meeting or educational program.  Today’s program will offer just such networking opportunities for patent practitioners, paralegals, and legal assistants.  The over two hundred people who will get to mingle during lunch and during the morning and afternoon coffee breaks today will be from patent firms, from technology transfer departments of universities, and from patent departments of corporations.

All free of charge, and courtesy of the Schwegman firm and WIPO.

Today will be a lot of fun.  I am really looking forward to it.

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