Next week I will be on the road again, to co-host the two least commercial and, I think, most fun, events at INTA time in Boston, namely Meet the Bloggers XV and the Ninth Annual E-Trademarks Listserv Reception. I hope you will attend.
An anonymous donor for E-Trademarks reception
The E-Trademarks reception is now in its ninth year of tradition, taking place as usual during INTA time, this year in Boston.
As in many past years, generous donors help to sponsor the reception, which you can read about here. You can see the twelve sponsors in the poster at right. Two posters like this will be on easels at the event.
As you can see from the prominent place on the poster, five of the sponsors were particularly generous. But what I find extremely … I guess heart-warming … is that one of the particularly generous sponsors gave on condition that the sponsor’s name not be disclosed.
The philosopher Maimonides is among many who describe the giving of an anonymous gift as one of the highest levels of giving. Our anonymous sponsor said to me:
OK. Look for my personal check … on condition you will not mention my name but give credit for it only to:
Anonymous TM Administrator, as a tip of the hat to a remarkable community on behalf all participating and lurking administrators and paralegals.
So, maybe you would like to enjoy a drink with this remarkable community. If so, drop by next Tuesday in Boston. Maybe unbeknownst to you, you will click a wine glass or share a smile with this anonymous trademark administrator.
Patent Prosecution Boot Camp 2019
The Twentieth Annual Patent Prosecution Boot Camp is underway just now in Philadelphia. I have the honor to serve on a faculty with thirty-six other extremely experienced practitioners who spend their own money for air travel and hotels, and of course they take a hit on their professional billings for a couple of travel days as well as the teaching day. Decades ago, when I had the good fortune that my employer paid for it, I attended a similar seminar organized by the Practicing Law Institute. And as I sat there in the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan those decades ago I lacked even a bit of a clue as to the economic hit being taken by astonishing generosity of the faculty members. I learned so much, and even now from time to time I make use of this or that nugget of practitioner wisdom that someone passed along during that seminar, so many years ago. As just one example if I manage now to draft a decent patent claim, the earliest credit goes to Evelyn Sommer (1925-2016), who taught one of the small-group claim-drafting classes at that seminar.
The only thing one can do is to try, of course, to pay it forward as best we can, and I expect that is exactly why the thirty-six other faculty members are there just like me.
The Boot Camp started yesterday morning and will finish tomorrow. I am headed to Philadelphia now, and my segment (yeah, take a guess, it is about the Patent Cooperation Treaty!) will be tomorrow.
Who taught you how to draft a patent claim? Will you give that person some credit in a comment below?
Being smart about SMS two-factor authentication
This blog article makes two main points:
- that of the several ways of doing two-factor authentication, SMS (text messaging) is by far the most insecure, and
- if you have no choice but to use SMS two-factor authentication, there is a way to be really smart about it.
The way to be smart about SMS two-factor authentication is to create your own virtual cell phone from clever and inexpensive voice-over-IP building blocks. Continue reading “Being smart about SMS two-factor authentication”
A Pound of Feathers!
(Note: All users of Feathers! need to read all of this article.)
The old aphorism asks “what weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?” And of course the answer is they weigh the same. But when it comes to the Feathers! software, today we have a metaphor.
What got me thinking in a philosophical way about this was that late yesterday the telephone rang in my office, and it was the Commissioner for Trademarks, Mary Boney Denison, calling for me. Continue reading “A Pound of Feathers!”
Post-Design Day
Design Day XIII wrapped up at about 5PM, at which point the attendees headed over to the aptly named Trademark Bar. I was delighted to have had many opportunities during the day and at this beverage break to meet with colleagues and friends in the design community.
Excellent wifi at Design Day XIII
I am delighted to report that USPTO is providing really excellent wifi at today’s Design Day.
Thirteenth Annual Design Day!
Here is Design Day XIII — a room full of design geeks and design nerds. This includes dozens of design Examiners from the USPTO, hundreds of design practitioners, and many industrial designers.
Filing informal drawings in a PCT application
In ordinary domestic US utility patent practice, every practitioner is accustomed to the fact that you can get away with filing your patent application with informal drawings. And later when you get around to it, you can prepare formal drawings and file them in your application and it will almost never be a problem.
As I discuss at some length in this blog post, it is the exact opposite situation with PCT applications. The general rule is that if you try to hand in formal drawings after filing day in a PCT application, you will not succeed.
What should practitioners keep in mind about formal and informal drawings so far as PCT applications are concerned? Continue reading “Filing informal drawings in a PCT application”
Meet the Bloggers XV
MEET THE BLOGGERS, widely recognized as the best non-INTA event ever devised, will be convened for the fifteenth time (thus “MTB XV”) on Monday, May 20th, 8:00 – 10:00 PM, at Kings Dining and Entertainment (a/k/a KINGS BOWL), 60 Seaport Boulevard (a few blocks from the Convention Center). Come and meet some of the best trademark attorneys in the world, and while you’re at it say hello to the bloggers. For details, directions, and the RSVP link, go HERE.