20 years of news and blues and skews on the IP world

For 20 years, we have published the Internet Patent News Service, a free, mostly daily, news service on IP news, business, fights, nonsense and just the plain strange. To subscribe, send information about yourself to patnews@patenting-art.com. What follows are titles to our IP news stories. A full-text archive is available to our clients.

JANUARY 2013

• Worst pro-se inventor of all time: Iwao Fujisaki
• Why PTO doesn't want to resolve "functional" claim language
• Should PTO join Global Dossier for patent applications?
• PTO's fraudulent software patent hearings in February
• New Tea Party congressman has 24 patents
• Nepotism problem with Elodie Bergot's HR promotion at the EPO
• Gene Quinn's meaningless observation about low allowance rates
• First incredibly stupid Office Action rejection of 2013
• Do patent expirations really hurt drug companies?
• CAFC rules obvious OpenMarket bizmet patents ..... obvious
• Biotech examiner says Kappos favored easy-granting software examiners
• At least 290 probably invalid software pats 1st week of January
• Are half of the PTO's 7900+ examiners ... not examining patents?
• An examiner is glad to see Kappos leave the Patent Office
• Aaron Swartz, copyright activist, commits suicide
• 20th year of PATNEWS!!! Patenting a new type of patent lawsuit?

DECEMBER 2012

• Will patent work be slow until 2nd half of 2013? Trolls!!!
• Trolling blameable on SanDisk? More on patenting a religion
• Random patent news to end another year of patent news
• Random news and blues and skews and toos from the IP world
• PTO wants statute "fix" to kill just one applicant's apps?
• Monday's silly FTC hearing on patents assertion and antitrust
• Last PATNEWS of 2012 - ready for another year????
• Google's Schmidt argues patent wars hurting only startups
• Example of atrocious algorithm-written patent news story
• Are trolls the evil offspring of poisonous litigation rules?
• (Should be) patentable method says Apply stock near bottom

NOVEMBER 2012

• Worst 101 rejection ever? Has the PTO abandoned training?
• Three recent genetically-engineered chimpanzee patents 'perverse'
• The importance of small inventions and small inventors
• Retracted Republican copyright critique: new party politics
• Patent lawyer's KickStarter flying toy project
• PTO trading cards - a bit of Kappos corruption?
• PATNEWS reader's lament on Kappos' failings
• NFL picks - new from PATNEWS; Does Sotomayor know statistics?
• Lawyer faces stupid antecedent basis rejection. Common problem?
• Kappos to flee PTO at the end of January
• Kappos allows PTO policy office to be replaced by PR hacks
• Judicial failings understanding/using language in patent law
• Is PTO forcing excessive restrictions to reduce pendency?
• How Dudas'/Kappos' PTO mismanagement screwed one inventor
• FTC to look at antitrust impact of patent trolls
• FTC staff said to formally recommend suing Google over patents
• Did Apple sneak functionality into an e-book design patent?
• Boring CRS Mayo report; More on PTO restriction games
• Beginning of a (patentable) marijuana industry
• Apple/Samsung jury foreman: how much prior art jury poisoning
• A (failed) 1999 attempt to commercialize some 3D printing tech
• 3D Systems sues FormLabs/Kickstarter over 3D printer patent

OCTOBER 2012

• The lies and silliness of AIA's no-tax-reduction patents
• Technology Review's silly article on Myhrvold's 3D DRM patent
• Surfcast stupidly sues Microsoft's tiles; trolls in Asia
• Stanford Ovshinsky, a truly great inventor, dies at 89
• Should the PTO offer refunds for totally stupid examiners' errors?
• Samsung attacks jury foreman; Posner's attack on software patents
• Rader's second set of comments about damages
• Rader's house appraisal analogy - are such appraisals worse?
• Rader and retired federal judges slam AIA as making things worse
• Qualcomm the new AMD? Apple repsonds to Samsung; Patents/taxes
• Patent examiners being pressured to lower patent quality
• Motorola rapidly drops 7-patent ITC complaint against Apple
• Law360 interviews Judge Rader about patent damages
• Intellectual Ventures under attack by IP Checkups
• IEEE sponsors CLE workshop on "AIA Survival Manual"
• Four NGOs ask NIH to grant open licenses to ritonavir patents
• Federal Reserve report calls for abolishing the patent system
• Economist-Nobelist Maskin ONLY attacks softwre patents again
• Comments from lawyers on decreasing patent quality
• CLSBank; Microsoft patents same spreadsheet idea TWICE; FTC

SEPTEMBER 2012

• Yet another Lemley attack (via 112f) on software patents
• Should a philosophically inconsistent patent be invalid?
• Samsung jury; statistics; patents and taxes; eugenics
• Patent antitrust; Was the OxyContin patent wrongly granted?
• PTO's budget cut $242 million in January due to sequester
• Newsweek Japan has article on MADness of U.S. software patents
• Nest kicking Honeywell butt with seven PTO reexams
• More attacks on the patent system: courts, lawsuits, taxes
• ITU and patents; Kodak's patents; TechSearch; stays in Texas
• IBM/Microsoft fighting anti-softpat nonsense in New Zealand
• Google's new silly patents on facial passwords, and stereoscopy
• Eolas sues Facebook/Walmart/Disney - using invalid patents?
• EMPA: most biofuels are not 'green'; Apple/Samsung jury foreman
• Are law firms telling applicants not to do prior art searches?
• Apple/HTC ITC judge defends buying patents; Moto's crap patents
• Apple, Samsumg, Google, NetFlix, Green Mountain, fracking
• Another part of the Apple and Xerox early history; Google's pats
• Alan Fisch of Kaye Scholer starts firm, Fisch Hoffman Sigler

AUGUST 2012

• Apple jury's foreman's patent is crap - his guidance, bias
• Two critiques of "loser pays" - not needed, and not the problem
• Two Dem. Senators threaten ITC in Intel/Apple/HP v. X2Y
• Text of "loser-pays" bill being sold by Congress
• Should "loser's lawyer pay" be the reform? Flat-fee prosecution?
• PATNEWS expands to Brazil!!! PATNEWS se expande para o Brasil!!!
• Myriad issues: DNA and tests patentable, obvious methods not
• MoFo, Detkin, Rader, Troll, Grasshopper, Ant
• Loser-pays in U.S.? China, cy pres, quitting the AIPLA, App/Sam
• Kodak; Kappos' memo needs 101 killed; why 103 needs an overhaul
• Hello from Brazil! Announcement next week. Random news today
• Has the patent world reached "Peak Litigation"?
• Has Steve Ballmer been slowly killing Microsoft?
• Facebook: non-innovating digital mafia of drugs, sex, gambling?
• Examiners work hard; How 101-contradictory is CAFC, or how insane?
• Epstein attacks Posner's attacks on patents; Samsung copied
• Color printing method patents invalid under 101 as mental steps?
• Apple/Samsung jury: rush decision, show bias, ignore prior art?
• Apple's new crappy patent on disabling cellphones

JULY 2012

• ShortCall or Iron Butterfly options on Yahoo, based on Mayer
• Robert Sachs' deconstruction of Prometheus' "law of nature"
• RIM loses $147 million patent lawsuit - but is claim invalid?
• Powerpoint slides of IEEE talks on AIA
• Posner says Republicans and software patents are "goofy"
• Poser Posner; Twisted radio waves an obvious invention re MIMO?
• Patent lawyer argues Morse-to-Bilski explains nothing about 101
• Kodak/Apple/RIM; Obama/inventors; craftmanship; banks
• Judge Posner attacks entire patent system
• How I deal every day with crap patents and crap caselaw
• Geoengineering - a new arena of patent games and crap patents
• Eolas finally dead? How the CAFC was crippled at birth
• Director Kappos endorses de-facto 101 elimination
• Copy of complaints in Apple v. Samsung - is this deja vu?
• CAFC fights back against Bilgski/hold-the-Mayo nonsense
• CAFC effectively rules most chemical method patents invalid
• Apple; unskilled labor; Google; Yahoo/Facebook; innovation

JUNE 2012

• Why Kodak's patents are worth $340 million, not $2.6 billion
• Trolls clubbing each other with antitrust - sign of Apocalypse?
• Random patent news and views and blues and stews
• Patent troll IPG supplying crap pats to Facebook to sue Yahoo
• Oracle pays Google more; pat quality; neat list of 32 innovations
• More biased flawed anti-patent economics from James Bessen
• More biased flawed anti-patent economics from James Bessen
• Marijuana; Paris; foreign students and U.S. patents
• Latest software patent idiocy from the EFF - use source code
• Judge rules APIs are not copyrightable - major blow to GPL
• Is "preeminent" broker PatentBridge peddling crap?
• Happy Birthday Alan Turing - drop dead Benson/Bilgski
• Dysfunctional Judge Posner calls patent system dysfunctional
• Are patent claims a form of political speech?
• Amazon's crap gift patent misses 102-killing prior patent

MAY 2012

• Word of advice: don't hire strippers as interference experts
• Technicolor, Amazon, Oracle/Google, RIM, Nortel, 103
• Supreme Court semantics; "innovation semantics"; Goog/Ora; Kodak
• Sun/Oracle's 9-line rangeCheck - nonsense it is copyrightable
• Preparation H smeared over Oracle's copyright lie of omission
• Preparation H smeared over Oracle's copyright lie of omission
• MySpace settles with WirelessInk - Facebook counters with crap
• Mark Twain, Google/Oracle, and patent whiners in the Valley
• Is Texas no longer a patent plaintiff's heavon on Earth?
• Google/Oracle: how intellectually fraudulent is the trial?
• Ex-IBM manager complains of IBM's nefarious patent legacy
• Does Google have a Due Process defense re Oracle copyright?
• Did Thomas Edison's patents block downstream lamp innovation?
• Can trademark caselaw shape copyright? Judge slaps Boies

APRIL 2012

• Will Google/Oracle spat begin the end of software copyright?
• Twitter's silliness; Mark Cuban lies; great MIT hack
• Kudos - Nest Labs attacks Honeywell's pure crap patents
• Kodak; Boutique litigators; AIA conference; Mayo critique
• Is Germany the E.D. of Texas for Europe?
• Inventors? In Sweden, let's kill them as an act of mercy
• How much of a scam is patent valuation firm M-CAM?
• How ineffectual is Facebook in fighting its patent battles?
• Economic signficance; Chucky Schummer; Dewey; China; bubbles
• Did inventor make lousy patent deal with Cuban on Shark Tank?

MARCH 2012

• Yahoo sues Facebook; game copyrights; Apple v. Samsung
• Yahoo patent-inventor criticizes Yahoo's patent tactics
• WSJ - biotech industry upset with Mayo decision
• Using the patent system to explain Republican president race
• Should PTO automatically approve all dependent claims?
• Robert Sachs of Fenwick/West - "Hitler reacts to ... Mayo"
• Mayo: SCOTUS worsens "abstract" with "genuine" - kill off 101
• Mark Cuban; Apple/Nokia; Chinese copying; India/generics
• Mar 19 seminar on AIA; patent burned; Apple schemed, GGBridge
• Judge Plager admits 35 USC 101 is unconstitutionally vague
• Is Apple's new iWallet patent iUnenforceable?
• Intellectual Ventures ridicules Hewlett Packard hypocrisy
• Fenwick & West's troubling observations about Mayo
• Cheers for Judge Newman - now, go after crap-drafting lawyers
• Biotech examiners are baffled as to the message of Mayo
• A new target for patent trolls - U.S. cities

FEBRUARY 2012

• UK inventor to burn his patent next week in Parliament Square
• Patent owner (a lawyer) sues Santorum, Romney and Gingrich
• PTO's RFC for "technological" flowing from Congressional nonsense
• PTO's "technical" nonsense - Judge Tierney should be suspended
• PTO's "functional" definition as meaningless as for "technological"
• Lack of European patent .... begin doom for European harmony hopes?
• Kappos/Pappas; Marvin Kelly, father of real innovation at Bell Labs
• How physical are MP3 files? Well, which USC you talking about?
• Crap lawsuits from MacroSolve, Honeywell, Oracle, Brandywine
• Alcatel-Lucent becomes the latest atroll to milk crap patents
• A 30,000 year old invention - made by squirrels?

JANUARY 2012

• WSJ article on patent trolls destroying the universe
• Third of three key RAMBUS patents also declared invalid
• Stoll; Great Escape; James Bond; filesharing as a religion
• Pay the PTO $4800 - get your crap issued in six months
• PTO seeks comment on another favor for rich patent owners
• Kappos reducing examination hours - quantity over quality
• Harvard Law's Jeannie Suk is not competent to teach IP law
• Copyright of prior art? Congressional theft; EU-pat; BPAI
• Are injunctions making a comeback in the patent world?
• Apple, fashion, Intel, copyright, Edmunds, my home town of Belmont
• A 20% discount offer to help victims of Article One
• 30% of new patent applications are RCEs; AU3689 allows 2%
• 19th year of PATNEWS - some of you have to be insaaaannnne!!

DECEMBER 2011

• Ken Brooks continues to challenge retro end of qui tam lawsuits
• Durban & green tech: patents as crappy as everything else
• Did patent lawsuit expose Communist spy during Cold War?
• British Telecom sues Google over six pure crap patents
• Are non-enabled journal articles prior art? non-PHOSITA PHOSITA?
• Apple's shells, ITC, Hedy Lamarr, Medellin, cute patent drawing

NOVEMBER 2011

• Using PhD-ers in India to draft lots of crap U.S. applications
• Three-D printing: challenge to patents and copyrights
• Random patent news to stuff your mind with treats
• Random patent news and views and blues and skews
• PUBPAT challenges constitutionality of false marking ban
• Microsoft/Amazon/Google get the same invalid crappy patent
• Kodak struggles to survive by selling its patents
• Kappos' appointment of Pappas upsetting PTO corps
• Is the PTO prepared to examine green technology patents?
• Is Luma Labs a victim of a bad patent and bad legal advice?
• Is East.Dist.Texas becoming less favorable for patent lawsuits
• EU judge rules that software functionality not copyrightable
• Does patent reform require altered confidentiality agreements?
• Big companies forcing small tech companies to patent more
• Are claim construction rules unconstitutional?
• A really stupid IBM patent issues - part of Kappos legacy

OCTOBER 2011

• What is a "doctor"? More on Kodak's using patents to survive
• PTO issues a patent on making a snowman
• PTO IT management truly inept; seminar streamed
• New Beauregard killer: a practical transitory signal medium
• Judge Rader on electronic discovery; discovery preservation
• IEEE seminar on patent reform bill - Sat. in D.C. at GMU
• IBM nullifying its software patents ... due to Kappos memo?
• How random is the quality of patent examination / drafting?
• How much does Director Kappos memo destroy software patents?
• First constitutional challenge to the America Invents Act
• False marking ban's constitutionality upheld in first challenge
• Congress begins to steal PTO fees, wasting money with BPAI hires?
• 4600 patents this week; Kodak seeks $900M loan to sell patents

SEPTEMBER 2011

• Why the new tax-reduction patent ban bans little to nothing
• Why E.D. Texas is popular, and maybe should be so - no Patel
• Support Senator Coburn's fight against PTO fee stealing
• Small entities' fees first victim of patent reform
• Random (mostly non-patent) news and views and blues
• Patent issues from Deepwater Horizon oil spill
• KSR example; will patent reform fix soft pat squabbles?
• Judge Michel, Prof. Duffy, angel investor - pat reform is BAD
• John Bogle - Index Funds - yes to business method patents
• Is it safe to use "social network" in a patent claim?
• Is Kodak a troll? Too many criminal laws from clueless Congress?
• Did Israeli firm lie about abanonded/revived application?
• An Economist mistake - so, is the patent system a joke?
• AIPLA impotence; Senate patent reform; Google CEO criticized

AUGUST 2011

• Why FTF/GraceDisgrace is bad for all small entities
• Washington Post sells editorial space to patent fee stealers
• U.S. Customs - troubling sign for stealing $300M of PTO fees
• Time for civil RICO in patent law? No, but it would be fun
• Patent lawyer's letter to WPost criticizes patent reform bill
• Patent business booming in China - lawyers earn 1-2 million
• PTO issues idiotic guitar-playing-style patent
• PTO is 215th least innovative U.S. government agency
• HuffPost: How Congress [Completely] Corrupted Patent Reform
• Congress to steal $150,000,000 in PTO fees by year end
• Chinese manufacturer files patent on U.S. client's product
• A very polite invalidation of Cybersource
• A simple example for why Cybersource is mostly illogical
• A bit of patent news from Brazil

JULY 2011

• The nonsense of claim construction versus patent reform
• Should federal courts pay for their patent ruling mistakes?
• Random (patent) news and views and skews
• Predictability of utility in Canada
• Patent reform: too much House corruption even for the Senate?
• Judge Michel attacks both House and Senate patent reform bills
• Judge Michel attacks Schumer's Sec. 18 sale to bank industry
• Compensating applicants for totally wrong Office Actions?
• Chinese innovation is a paper tiger, based on patents/R&D
• CQ: Will stealing PTO fees, MDCO gift, stop passage of reform bill
• Hal Wegner's e-book on effect of patent reform on prosecution

JUNE 2011

• YEAH!!! Patent reform bill delayed over stealing PTO fees
• Will fee diversion kill patent reform bill?
• WebVention lies in reexam, and examiner allows claims
• UK implies: Third party prior art won't change nothing
• Special legislation for banks could also de-rail patent bill
• Republicans still LYING about PTO fee diversion
• Racist patent claims? UK might offer 10% tax on patent profits
• Patent lawyer/inventor fights CPSC and table saw industry
• Patent news from the business side of patents
• Bipartisan fight against reform; Locke lies
• PATNEWS seeks $250,000 donation for new patent public service
• Opposition builds in the House against patent reform bill
• More patent reform gossip - Congressional letters
• Justice Roberts for first-to-invent? Congress wants PTO fees
• House Democratic Congressional letter opposing patent reform bill
• Description of drawings be meaninglessly short?
• Congress will steal $500 million of PTO fees for law sold to MDCO
• A compromise of lies for stealing PTO "extra" fees

MAY 2011

• Various activities fighting unconstitutionality of patent reform
• Two stories illustrating dangers to smallies from first-to-file
• Pat prosecutors, sometimes, should refuse to follow client's orders?
• States' rights - patents and light bulbs
• Poker (the business?) and Wall Steet (the game)?
• KVM switch patent for discussing KSR/obviousness
• Did two brothers lie to the PTO to get a design patent?
• Companies viewing IP lawsuits as corporate profit center
• "Real" inventor of the CCD camera, Willard Boyle, dies

APRIL 2011

• i4i favored at hearing? Lies about i4i case in Times/Journal
• Why S.23's grace period changes will kill, yes kill, Americans
• Study on the quality of the patent system in Europe
• Some global patent news: a European patent court?
• Random (patent) news you can enjoy; i4i prediction; Brasil
• Fenwick and West's successes in very nice Business Week article
• Dangers of FTF; Tea Party attacks ObamaPatent Reform and Kappos
• 440 page study critical of US foreign IP enforcement

MARCH 2011

• When should the "United States" be used as a U.S. claim term?
• Too much contingency work hurt dissolving Howrey? The future?
• Time to remove 103? Do PHOSITAs have useful SITA?
• Random patent news: Geotag crap, PTO fees, FtF, pro-se apps
• New York Times editors lie about patent reform
• More random patent news: false marking, 101, IP in China
• German wind energy company has 12 patents nullified in India
• DoC OIG blasts PTO's quality assurance process - hurts pendency
• Did CEO know of reexam outcome before PTO announcement?
• Con-artist scams DoD for $20 million using 5 crap patents
• Army licenses abandoned patent application to startup?

FEBRUARY 2011

• Will first-to-invent always frustrate patent reform?
• Will IBM attack the livelihoods of patent lawyers?
• Volunteer to revise PTO documents for no-fee accelerated exams
• The folly/difficulty of banning tax patents, and Greece????
• Senator Leahy will force-rush patent reform bill next Monday
• More on Rule 56 and obviousness problems from Michel's CAFC
• Judge Michel's role in Rule 56 caselaw problems at the PTO
• Invention ancedotes from "Conquering Innovation Fatigure"
• Hulsey IP's seminar on EU IP protection - Feb. 24, Austin
• Grace periods and first-to-file are mostly separate issues
• A list of grace periods for patent filing around the world

JANUARY 2011

• Welcome to the 18th year of PATNEWS
• Thyssen's virtual-multi-national plant: time for global patent?
• Rough draft of new/old patent reform bill
• Reexam petitions; motivation to combine?; smallest PTO sub-class
• More details on the important GE wind turbine patents
• Invalidity analysis of a recent biometric smart card patent
• How China cuts deals to acquire foreign technologies
• Does using [chemical] "bond" in a claim violate 35 USC 112?
• Chairman of Board of i4i seeking signers for letter to AG
• 200 new patent lawsuits; 220,000 (crappy) patents in 2010
• "Despite efforts to improve, US patent approvals move slower"

DECEMBER 2010

• Unified claim structure to stop wasting examiners' time
• U.S. patent lawyers object to European lawyer's OA comments
• Two more comments from Europe about U.S. patent applicants
• Suggestions to greatly shrink BPAI backlog - follow the rules!
• Multiple practitioner comments across the Atlantic
• Four hundred new patent lawsuits
• Former examiner doesn't think much of ways to shrink appeals
• Comment from European patent lawyer on US office actions
• China intellectual property news
• Biotech IP news and views: Bayh-Dole, China, Africa, Brazil
• BPAI considering paying people to go away? 2011 PTO budget

NOVEMBER 2010

• Transgendered patent lawyer elected to California state court
• Too many Bilski rejections? Kilpatrick + Townsend; Nokia/Apple
• Should CAFC be final stop for patent lawsuits?
• Rovi (Macrovision + Gemstar) sues Toshiba with 3 lousy patents
• Random patent/tech news as you burn off the turkey and stuffing
• Physicists convert information into energy - info is physical
• More on the history of patenting at Hewlett Packard
• How hated is Webvention? Ninth DJ just filed.
• How Senator Boxer is championing the patent system
• Help for small entities; Small entity patent filing slow til 2012?
• David Boundy on how information is mistreated in caselaw
• Chisum calls Benson and Bilski "failures"

OCTOBER 2010

• Random news: Bilski, Monsato, CAFC, EU-wide patent
• Quirky.com - a web site that helps amateur inventors
• Pay for delaying generic competition - good or bad?
• Israeli patent office sued for not publishing applications
• Is silver overbought? Are silver patents a factor?
• Is a law firm advising abusive patent claiming practices?
• HPer's gossip: did Fiorina help or hurt HP's patent strategy?
• EU; NIH; Revu of Robert Sachs' Bilski presentation at the PTO
• Canadian Federal Court upholds business patents - 1-click
• CAFC; Novartis/Tenneco attack Webvention's crap patent
• Briefs on 335 new patent infringement lawsuits
• Are too many incentives leading to low quality Chinese patents?
• Apple sues Motorola; Obama, but not PTO, opposes gene patents
• An EU-wide patent: will they ever compromise on langauge?

SEPTEMBER 2010

• Why one company outsources patent prep; more on false marking
• WebVen reexam; More insulting caselaw (preamble) from CAFC
• SciAm's human inventions we really don't need; gene patents
• Random patent news: MPEP error, false marking, McDermott
• Patent news from China: invalidation, trade deficit, tech transfer
• PIIPA asks if you have time to help with IP overseas
• Over 200 news patent lawsuits - more crap for me to bust!!!!!!
• NASA seeks bids for services from patent trolls
• Lego loses EU trademark on blocks; maybe lose design pats too?
• Jay Walker's bizmet patent to undermine anti-gambling laws
• Congressional Research Service report on patents and SCOTUS
• Are many patent law firms helping clients find funding?

AUGUST 2010

• Why Arti Rai was forced out; some recent Canadian IP decisions
• South Korea launches massive antitrust probe over patent abuse
• Rambus/HP; Kappos; Popsicles; Steam Engine; Acetone and Israel
• Patent law firm suing patent law firms
• PTO's new insultingly semantically silly Bilski guidelines
• PTO IT contracts to be investigated; PTO wrecks Web page
• Oracle/Google; and Is the U.S. Navy encouraging patent trolls?
• New patent lawsuits, including worst lawsuit of the month
• New U.S. and Canadian patent lawsuits
• Judge Benjamin Kaplan dies at 99 - critic of 17 USC 102
• Is there ANY benefit from having a Background/Summary?
• How much are Oracle's Sun's patents jokes?
• Getting a patent on adding a string to an existing product
• Facebook; Forgent; Michel; Congrats to Justice Elena Kagan
• Do too few patent prosecutors have relevant (IT) experience?
• Biofuel company goes public relying on a patent application
• Arti "I hate inventors" Rai to leave the Patent Office

JULY 2010

• WebVention sues over invalid crappy scrollover-getinfo patent
• Startup suffers with no patents while trusting Bill Gates's Corbis
• Paul Rosen, engineer inventor of modern modems, dies not-rich
• New PATNEWS feature: new patent lawsuit announcements
• Monsanto loses EU patent case over soy imported from Argentina
• Leahy's sneaky attempt to attach patent reform bill FAILS
• Is Wall Street too pessimistic above drug patent expirations?
• How many crap patents is DoD licensing to Intellectual Ventures?
• Garment bags: small inventor versus small inventor squabble
• Fight Leahy's attack on small/independent inventors
• Don't insult trolls - the NSA will have you arrested!!!!!
• Can we sue over new PTO Bilski guidelines?
• Bilski's betrayal - 36 "abstract" years since Benson - NO PROGRESS
• 14 unobvious obvious inventions - KSR's predictable is useless

JUNE 2010

• What is a partially computer implemented method?
• Very excellent article for new inventors/patentees
• SiRF v. GlobalLocate - CAFC right on one-party infringement?
• Recent OA rejection because "comprising" is .... indefinte?
• New Web site/movie attacking software patents
• Jon Dudas to leave Foley to head up youth robotics organization?
• ITC to investigate Apple; trading film profit futures
• HTC's crap infringement lawsuit against Apple before the ITC
• BW: Smartphones are the latest patent battleground
• Anyone want to pool to bust the Webvention 5251294 patent?
• Another badly researched article on Bilski in Barrons

MAY 2010

• Using patents to play shell games with corporate taxes
• Should mental mechanical methods be patentable? In re Bergy text
• Nokia throws five weak patents at Apple
• More management problems at the PTO; patent reform is pointless
• Microsoft hurls 9 crappy patents at Salesforce.com
• Lousy management and nepotism within the PTO's IT division
• Let inventors/lawyers clarify/define "process" in 35 USC 100?
• Is Focarino part of the solution, or part of the problem?
• How one year grace period helps progress the arts
• Examiners abusing "predictable" to use specification as prior art
• Are futures on options obvious in light of options on futures?
• A revision of my proposed new definitios for 101

APRIL 2010

• Economist editorial: reduce copyright term to 28 years
• Will someone explain patent law to Joule's CEO Bill Sims?
• WSJ: Stiglitz: "The Case Against Gene Patents"
• Three-year pseudo-patent for old drugs available from FDA
• New Duke University study is critical of gene patents
• More Rai lies; Webvention - how crappy is their menu patent?
• Kappos/PTO rightly fires a manager, Lisa Kidd, for racism?
• Judge Sweet incompetent to hear cases involving biology and law
• Increased patent business activity and the U.S. economy
• IBM gets a ... BCD patent? Don't tell me PTO isn't IBM-biased
• First set of new economic lies from the Patent Office
• Be scared of Stevens; Very Bilski-like patent issues yesterday
• AZN's Nexium more patently useful than Prilosec? a dividend play

MARCH 2010

• What recourse when you get lousy claims? RopesGray lawyer's mess
• Sympathy for Medicines Co.? Or get ready to short their stock?
• Powerhouse litigators looking to take on one contingency case
• Patent reform is dead this year - as it should be
• New 103 idiocy; practical patent examination reform from examiner
• More on recent CAFC obviousness decision - Rader was right
• Is the Berlin Wall analogous to a famous baseball player?
• Google and Facebook sued over dubious mobile phone app
• Elan doubly sues Apple over touchscreen hardware patent
• CAFC obviousness decision/dissent further confuses obviousness
• Bilski this week? Data Treasury wins; IP in China - hopeful?
• Apple sues Google phone maker HTC; some patents are invalid

FEBRUARY 2010

• Worst patent of 2009: SAP's stock market patent
• Short list for CAFC judge - anyone have names?
• PTO hiring economists to support bad economics before the OMB
• PTO economist Graham is in anti-inventor continuation-rules camp
• More on globalizing a localized invention
• Kudos to MoFo, Bingham, Alston, Arnold, Perkins, Orrick
• Inventor professor kills colleagues; India patent enforcement
• Globalizing localized inventions; stem cell patent wars
• Fewer green tech jobs if U.S. green tech patents are crap
• Bored writing briefs? Write a book! Upsidedownness at the PTO
• Biotech examiner complains about count system; Tanzania

JANUARY 2010

• The PTO is running out of Internet bandwidth for examiners?
• Supreme Court science ignorance achieves new, pathetic lows
• Part 2: How stressed are PTO examiners due to poor management?
• PTO mostly rejecting Class 705 applications? TC3700 problems
• PTO IT monies stolen?; Monsanto antitrust; Seagate problem
• More circle logic from CAFC; silly IBM patent; worst of 2009?
• Kappos' "ignorance" about PTO IT problems? Public PTO petitions
• Israeli government files patent infringement lawsuit
• Is a low allowance rate still the PTO's unofficial policy?
• How stressed are PTO examiners because of poor management?
• How ignorant is Commerce Secretary Locke of the patent system?
• HP gets a patent little different from rejected Benson patent

DECEMBER 2009

• What new data sets do you want from the PTO?
• Was the Nobel Physics prize wrongly awarded for imaging CCDs?
• Small Business coalition forms to fight bad patent reform
• Readers' suggestions on data the PTO should make available
• Patent lawyer's wise-but-sad counsel to his CEO client
• One federal judge who "botched, errored, wronged" both parties
• More on judge who confessed to multiple errors in a pat lawsuit
• Kudos to Milwaukee Sentinel re patent fee theft by Congress
• Judge Michel maybe forming think tank after retiring
• IRS allows intangible property as like-kind exchange property
• Global Findability asserts invalid patent against two companies
• Financial patenting in Europe; lagging innovation in India
• EPO; What's vaguer: "honest" or "obvious" or "idea/expression"?
• Congress voting Saturday morning to steal PTO fees in 2010

NOVEMBER 2009

• Spreading Bilski-nonsense to new financial regulations
• Skepticism about PTO's drop-and-pop; comments on Bilski
• Review of new book, "Start-Up Nation", on innovation in Israel
• Patent job; the intimate role of information in physics
• PTO's $200 million debt; FBI investigates patent license; taxes
• Is new financial indexing patent poorly claimed?
• Is PTO small entity "drop and pop" acceleration a cheap stunt?
• Inventor motorcycles 18,000 miles to fight Office Action
• Help for small entity inventors in the UK; more EPO gossip
• Corrupt politics behind appointment of next EPO President
• China/India want compulsory licenses for greentech patents
• Bilski: Supreme Court ignorance of patents, science, semantics
• Accenture's defense of our (im)perfect patent system

OCTOBER 2009

• Why don't science journal articles cite patents?
• Time to remove infringement determinations from juries?
• Should the PTO drop its fight against Bilski?
• Is PTO wasting money outsourcing classification jobs?
• How vagueness of "obvious" affects inventorship determination
• Eolas's patent - back in play, suing everyone
• Do Barner and Locke really understand patent examination?
• Did patent tactics worsen the deaths from the Spanish Flu?
• Criminal investigations needed for PTO IT procurement?
• Comments on trademark office actions; EDTX sarcasm; Thai king
• Arti Rai, another bad PTO appointment; Barner; other PTO probs
• Anyone else getting idiotic trademark Office Actions?

SEPTEMBER 2009

• Wall Street Journal: Are vague laws plaguing all of American law?
• Random comments from PATNEWS readers about the PTO
• PTO's 2009 Caselaw Year in Review by Solicitor Chen
• More on IBM's remote control blogging patent
• More on 101 software rejections being recast as 112 rejections
• Many lawyer comments on automated discovery and patentability
• Good preliminary goals announced by PTO Director Kappos
• CAFC implicitly endorses patents on music in Prometheus
• Arti Rai to head a PTO policy office? Tighter Figures rules?
• Are method claims directed towards individuals of any value?
• Are drugs from really automated discovery unpatentable?
• Anyone getting "101-mere-software" rejections under 112?
• Abandon an app for haste on second app: good or bad? Tafas
• A crappy crap patent dedicated to Director Kappos

AUGUST 2009

• VoloMedia's idiotic "podcast" patent; Tivo v. Echostar
• Patent lawyers' observations on Kappos' memo
• PTO Director Kappos' first email to examiners
• More observations on the PTO's count system from old-timers
• Minister steals $450,000 from Patent and Trademark Office
• Jean Baptiste Lamarck - the inventor of evolution
• Excellent investigative article on the PTO and its problems
• Examiners and lawyers on (not) fixing the count system
• Do cases like IMS Health impact 101 patent law re information?
• Can the PTO's count system really be reformed?
• Are PCT filings at the PTO plummeting? Mor on count system
• 100+ years of little real patent reform and vague 103 caselaw

JULY 2009

• PTO smacks down Niro and Rozmanith patent once again
• New study attacks post-grant review; Jerry Lewis; Chevron
• Kappos scam closes; PTO to furlough patent examiners?
• Invention of drip irrigation; incandescent bulb innovation
• IBM's crappy patent of the week: post-it-notes for Web pages
• Hey Gene Quinn: KSR is son of Cuno; NiMH batteries; First2File
• FTF problems; Insider's anonymous blog about PTO mismanagement
• Even more ways PTO is financially hurting patent applicants
• Can an entire Detailed Description be included by reference?
• BPAI says computer output makes an algorithm patentable
• Anyone want me to bust Toyota's hybrid car patents?
• Anyone have info on a new Group 4100?; An examiner's complaints

JUNE 2009

• Wasted office actions and costly RCEs hurting patent applicants
• The (psycho)physical transformations of a curveball
• Patent reform bill probably dead again in this year
• More ways the PTO is financially hurting patent applicants
• IBM's abusively stupid Internet dishwashing patent
• How bad will alternative/renewable energy patents be?
• How PTO management incompetence is destroying small companies
• Gossip from PTO's trademark side: Doll v. Beresford
• Europe getting closer to a community patent/patent court?
• Canadian Patent Appeal Board rejects all business method patents

MAY 2009

• Worsening BPAI problems - new Constraints on BPAI Patent Judges
• Rohrabacher v. Leahy - patent world too split? Kappos or Barner?
• No patent reform bill, no patent office reform in 2009
• No German patent for a Saudi killer chip; Japan's e-vehicle pats
• Kappos' IBM spits contempt at real inventors and patent system
• Justice Sotomayor and evolution of the constitution
• Is IBM's Kappos trying to resurrect Jepson-format claims???
• How IBM (and others) demoralize patent examiners with crap apps
• Good buddies Dudas and Kappos speaking this Friday
• Conservative Christian groups oppose patent reform
• A worsening 18 month pendency - at the Copyright Office?????????

APRIL 2009

• R&D funding holds steady; PTO outsourcing ban? EPO; Hatch
• Next PTO Director has been picked
• Letter seeking signatories protesting first-to-file
• Is patent reform bill trying to ban forced applicant searching?
• How IBM is destroying the PTO with its flood of crap patent apps
• Greg Aharonian up for PTO Deputy Director? patent reform dead
• Crash Foley & Lardner's party honoring Jon Dufas
• Crappy patent reform bill to full Senate
• Corruption at the BPAI: hired lawyers writing the opinions
• Another stupid patent app IBM is using to destroy the PTO

MAR 2009

• Why post-grant opposition is logistical nonsense - a bad reform
• Trademarking "last best place" - the funny politics
• Senators demand compromise over patent reform bill
• PTO Director; OMB and the PTO; John Love's lie
• Obama administration: texts of new IPR agreements are secret
• Innovative immigrants going home - bad for U.S. economy?
• IBM, first troll, uses patents to stifle mainframe competition
• Google's nonsense distortions about patent reform
• Discovery Communications sues Amazon over Kindle book reader
• China and carbon capture; India scientists; dum patent economics
• CCIA proposes to change 103 to "extraordinary"
• 7 Senators, green tech companies oppose patent reform rush

FEBRUARY 2009

• Thousands to be furloughed from the PTO as revenue drops
• Should some BPAI judges be demoted to janitors?
• Recent Japan IP High Court ruling on obviousness
• PTO Counsel Toupin being forced out? Why exactly is PTO broke?
• John Doll partying in Geneva while PTO is short $220 million
• Is obviousness caselaw making 103 analysis more cost efficient?
• IP job; PTO nonsense next Director must fix; iPhone patents crap?
• IBM's troll child, Microsoft sues independent inventor; reform bill
• IBM's picture claim patent: strategic or abusive?
• Foley's reward; IBM; Incompetent head of the Indian Patent Office
• Dudas at Foley; Gossip on next PTO Director and CAFC vacanies
• Does GWU IP Law hold fee-paying patent applicants in contempt?
• Another crappy IBM patent that clogged the system

JANUARY 2009

• Revisions to Japanese law - software formally patentable
• Proposed changes in German patent law
• Nortel bankrupt; Yet another patent reform coalition
• No justification for KSR to use "predict(able)"?
• New PATNEWS column: patent news from Japan
• More on judicial abuse of "predictable" re KSR/Adams/103
• Inventor writes patent reform letter to his Senator
• IEEE releases patent reform position statement
• Growing role of IP in a slow economy; IV buys Transmeta IP
• Dudastic dufas Dudas to leave the PTO on January 12th
• Doll; obviousness; PTO as a Ponzi; doctor patent; IBM
• Using patent lawsuit to pump up penny stock (WordLogic)

DECEMBER 2008

• US Chamber of Commerce wants massive PTO reform
• The importance of Patent Office reform to the global economy
• Questions for the next PTO Director candidate
• Is the CAFC's Judge Mayer unfit to hear 101 cases?
• Halliburton tries to patent "trollness"; and other silly apps
• Dickinson v. Kappos; My endorsement to heal; PTO v. IBM

NOVEMBER 2008

• Why lame duck Republicans are appealing the Tafas loss
• The illegal PPAC appointment of illegally appointed Pinkos
• Speculations on the next (Deputy Director) of the PTO
• New PTO annual fee for patent lawyers/agents - a ripoff?
• More gossip on next PTO Director and Obama's IP advisors
• IP guru for PTO director; more Dudas corruption for 6 weeks
• Gene patent litigation; PTO suppressing data; more OED rules?
• EPO examiners claim human rights abuses by EPO management
• Crisis of spirit and confidence at the European Patent Office
• (Hate) email from PTO management to PATNEWS

OCTOBER 2008

• Reflections on miserable working conditions of PTO examiners
• Pension problems for examiners at PTO, CIPO; McCain's bad IP
• Pension funding scandal at the European Patent Office
• Patent lawyer evaluates prototype PTO OED CLE online software
• PTO's John Love lies about software patent caselaw and physics
• Gary Griswold; McDermott/Medtronic fined; Verizon a tryant-troll?
• Favoritism: PTO gives Microsoft yet another pure crap patent
• Does the PTO have a DO-NOT-ISSUE patent application list????
• Constitutional problems with In re Bilski
• CAFC decides In re Bilski - confuses 101 with 102/103/112
• CAFC Judge Michel questions integrity of PTO management
• Bilski and Nuijten; professional PTO management
• Begining of end for EDTx-Marshall's popularity?
• 1168 month predicted patent pendency; disclaimer language?

SEPTEMBER 2008

• Why experience matters in the PTO and the White House
• Teva; Nokia's patent factory; UK patent courts; soft patents
• Surrealism; Is Steamboat Willie in the public domain?
• Should CAFC ignore anti-Bilski banks? Bilski-like patent from 2000
• SPE bonuses; Why the election will be bad for the patent system
• More comments on Intellectual Ventures; Jones Day; Apple
• Is Copyright term extension unconstitutional?
• How legally incompetent is Toupin? More SPE gossip
• Hotelling; No patents at SCOTUS next year? Reuters sues university
• Frivolous rejections and SPEs; is Dudas sabotaging Toupin?
• Electric iron + MP3 player: utterly obvious? Unethical to file?
• EFF, PK sue over "secret" IP piracy pact
• Are examiners being ordered to reject ALL applications?

AUGUST 2008

• Hyatt v. California; Nanotech and alchemists; Mechanicals
• Gutierrez fires Peterlint; Dudas -> Qualcomm; Director Doll??
• Federal district court judge removed from patent lawsuit
• Dudas leaving? PTO appointees using PTO fees for Denmark party
• Does 26 USC 1235 need to be rewritten slightly?
• Beresford as Acting?; Todd/AIPLA; Dudas to Cisco? Peterlint

JULY 2008

• Wilson Sonsini lawyer proves PTO run by statistical idiots
• What will be the next president's impact on the Patent Office?
• Random IP news and other news: rejections, Bilski, China
• PTO PCT outsourcing fraud - fake art groups and reviews
• More on presidential and PTO politics, and IP
• Is McCain technologically unfit to be president?
• Is Judge Plager not competent to hear software patent cases?
• IEEE article makes Alappat literally true
• Ex parte Wasynczuk - a bad decision for software and semantics
• Did China spark Europe's Renaissance?
• Allied Security Trust - the latest patent policy scam
• A patent Declaration of Independence for the July 4th holiday

JUNE 2008

• iRise sues competitor over visual programming tool patent
• Was Thomas Edison party to a murder of a fellow movie inventor?
• Patent law firm's name used for stock pummp and dummp
• PTO contemptously publishes new rules for BPAI appeals
• New PTO rules change: "restriction rejections"?????
• New Microsoft patent app shows how to workaround Bilski
• My apology to the application-as-prior-art-rejection examiner
• Law-profs say: "Nuijten is scientifically vacuous"
• Dudas' letter answering Berman's 20 questions
• Can the PTO outsource PCT report preparation?
• A Bilski-like patent claim awarded to Microsoft?

MAY 2008

• Wiki-patent Web site with silly patent valuations
• What's the worst Supreme Court IP decision?
• Was Dudas seduced by the corruption of the Bush Administration?
• UN-backed effort crushes the Mexican yellow bean U.S. patent
• Text transcript of the Bilski oral arguments now available
• Significant security problem with PTO examiners' workstations
• PTO telephones not working most of the week
• List of 20 Congressional questions for PTO management
• Is Congress investigating corruption in PTO management?
• Gossip is that Dudas is seeking $1 million salary
• Examiner cites patent application as prior art against itself

APRIL 2008

• Whealan leaves Congress - patent reform is dead
• Weird, but useful, claim; state prosecution of Bilski
• Seagate sues STEC over crappy patents - I guess trolls do exist
• Rules rejected!!! More on the cowards attacking PTO examiners
• Reform bill dead?????? Review of Bilski amicus briefs
• Patent deform bill on its last legs? Bayer's stem cells
• Patent bill off the floor; Is Bilski CAFC's apology for Comiskey?
• PATNEWS files amicus brief in In re Bilski
• New Supreme Court decision on statutory language, and Bilski
• More complaints from patent lawyers and examiners
• Monsanto; Accenture; IBM; Judge Linn; PTO mismanagement
• Lobbyist group asks FTC for patent antitrust investigation
• Is Dudas and/or Freeland finally leaving in May?
• Do examiners ignore the CAFC? Christians against patent reform
• Corporate executive protests Dudas' insult of applicants
• CAFC to hear oral arguments from two amici from financial world

MARCH 2008

• Why the CAFC will change little with Bilski
• Random patent news: AFL-CIO opposes reform bill; software pats
• Patent reform: the Smoot-Leahy act - damn right!!!!
• PTO power shortages; Dudas/Peterlint defer to students???
• NY Times article on Bilski - define "business" please!!!
• More reasons Jon Dudas' PTO quality claims are lies
• Letter in Wall Street Journal protesting Dudas' failures
• Latest amendments to Senate patent litigation reform bill
• If you are "installing", are you "physically transforming"?
• How to bust a high quality Dudas/Intel patent in two minutes
• How to bust a "Dudas high quality" patent in two minutes
• Dudas buying praise as his term expires? Census IT problems
• Difficult to define (to then ban) "business methods" in Bilski
• Cowardly lawyers publicly attack U.S. patent examiners
• Busting Amazon's 1-click patent (tho I needed more than 2 minutes)

FEBRUARY 2008

• Will patent reform cost taxpayers billions to just help banks?
• Reex request filed in TechSearch/Rozmanith case
• More on patent reform activities - lobbying fees, exemptions
• Jon Dudas lies before Berman's Congressional committee
• Is PTO sabotaging some software/bizmet examining groups?
• Heated exchange between examiner and attorney on a blog
• "Technical", "physical", EPO, PTO, CAFC - but no dictionaries

JANUARY 2008

• Why German firms avoid patenting because of the Chinese
• UK High Court rules in favor of Beauregard claims
• Supreme Court patent contempts; Mona Lisa is ...
• Should patent lawyers support gun control? Tafas/GSK briefs
• Poor reexamination statistics; new book on gauge theories
• Patent reform paper by Mossinghoff and Kunin
• PTO incompetence when handling your drawings
• New Year - New PTO incompetence and corruption at the OCIO
• Margaret Peterlin demonstrates more unprofessionalism
• Leahy's proposed amendments to the patent reform bill
• Japan to protect its stem cell patents; CAFC and whistleblowers
• Is PTO obstructing Justice? Is Peterlin lieing about quality?
• Creating entire hearts in the lab; EU guide to epigenetics
• Another critique of Peterlin's lies about patent quality

DECEMBER 2007

• Would jazz festivals have been patentable business methods?
• WIPO chief Idris "bribed" to leave office early
• Two idiotic Craig Venter patent applications on synthetic biology
• Stephen Kunin: patent reform bill will weaken patent system
• Scandal and betrayals with the patent reform bill
• Last PATNEWS of the year: Bell the crook?; red cats; Barry Bonds
• Is a claim with "good" indefinite if "good" is not defined?
• Is Brimelow playing accounting games with EPO fees?
• Is Accenture now a troll asserting a nonsense patent?
• European Parliament adopts law liberalizing car part resales
• Did Lehman know that Idris was not qualified?
• China belittles US patent reform; more on reform political betrayal
• A nonsense quote from Craig Venter about his applications

NOVEMBER 2007

• The end of the seriousness of patent litigation
• Random patent news from around the world
• Northeasthern U. sues Google over stinky patent
• No guidance for arguing against hindsight bias in KSR/Graham?
• More patent world politics and gossip
• Is Peterlin violating ABA rules of conduct?
• Global politics and economics of stem cells
• Can I define "functional" "technology" in my application?
• An IP comment on the new stem cell technique

OCTOBER 2007

• Second lawsuit filed by GSKB challenging continuation rules
• PTO hiring a failure; Embarrassing the PTO to get your patent?
• New PTO restriction scam; Complaint filed protesting new IDS rules
• More patent world gossip: Netflix sued for infringement
• More on continuation rules lawsuit; PTO morale; DoJ conflicts
• More bad science from a PTO solicitor and a CAFC judge
• Is Graham/KSR illogically constructed and still ambiguous?
• Is "obvious if predictable" non-delegatable vagueness?
• How pathetically ill-prepared were the new continuation rules?
• DoJ/DoC responds to our Peterlin lawsuit
• Disney, IP, and National Security - a good or bad match? :-)
• Court stops continuation rules - time for Dudas to go
• Big letter protesting reform; venom between PTO and the world
• Anyone want to jointly file a Glaxo-clone lawsuit?
• A variety of management problems at the PTO
• 100th anniversary of invention of Cubism; patenting new science?

SEPTEMBER 2007

• Why the end "obvious" language of Comiskey is very troubling
• Time to add 'signal/field' to 35 USC 101, or just drop 101?
• Random patent news - reader comments on ESD, House vote
• Polaris IP's crap lawsuit; Republicans protest patent reform bill
• More problems with the passed House bill
• Is the just passed 35 USC 123 unconstitional/idiotic/disgrace?
• Is PTO targeting Halliburton competitors? Vagueness in House bill
• IBM's attempts to eliminate injunctions in Europe
• How dysffunctional is PTO outsourcing of PCT searches?
• Head of Canada's Copyright Office "fired" for being "bought"
• Examiners oppose patbill; House paid to rush bill through
• Calls for reform of PTO management; ATT loses patent lawsuit
• CAFC in Comiskey: no pure mental step process patents
• Additional corrupt cronyism in PTO management

AUGUST 2007

• Why the new ESD search document is way tooooooo risky
• Two letters in Wall Street Journal blasting patent reform
• Random patent news: Leahy, Ampex, RealNetworks, Chinese IP law
• Peterlin admits her lack of professional experience
• PTO gossip; Patent plus bribe equals four million dollars?
• No-show PTO programming job? WallStreet and pat reform; Merc
• More gossip on the patent reform bills
• Is "small entity" horribly defined in new rules?
• IEEE opposes patent bill; Unions help stall patent reform bill
• How unethical is the Examination Support Document?
• Examiner's Union protests new search requirements for applicants
• Did the PTO fire all of the PTO draftsmen?
• Continuation rules lawsuit filed - we need more
• Complaints about the continuation rules
• Comments from PATNEWS readers: Dudas, reform, 101, outsourcing
• Canadian Patent Office lies about signals
• Broadening 101? A debate of the ABA IP section
• Billion dollar cost of new search rules; problems with new rules
• An illegal Dudas/Borland PTO reorg approved by Peterlin?
• ADL creates controversy by denying the Armenian Genocide

JULY 2007

• Rohrbacher's speech - the eulogy for this years patent reform
• Richard Epstein on standing to file federal lawsuits
• Really, are all (artistic) data structures 101-patentable?
• Random patent news on KSR/eBay - injunctions and obviousness
• Political hacks; Patent Unleadership; Patent reform
• PTO examiners complain about Peterlin; similarly in Canada
• Michie/McLaren; More illegal appointments at the PTO?
• Lawsuit filed over Peterlin's illegal appointment to the PTO
• Is there standing to sue to stop the new continuation rules?
• EPO reducing pay of examiners who strike over work conditions
• Bush administration protecting Gutierrez/Peterlin?
• BayhDole hearing; Law prof criticizes Intel's op-ed nonsense
• Are methods of drafting patent claims patentable?
• AFL-CIO opposes patent reform bill

JUNE 2007

• Why Microsoft's new iPhone-ish patent is invalid
• The patenting of nanobacteria
• The PTO's creative tale about Peterlin's professionalism
• Reviewers sought for my Peterlin lawsuit complaint
• Printed matter doctrine caselaw
• Patent law lies and nonsense in the Journal and Times
• Patent fights amongst restaurant owners
• New(?) way to sue over BPAI decisions - in the district courts
• New network game patent lawsuit; Patent damages study from PwC
• New 1click patent; patent app on artificial life form
• More on idiotic continuation rules changes; licensing mice
• George Lucas and the patentability of movies and music
• Functional; Olive oil and obviousness; Harvard nanotech
• First PTO response to movie plot patents - mostly 103-ish
• Dudas' whining before Congress today about his mismanagement
• Broad hatred of PTO's mismanagement's continuation rules changes
• Administrative law violations by PTO manglement re rules changes?
• A new PTO problem with DNA; more on Microsoft's invalid patent

MAY 2007

• Will Vonage be the first test of KSR?
• UK companies fight for Beauregard claims in the UK
• Stupid circular definitional logic in the KSR decision
• Republicans dump another political hack at the PTO
• Random patent news: KSR, Macrossan, Peterlin should go away
• PTO issues KSR advice; One examiner's view on the impact of KSR
• PATNEWS to sue in D.C. court to block Peterlin appointment
• PATNEWS reader: why KSR is bad for small inventors and science
• Microsft/ATT: Can really false science poison judicial reasoning?
• Letter to Gutierrez/Dudas/Sullivan re Peterlin appointment
• Is MPEP 2106.02 (mathematical algoritms and 101) irrational?
• How corrupt is Commerce Department's Inspector General?
• Does Whealan's secondment to Congress violate the law?
• Does Microsoft's new patent threaten the iPhone?
• Did the PTO's KSR memo mischaracterize KSR and Graham?
• Bush appoints immigration judges with no background in the law
• A potential ethics problem for IP professor Jay Thomas
• A lament from the founder of Xerox PARC

APRIL 2007

• Will biotech patents/applications be (self-)censored?
• What's sillier than patenting three-point basketball shots?
• Was DataQuil's patent obtained by fraud on the PTO?
• Vonage bankrupted by crap? Judges defend patents, but problems?
• Very old bad bizmet patent; Qualcomm; PTO quality/obviousness
• Rejections hurting small companies? Obviousness? Prior art
• Prof. Mann - "Patents important for software start-ups"
• Political problems with the new patent reform bill
• Patent reform bill attacked in Congressional testimony
• PTO's secret quality review sheets used by Quality Office
• PTO having major problems retaining nanotech examiners? IBM
• PTO blowing money on sole-source contract for an Opinion Poll
• More criticisms of the patent reform bill
• Microsoft sued for infringing idiotically crappy patent
• Global protest of PTO/EPO/GPO patent examiners
• Examiner complains about secret patent quality review
• Email startup to bust RIM / NTP / Visto?
• Critique of Bilski - PTO board attacks PTO policy, CAFC
• Complaints about arbitrary examiner rejections
• Can ideas be capital? - An interesting new paper
• Are hundreds/thousands of Internet patents to be invalidated?

MARCH 2007

• Tax patents; Complaints about the PTO; Weird office action
• Stupid bin advertising patent lawsuit
• PTO's secret quality review sheets used by Quality Office
• PTO starts its scam prior art project with IBM
• More gossip on PTO imposing continuation rules
• More PTO problems; a letter with 101 comments to the PTO
• More PTO problems: law violations, contractors, hypocrisy
• Is stem cell patent based on false data?
• Is paper a Beauregard computer-readable medium - YES or NO?
• Fernandez/GM; IBM lyingly tries to patent: public prior art review
• Amicus briefs for Beauregard now available
• A really truly idiotically crappy IBM patent application of 2002
• A critique of Microsoft/ATT hearing - bad science all around

FEBRUARY 2007

• Should defendants go first in patent infringement lawsuits?
• Random patent news: stem cells, UKPO, JPO, Canada, PTO fees
• Random patent news: patent term, PTO, UKPO, GPL shakedown
• Random IP trials and tribulations: PTO gossip, European IP
• Raise maintenance fees? Patents as private property. Microsoft/ATT
• PTO rejections by primaries; Gillette-ness; Crichton
• Nuijten: why signal claims are patentable; spec language
• Notes from federal judges day at UCal Berkeley
• Lawprof argues PTO should greatly limit its use of 101
• Is source code patentable, if software is patentable?
• Is Obama anti-patent? Anti-tax shelter patent bill introduced
• Did Inventor Hall of Fame induct a non-inventor?
• Bill introduced into the House to ban gene patents
• 6th: music signals are physical; notes from Nuijten hearing

JANUARY 2007

• Yet even more on whack-the-mole office actions
• Why the Intertainer patnet is invalid due to three prior patents
• The last batch of whack-a-mole office action complaints
• Some random patent news to start off the new year
• Random patent news: "whack-a-mole" office actions
• NTP outside counselor ..... now chief White House lawyer?
• More on whack-a-mole office actions
• Is the new Accelerated Examination process a con job?
• Intertainer's stupid lawsuit against Apple and Google
• Even more on whack-a-mole office actions
• Eli Lilly's false science about "physical" in Supreme Court brief
• Eben Moglen lies to Supreme Court about software patents
• Any prior art for Bluetooth patent? Printed matter caselaw
• 9th Circuit: does software copyright satisfy Article I?

DECEMBER 2006

• USDCNDCA local rules; Germans ban stem cell patent; AIPLA
• Science and the law; India; PTO bonuses; Judge Rader on reform
• Scalia's and EPA's contempt for science; Obvious and Markman
• More reasons why the continuation rules changes are idiotic
• Letters to editors about patent issues; Pfizer and Scripps
• End of the year PATNEWS
• Council of Foreign Relations issues idiotic anti-patent report
• Comments on law professors, the PTO, continuation rules
• Another professor's idiotic anti-patent article in Science
• Angry inventor murders patent lawyer, lawyer and clerk

NOVEMBER 2006

• Why the Supreme's KSR decision will have little effect
• Why are other lawyers afraid of patent law?
• Time for accountability in PTO management NOW NOW NOW
• Should negative political ads be patentable?
• Review of 101 comments submitted to the PTO this summer
• New York Times anti-business patents editorial
• KSR will change little, but is 35 USC 103's "obvious" too vague?x
• Is claim construction too arbitrary?
• Forgent settles on the cheap for its weakened patent
• Examiners upset over PTO's new "Raw Goal" work quota proposal
• Comments on why other lawyers are afraid of patent law
• Bankers associations complain about Fannie Mae's patent
• "Obvious" too vague even for Supremes - remand most likely

OCTOBER 2006

• Was Merck's patent tax scam even dumber for Merck?
• Patent Office abandons quality for the rest of the year
• PCT; RCEs; Quality Review at PTO; appraisers
• Ocean Tomo; U. Hawaii; India
• More lawyer gripes with PTO management problems
• MPAA: movie plots not patentable --- because we say so!!!
• IPO argues Patent Office measures quality dishonestly
• A brief history of IP piracy, including in the U.S.
• "Proposed Office Actions?"; IP and Physical; WARF

SEPTEMBER 2006

• Two controversial patents involving sperm; and other ethics
• Study: software patents have NO NO NO bad effect on industry
• Labor Day: are examiners being terrorized by PTO Quality Review?
• How much crap is Ocean Tomo auctioning?
• How incompetent are academic copyright lawyers?
• Gossip, complaints and news from the patent world
• Critique/response of critique of critique of Ormco v. Align
• Critique of a critique of CAFC'c Ormco v. Align decision
• Can lawyer patent different solution to client's problem?
• Answer: lawyers REALLY shouldn't be applying for patents
• Another incomplete post-Lundgren article?
• 35 USC expressed in poem form

AUGUST 2006

• Should PTO abandon its fight of the In re Nuijten appeal?
• Random patent news: litigation; PTO politics; bacteriophages
• PTO's contempt for everyone? Is Wikipedia too unreliable?
• PTO to have big management conference with managers Sept 6/7/8
• PTO bans use of Wiki, or not, or maybe, or who knows??
• PTO IT employees upset over new OCIO management harassment
• More bad art/physics law at the PTO/IPO - In re Nuijten
• Is the Personnel office at the PTO causing too many problems?
• Anti-patent comments in Metabolite; Problems citing Genbank?
• A few random patent news items

JULY 2006

• Why software copyright is semantic nonsense
• Random IP news; Dudas, Palm/Xerox, Rule 56, Acacia
• News from the Patent Office; patent fees; technical; Jaffe
• How confusing is a recent CAFC decision on exhaustion?
• Examiners issuing bad 101 rejections using old caselaw?
• Even yet more comments on "Forty hours for a patent app?"
• Comments on "Are 40 hours needed to draft a patent?"
• Another example of misuse of Google by an examiner
• 40 hours to draft a patent application - and no searching?

JUNE 2006

• Why patents were irrelevant to penicillin's development
• Two more comments on Merc; comment on new CAFC biotech decision
• SupCrt/PTO - very disturbing news for business patents
• Software/business patent developments in the United Kingdom
• Random IP news: WHO IP report, EPO in California, standards
• NTP reexam - PTO scandal or not? 16-year wait for office action?
• Motorcycle parts designer sued for infringing etching patent
• Judge Michel speaks of public notice and vague patent claims
• Is PTO preparing to destroy Petitions-to-make Special?
• Information and PTO; Continuation rule changes' controversy
• Examiner argues Wegner is wrong about continuation games
• Are "objects of the invention" needed or dangerous?
• Apple Computer getting ready to patent music?

MAY 2006

• Why there are PCT problems at the PTO; patent news from China
• Symantec sues Microsoft; a comment on the (e)Bay decision; nanotech
• Supreme Court's ignorance of patent quality
• Patent and copyright news from around the world
• Patent Office to setup satellite office in ...... Denver?
• PTO fires two apparently competent sisters for no apparent reason
• New Congressional report on software/biotech patents
• More on Merc; CAFC and specs; EC software patent nonsense
• More comments on the Supremes and continuation tactics
• More comments on the Merc decision; comments on spec writing
• Lobbying corruption and prior art scandals at the Patent Office
• How to fix the PTO; patents as property; injunctions
• How bad is the CAFC screwing up patent prosecution?
• Honeywell wins big patent case at U.S. Court of Claims
• EPO examiners to go on strike to protest their working conditions
• Do the PTO examiners want a new union?

APRIL 2006

• Small Business Administration opposes PTO rules changes
• Random patent news: auction, PTO fees, examiners' comments
• Random news: malpractice insurance, stem cells
• Problems with PCT operations at the PTO
• Patent lawyers critique examiner's comments; censoring at the PTO
• PTO playing games with Information Disclosure Statement form
• More random news from the IP world
• Justice Dept. proposes bill to make copyright more vague/criminal
• Interesting case about business patents in the UK
• How can we first fix the patent reform process?
• How are articles of "manufacture" ideas under patent law?
• How Republican Congress corrupts patent reform
• Complaints about Doll and new rules; IPO politics gossip
• Comments from two patent examiners
• AIPLA's critical comments on proposed rules changes

MARCH 2006

• Some thoughts from an examiner; a letter to sent to the SBA
• Secret SBA hearing on PTO rules changes - attend and fight
• Scam invention promoter to pay $26 million
• Random patent news: PTO, CAFC, POPA, first-to-file, Japan
• Patent lawyer complains about hidden 102(e) prior art
• PTO management trying to break labor contract with examiners
• PTO management admits desperation at Berkeley Town Hall
• Other lawyers' experiences with games played with appeals
• Notes from SBA hearing on patent rules changes
• More physics abstracts on information as physical
• Metabolite, CAFC, Brazil, First to File
• Lawyers complain about patent examiners and continuations
• Is PTO management playing games with appeals?
• IP news involving the federal courts
• First to file; PTO fees; London IP talks; outsourcing
• Do PTO policy people understand language and semantics?
• Comments fron the PTO townhall in Houston
• China; Examiner complains about both PTO and Union management
• AIDS patent opposed in India; modeling immigration court on CAFC

FEBRUARY 2006

• Why patentable movie plots exist in a relative sense
• Why Metabolite should include the 1st Amendment and patent law
• What's bad about "> 10 ind claims, do a search" rule change?
• US Army deletes language from its issued grenade patent
• Religion, inventions, patents and science policy
• Random news from the IP world
• RIM-NTP gossip; sorry, one more continuation rules comment
• Patent Office management coming under stress?
• Panel on Section 101 in Georgia at April IP symposium
• More complaints about new continuation rules / Lemley's article
• In re Beauregard + Ex parte Lundgren = .... "means" what?
• Bureacratic civil war at the PTO? and patent quality
• Are the proposed continuation rule changes a scam?

JANUARY 2006

• Stupid software patent of 2006 - PTO prior art futility
• Retirement message from PTO IT manager Ron Hack
• Raw cynicism/contempt about PTO and software prior art
• One examiner's suggestions to fix patent examination
• New IBM/PTO initiative will do nothing to improve patent quality
• Metabolite: Let's beseech Jay Thomas to cite Baker v. Selden
• IBM; patent quality; deferred examination; PTO management
• A new web page for Section 101 materials
• A formal theory and logic statements for 35 USC 101
• A PTO examiner rebuts criticism of examiner in last PATNEWS

DECEMBER 2005

• Software/movie piracy versus U.S. farm subsidies?
• Really Bad Software Patent of the Year award
• Random news: Lundgren, India, Armenia; useful; subsidies
• RIM; Dishonest IP law professor; Dutch IP courts have setback
• Patenting movies and music - my article to critique
• Patent application for patenting .... jokes
• Metabolite: IPO asks Supremes to leave Lundgren alone
• Marconi's patent; IP and technology news from Brazil
• Comments from lawyers about petitions to make special

NOVEMBER 2005

• Time to drop Sect. 101? Lundgren, Metabolite, "abstract"
• Some comments on PTO plans to change continuations
• Physics of economics not considered in Ex parte Lundgren
• PTO management plans to demand that applicants do more
• NTP/RIM; Sec. 101; EPO's PDFs; lawyer inventors; pro-se success
• London conf. on patenting life; PTO fees to be raised?
• Is Section 101 unconstitutionally vague?
• Critique of the dissent in Ex parte Lundgren
• Critique of new PTO examination guidelines - some bad science
• Another Lessig legal error involving Google print

OCTOBER 2005

• Thesis student doing survey of errors in Office Actions
• The implications of Ex parte Lundgren and social information
• Reviews of IP books, conferences and articles
• PTO's internal assessment of problems with automation
• Lundgren; Feedback from PATNEWS readers on various issues
• Lawyer-lawyer complaints; why little IP is outsourced to India
• Is IPO illegally lobbying federal judges?
• Edison; Microsoft FAT; How fraudulent were patent donations?
• EU Designs, UKPO offers validity analysis; history of standards
• David Pressman's attack on the "technological arts" test
• Complaints about - 101 rejections, patent reexaminations
• Bad cereal business method patent app causing controversy

SEPTEMBER 2005

• Some dumb software patents; Creative's iPod patent
• Random IP and science news and stuff
• Patent quality to get worse; claim construction problems; ESTs
• Patent donations; "technical" software; Creative bites Apple?
• More problems with PTO management and filing patents
• More problems with PTO management and filing patents
• Forbes article on patenting movie scripts
• Eolas lives; New report critical of PTO management
• Copyright infringement - Dell sued, China, Bowie bonds back
• Computer Associates' fraudulent patent donation to open source

AUGUST 2005

• Too many Asian (spies) at the Patent Office?
• Random IP news: Japan, PTO, EU IP, DRM, ID, SCO/IBM
• Patent lawyer blasts proposed redefinition of "prior art"
• Movie producers get search warrant for entire city of New Delhi
• JPO scandal; Doll now Commish; lawsuit against patents in ads
• Cisco; Qualcomm; RFID; iPod; NYU; DoD; IPO; Grokster
• Big companies are patent trolls too; godly powers aren't triable

JULY 2005

• The minimalist design patent improvement - for donuts???
• RIM; Broadcom/Qualcomm; life jackets; Paul Winchell
• PTO has examiner arrested for false overtime
• More PTO problems - getting your patents to issue
• Lists of critical GAO and DoC/OIG reports on PTO management
• Kudos to Emory's $525 million licensing deal
• Horrible NYT article against software patents; PTO union
• Does Phillips v. AWH weaken use of provisional patents?
• Brazilian IP news from the firm Milton Leo Barcellos
• Associate sues Orrick; patent reform recast; patent Ashkenaziness?
• Apple; Brazil; Saudis; Monsanto; PTO; Qualcomm

JUNE 2005

• Random IP news: EPO, China, NYU, Brazil, Microsoft, pizza
• Patent fees; Canadian drug exports; BRCA2; stem cells
• PTO mismanagement - why patent reform is not serious
• More open source / patent silliness from European politicians
• IBM pops bubble of open source business models
• GAO reports on serious management problems at the PTO
• Economics and IP: Apple, Sun, drugs, China, Rambus, MTA
• Axiomatizing software patent/copyright terms and statutes

MAY 2005

• Questionable patents from Symantec, Fenner, CSIRO
• Patent lawyer consultant kills boss in Houston
• More gossip about software patents in Europe
• More "technical" nonsense from the EP's Rocard
• Invalidating two new Microsoft XML patents - in 3 minutes!!!
• Interesting review of the telemedicine market
• EU seeks 'legally clever' software patent definition - OH NOOOOOOO
• Are open source anti-patent clauses no threat?
• A boringly pathetic patent from Boeing Aerospace

APRIL 2005

• UTexas: software patents are good for small companies
• PTO Labor/Management relations getting worse
• More observations on US patent reform
• More interesting business method patents and applications
• More EC/EU software patent semantic abuse of science
• Larry Lessig's patent fantasies
• Getty Images' patent: fraudulent or pathetic crap?
• Deconstructing IBM's new call for software patent reform
• Critique of John Dvorak's critique of Microsoft's patents
• Comments about proposed patent reforms from PATNEWS readers
• All sorts of IP news ... and more ... or less
• 52 pages of patent reform proposed in new House bill

MARCH 2005

• Software patents: good, bad, ugly, UK press release
• Software patents in Europe; dubious reliance on open sore law
• Software patents in Europe; Nokia; Supremes; Microsoft
• Sloppy claims; Scalia and intent; Eolas/Microsoft
• Random IP news: eBay; CAFC; PTO; India; Earth
• Patent lawyers and examiners and their trans-Atlantic complaints
• PTO examiner complaints; patent lawyers complaints; EPO
• Is the world of IP law getting stranger, or what?
• Comment on patent courts; Levi's; DoJ; NFL; Intel wins

FEBRUARY 2005

• Strange patent abstract; Stallman & patents; avoiding willful
• Some recent weird patents; time to eliminate patent abstracts?
• Random news from the world of patents and technology
• Patent specifications, spec language, patent outsourcing
• PTO gossip; compulsory licensing; weird claim; many disclaimers
• Free Software/Open Source gets a Legal Institute. Why?
• End willful infringement - Knorr-Bremse+Markman is flawed
• Defining 'technical' at the UKPO; Patent harmonization talks
• Comments from Friday's federal judges seminar
• A new effort to attack business method patents

JANUARY 2005

• Sun donates; PTO still having problems with business patents
• Software patent vote delayed in Europe
• Software IP: IBM, Open Source, Microsoft, Europe
• Random IP news: Lessig, RIM/NTP, worms and software
• Random IP news: Bingham, Testa, FBI, open source, Sony/Samsung
• Patent quality continued to drop in 2004
• PTO management turnovers: crisis point or ... turning point?
• McAfee's pathetically horrible contemptous software patent
• Gossip on big management shifts at the PTO
• Cleaning garments: chemical process, business method, or both?
• Another new year, another year of PATNEWS

DECEMBER 2004

• UKPO says NO to softpats; Interesting language in Sun license
• Random patent news; software, pro-se, patent auction, a game
• Random IP news: innovative smugglers, beer bottles, RIM's loss
• More random patent news: my services, EU, Costa Rica, Eolas
• More on new secret study of PTO management
• Inside info on scams at Inventors Submission Corporation
• Computer Science is Experimental; More on Judge Sparks
• Comments on PTO fees and problems at the PTO
• A new secret study of PTO management by NAPA/GAO/insiders

NOVEMBER 2004

• Software patent/copyright silliness around the world
• Random news about pharma drugs, politics, IP, whatever
• Random IP news; mice, purse parties, RIM, Toshiba, GPL
• Patent news from the United Kingdom
• PATNEWS at Helsinki Univ. Tech. on Monday Nov. 15th
• Nasty patent lawyers; new software patent lawsuits
• Long and bizarre Genentech patent application
• Lament from a patent lawyer; Patent database / willful infringement
• Innovative solution to the nuclear waste problem
• District court judge ridicules trademark lawyers
• Complaints from PTO examiners; town meetings on patent reform

OCTOBER 2004

• Taping examiners; PTO search tools; patent non-reform
• Random (IP) legal news
• Kodak/Sun; New York Times; stem cells; Acticon; Acacia; Berners-Lee
• Kodak beats Sun; Social free energy and business methods
• Is IP enforcement getting out control?
• Congress cracks down on bogus patent donations
• Comptons: it's back - it's nastier - it wants your money!!!!
• A new parody from PATNEWS: "Waiting for Opradot"

SEPTEMBER 2004

• Senate votes to raise and steal PTO fees
• Random IP news: meetings, new book, IETF/Microsoft; PTO fees
• Patent on Mozart; patents and antitrust; China; patents in books
• PATNEWS lecture at CalStateBar IP meeting; dum software patent
• Microsoft; Apache & Microsoft; Intel/IBM; WARF's stem cell patents
• How to hide your published patent application's filewrapper
• How fear corrupts patent reform; publishing pat app filewrappers
• Drug patents and children; Outsourcing; Red Hat and IP;

AUGUST 2004

• Random news: prior art, experts, stem cells, software theft
• Random IP news: Affymetrix, cranberries, Huawei, Intel, ESTA
• Rambus; Eolas; Pfizer; ImClone; AIDS/NIH; Agfa-Gevaert; Unocal
• IP lunacy from Lessig, EFF and the Munich city government
• Can one continue a reexamination request?
• BizMet patents in Australia/EPO/India
• Another PTO management-labor problem
• Affymetrix; Nanosys; Progress in pet cloning; FAO

JULY 2004

• Worsening software patent quality - no progress in 15 years
• Who invented golf?; Federal judge murder plot; Townsend sued
• Unocal; China patent office; problems with Enzo/Rochester
• Random IP news: Sony, short software patent, IP advisory council
• Random IP news and observations in general
• More on information is physical software is technical
• More PTO management/examiners problems
• Microsoft - patents, open source, stock options, piles of money

JUNE 2004

• Studying obviousness and improving patent quality
• Stents; next IT bubble; bar code invention; sick dogs; penicillin
• PTO management-labor relations are unacceptable
• More on nanotech being the next bubble
• IP workshop in Bournemouth; IP lawyer suspended; penicillin
• How useless is the Open Source Developer's Certificate?
• EPO patent quality plummeting .... to PTO quality levels
• Disney; aviation patents; penicillin; xeroxing; claims at CAFC
• BTG asserts; Steve Jobs; UK analysis of EU computer patent vote

MAY 2004

• Words of wisdom from Hal Wegner
• Senators write to NIH over AIDS drug Norvir
• Rising insurance rates for patent lawyers; Arnold Beckman dies
• Patent litigation firms now hiring ..... ex-FBI spies?
• How meaningless are CLE courses/credits?
• Europe cancels unitary European patent
• Court rules NiroScavone misrepresented/failed to disclose info
• Another great inventor dies - Robert Fulton
• A strange patent application claim - PTO problems
• A reexam, anti-P2P patent, inventor obit, Lessig, Cisco

APRIL 2004

• Random intellectual property news
• Niro Scavone gets spanked by the court
• NAS releases another pretend patent reform report
• More gossip on patent policy and reform
• Logos; Markman lecture; Water Patent?; Genealogies v. DNA
• Berkeley/IPO having pretend conferences on patent quality
• An early classic inventor (answering machines) dies
• A new fraudulent software patent - why patent reform is a joke
• (Same sex) marriage and procreation

MARCH 2004

• Using art history to bust nanotech patents?
• Some biotech news and views
• Patents in Australia; UK House of Lords; Brazil; Turkey; Japan
• PTO examiners' contempt for PTO searching plans
• More comments from/about patent examiners and patent quality
• More comments from and about patent examiners
• India; Breyer; Who's suing/beating who in the patent world; NIH
• Gossip - usual and new problems at the PTO
• A critique of Alan Greenspan's recent comments on IP

FEBRUARY 2004

• UK patent lawyer critiques my "technical" comments
• Story about the invention of wood cone loudspeakers
• Some Rader sarcasm in recent CAFC decision
• Same sex marriage, patents and the Constitution
• Monsanto/India/Brazil; IP & Constitution; generic drugs; Microsoft
• Japanese inventor wins 189 milllion from his former company
• Gene patents, Japan patent law, Senate IP ethics
• Future inventions will happen globally - no US pre-eminence
• From craft mystery to science as the basis of technology
• Bioinformatics; India; Trademark examination; CAFC
• Bibliography for convergence of art and science
• A wretched medinfo software patent - is the system hopeless?

JANUARY 2004

• Why is the PTO interested in our sexx lives?
• Should inventors oppose a new Moon base / Mars mission / NASA?
• Patent law firm sued for incompetence
• New questionable patent claiming optt-in/optt-out being asserted
• New PTO director; security at PTO; comments from examiners, etc.
• Jan 23 IP seminar at Queen Mary's in London
• Gossip from IP law firms: Jones Day, Brobeck, Pennie, Weil, Manatt
• District Court shoots down lots of Lemelson patents
• Comments on crappy URL/email address patent; Microsoft sued
• Alleged criminal helping set US patent quality policy?
• A PATNEWS apology to IBM, ... plus much more

DECEMBER 2003

• The growing blur of hardware and software
• Random news: PTO mismanagement, UK/AU gossip, FAT, DVDs
• Patent news about patent lawyers
• PTO Director Rogan to resign
• More comments from patent lawyers about their insurance
• More "technical" nonsense from EPO heard at a London meeting
• IRS to crack down on bogus patent donations
• Comments sought on PTO's new lawyer conduct rules
• Brief summary of IP aspects of Central American Freee Trade act
• Art/entertainment patenting news

NOVEMBER 2003

• Why is ATT helping spamm-ers fight spam-filters??
• Two interesting claim drafting techniques
• Stupid patent editorial; critique of open source economics
• More on business methods being technical
• More on PTO Director Jon Dudas; criticisms of FTC proposals
• Maryland; China; Uganda; VC & outsourcing; IP & free trade
• Is a P&G patent application claim - an abuse of the system?
• Greg lecture Boston Monday; my critique of FTC proposals
• Gossip on Eolas, Acacia, PTO search room, PTO examiners' English
• Does Eolas reexam violate international treaties?
• Criticism of IP talks at free trade meeting in Miami
• CAFC on obviousness; new WIPO copyright nonsense

OCTOBER 2003

• Stupid patents of the month award
• Rogan/Dudas; PTO mismanagement; EPO; bad Bush science
• PTO Bored; job for Rogan?; paper at PTO; patent donations
• PATNEWS on another Top 50 list - why these continual insults?
• Niro Scavone client sues Howrey Simon & Fish Richardson
• New report criticizing WIPO's new global patent treaty
• More PTO mismanagement of patent examiners; EPO/PTO
• LeapFrog/Mattel; IP conf in Singapore; Copyright in Canada
• Is Meltzer running PTO? Bluecurrent's even dumber patent
• Did Nobel Committee falsely ignore Raymond Damadian?
• CAFC/FTC; Russian MRI? IP in China; Platinum and fuel cells
• Bluecurrent's idiotic software patent - worst of the year?
• Berne Convention - time to modify the treaty?

SEPTEMBER 2003

• Time to buy or sell Acacia's stock?
• Random news: Starbucks; Priceline; Dewey Decimal; new PTO plans
• Patent abstracts, Eolas workaround, filewrapper estoppel
• New Web site: Patenting Art and Entertainment
• More stories from the world of abusive patent donations
• More software IP craziness from Europe
• Junk DNA patents causing big controversy
• Five year patent pendencies in Brazil; Patenting in India
• Europeans pretend to vote on software patents on Wednesday
• CPTech Statement on WTO deal on exports of medicines
• Bayer v. Housey: did CAFC ignore the laws of physics?
• All physical processes are information exchanges
• (English) My new web site for patenting art

AUGUST 2003

• Microsoft loses to Eolas; RIM loses to NTP; plus much more
• Court allows lawsuit against patent fee theft to proceed

JULY 2003

• Some statistics on university licensing royalty rates
• Rogan's humor; stupid ATT patent; RSA patent analysis
• Random news: eSpeed, copyright, Bolton, AMA, PTO SPEs, Madey
• Lots of patent and copyright news stories
• I am influential, have a book deal, beat Niro
• European lawyer also complains about PTO examiners' English
• All physical processes are information exchanges
• Agricultural researchers form public consortium
• A complaint about the PTO's Supervisor Patent Examiner system
• 100+ year old painting used to block Costa Rican canopy patent

JUNE 2003

• US Army patenting bioweapons - to teach Saddumb/binLardin?
• Stories from the copyright and trademark worlds
• Random patent news: crystals, competitiveness, cash crop patents
• PTO issues bad Internet surety bond bizmet patent
• Gallery of images from artistic patents
• Foreign patent news: EPO, Thailand, Nigeria, China, Monsanto
• Design images; IBM; Fast TCP; Microsoft; Japan movie copyright
• DMCA in Florida; UK fights software patent; EPO e-files
• Another IP controversy in Costa Rica - Swiss bioprospecting
• 1948 bizmet patent; RFIDs; sinusitis patent protested

MAY 2003

• PTO blows it big time with DNS searching patent
• June 10th Copyright Economics meeting in Washington
• Indian company complains about PTO ex-parte reexamination
• Get ready for software agents patent lawsuits
• Economics section of my new Web site
• EBay to pay $35 million for infringing online sales patents
• Cohen-Boyer licensing; Monsanto's battles; South Africa
• Canopy tours in Costa Rica infringing a patent?

APRIL 2003

• U.S./CBD/UPOV/Terminator; IP and developing countries; Antarctica
• Two dumb non-software patents; latest dubious Internet patent
• Stupid patents; tax abuse; UK stem cells; PTO gene seqs
• Random patent news: PTO form, new music CD; donating patents
• News from Washington DC about patents and other things
• New IETF IP guide; Lucent/Dell; PCT update; SCO/IBM
• Microsoft; USA Video sues Movielink; BEA; IETF patents; UK
• EPO; Russia; PTO examiner; PTO and gene sequences; Xerox; Canada
• A history of artistic innovation as artistic invention

MARCH 2003

• Value of 2 auctioned patents; Pzifer/URochester; Bristol-Myers
• Some recent dumb patents; Microsoft's DRM cracked
• Software patents versus non-US software job outsourcing
• Random news: Glaxo, transistor, Malaysia, state of Florida
• Patent politics in Florida leading to large state losses
• More on SBC's questionable patent donation to UTexas
• French genomics patenting; Finland software patents;
• EU's new Community Patent
• EPO gossip; Russia; EU piracy petition; Lebanon/UPOV; Mexico
• EPO gossip; PTO searching; Fullplay bankrupt; Jeff Bezos
• Canadian appeals court ruling on large and small patent entities
• Another application to trademark PATENT BUSTER

FEBRUARY 2003

• transistor; Palm/Xerox; bizarre patent app; touching DNA
• Webcasters under attack from Acacia's patents
• UK update on the Community Patent in Europe
• Skjerven Morrill is dissolving; Brobeck; New PTO plans
• Random news: Malaysia; EU patent; NBER; EU biopiracy paper
• Random biotech patent news
• Random (patent) news: PTO in crisis; UCITA; Festo; Russia; Iraq
• Patent donations (SBC --> UTexas) next tax accounting scandal?
• New PTO fees are a tax on small inventors
• Galen stock drops after challenge to its PMS patented drug
• Disney, Apple ridiculed; Brobeck; SupremeCrt; DVDs; NTP/RIM
• Open letter to Pascal Lamy on the EU concept paper

JANUARY 2003

• The next EPO president; India; Mattel; Apple; Cisco
• Some interesting language in patent applications; seminars
• SBC's royalty table for hyperlink patent; goofy laws in Nebraska
• SBC asserts hyperlink patent?; DMCA fun; Microsoft/W3C patents
• Is Motorola the next threat to the music industry?
• IETF IM working group complains about patents
• Feb. 27 conference on DRM at Berkeley; patenting in Turkey
• Ex-examiners talk about life at the PTO and outsourcing
• Dumb medical patent, or leave software patents alone
• Daimler-Benz patents car door?; Lemelson; Global IP
• Brobeck to dissolve; Rambus wins; Contract law prevails
• Another year of PATNEWS - some random news to start the year
• A good example of hardware/software (patenting) equivalences

DECEMBER 2002

• Text of Canadian oncomouse case; Glaxo retains Canadian patent
• Some random patent news near the end of the year
• Random patent news - claim language, DRM conference
• Random biotechnology patent news
• Prior art for the Instant Messaging patent; taxes v. 1st Amend?
• General Electric claiming patents to JPEG
• Can one have non-specific Markush groups? Two other biz patents
• Australian High Court alters Internet lawsuit jurisdiction

NOVEMBER 2002

• Will a software patent impact Microsoft more than open source?
• TiVo/Sonicblue settle; 4835683 - being harrassed?; CBS sues ABC
• Sony/Philips buy Intertrust; Harris gets $61 mil; MIT gets $30 mil
• Some thoughts on civil versus common law
• Patent term reduction article in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal
• Patent fee diversion lawsuit hearing moved to DC on Nov. 14th
• No patents to be in Web standards; Lawsuit settlements; W3C
• New initiative for indigenous IP; Bioprospecting snafu in Tibet
• Judge Posner attacks software/business patents
• German court decision rules for "Beauregard" claims
• Are all patent examiners equal? A study by economists

OCTOBER 2002

• Virtual conference patent application causing controversy
• Patents, copyright, illegal art, Europe, new patent classes
• Patents and Health Care conference this Thurs/Fri in Washington
• Patent litigation is getting ho_t, ho_t, ho_t
• PTO gets IBM to give up restroom patent; notes from Eldred hearing
• PTO changing use of PCT apps not in English? PTO security report
• Outsourcing searching at USPTO and UKPO; PCT question; RIM
• New controversial international ecommerce patent
• Has workaround of a narrow-patent led to a broad innovation?
• Free patent claims analysis tool from PATNEWS
• Free Protocols Foundation organizing against RIM patent
• Biotech: lime juice; blowing pollen; India/UPOV; Schering
• A brief history of confiscated patents in World War II
• India to Join Int'l Plant Protection Act

SEPTEMBER 2002

• Will patent law firms start suing each other????
• UN to ban cloning? UK reports criticize bio patents
• P2P filesharing companies invent new way to steal
• Ninth anniversary of PATNEWS - and nine more years to come!!!
• Mexico anti-germplasm patent bill; Ethics of gene patenting
• Interestingly claimed business method patent; Bushies antics
• Hollywood's growing deep anger with Silicon Valley/Bellcos
• Economic engineering as a patentable technology
• British Telecom abandons hyperlink patent; Holmes/Vornado

AUGUST 2002

• US company trademarks name of tea - South Africans unhappy
• RIAA wins; ASCAP sues; Brobeck delays; provisionals; Festo
• PTO papers lawsuit; PTO fees lawsuit; silly GAO report; comments
• Judge dismisses BT's hyperlink lawsuit against Prodigy
• Inventor successfully sues invention promotion company
• How are examiners allocated time for examinations?
• FCC; Australia; A trivial mechanical (tool) patent?
• Disney; Copyright Wars; Internet patent killed week it issues
• Chinese DVD workaround; buy Integraph stock? Provisionals
• BT lawsuit; cynicism about Festo; UK college patent fight
• Are dangers of DMCA exaggerated? Silicon Valley lecture

JULY 2002

• Yet another toylet patent, probably due to another coffee patent
• Using PATNEWS to crush a pending patent application
• Speech by CAFC's Judge Michel at March Berkeley reform conference
• Popunder ad patent app busting; Konrad patents still busted
• Lots of information about proposed PTO fee changes
• How and why Napster will be crushed
• Company (Forgent) claims its patent covers JPEG
• Biotech patent news: VC seminar; new job; Enzo Biochem; UPOV
• Association of patent law firms opposes PTO fee increases
• An examiner complains about proposed PTO clasification changes
• ABA recommendation on stem cell patents; EPO stem cell patent opp
• 1000+ PTO examiners protest plans to outsource searching

JUNE 2002

• The PTO Commissioner is great!!!!!! The reforms, well, ????
• Patents and the ITC; new PTO fees; ABA and CETA
• PATNEWS in England July 8-10; GMU patent law symposium
• More gossip from the PTO - where is the professional patent bar?
• Genentech; Gemstar; three new IP jobs; EPO patents; taxes and IP
• Gemstar loses before the ITC; Complaint about PTO fees
• Bishops & cloning; PDF files of 300+ page PTO Master plan

MAY 2002

• VC funding lecture; Biotech patent fraud; EPC; Africa; Humouse
• Substantial layoffs of PTO trademark attorneys???
• Should claims be written as multiple sentences?
• Random news: InterTrust; PTO postcards; false physics; PTO fees
• New light bulb; PTO gossip; Open Standards patent policy
• More FTC/DOJ IP hearings; Weather Channel needs a patent lawyer?
• Infringement in Russia; Ken Starr and CAFC; Anti-patent editorial
• IBM's contempt for patent quality
• How useless sports patents? PTO not doing PCT bizmet searches?
• How to patent a stick; No patent quality progress in 60 years
• Gossip from intellectual property law firms and the Bay Area
• Africa Has No Future Unless It Protects Its Heritage - Kavindele

APRIL 2002

• Random patent news: Intouch, swinging, FTC/DOJ, Canavan gene
• PTO to reexamine bathroom patent - should reexamine swing patent
• More Supreme Court and Judge Bork patent gossip; IBM says no
• IBM is threatening Web standard with software patent
• Encryption patent causing a controversy
• Did Judge Bork misstate patent policy at Festo hearing?
• Bio-deal between Malaysia and Japan; Judge Bork; Halliburton
• Are PTO budget forecasts inaccurate? PTO/FDA/SEC underfunded?
• A bunch of biotech patent news

MARCH 2002

• More comments on Festo
• IP in comics; Pixar/Exluna; district judges and CAFC; Knuth; DVD
• Glaxo; Pixar; HR1332; IBM; Nokia; Microsoft; EC; Leahy and DRM
• German semantics of "technical"; France; European grace period
• German Pat.Off. supports software/business patents
• Did Nakamura lie in his blue LED patent applications?
• Defense of the CAFC; UK patent; EPO memo; more Festo comments
• An explanation of the Festo decision and appeal
• 1-click case over; KMART royalties; e-filing; Intertrust

FEBRUARY 2002

• UCal Berkeley Conference on Patent Reform, March 1/2
• Supreme Court/CAFC; UK grace period; FTC IP hearings
• Software/hardware patent quality still slowly dropping
• Random patent news: gallium nitride; PTO complaints
• Random patent news: FTC hearings, IBM, comments on EC proposal
• PTO - standardize in MPEP examiner's use of obscenities!!!
• Kodak/Sun; Patents and torts; HP; Microsoft; Intouch
• Japan patent law reform; critiques of Lessig's "Creative Commons"

JANUARY 2002

• Pre-IPO biopatent job; Sloppiest patent of the year award
• Patent lawyer caught being naughty???
• Lessig's critique of PATNEWS critique of Lessig's new book
• Lament from an ex-PTO chemical examiner
• IBM's crappiest crapping patent; recent dumb software patent
• Festo; Masons and transportation technology; Lessig defense
• Festo hearing in PDF; China/Monsanto; China/Adobe; Microsoft/SGI
• Aurigin out of business?; MP3 sues Cooley Godward; Intouch wins
• Acacia/Hosier/Niro; critiques of Lessig defender; UCITA revisions

DECEMBER 2001

• Random patent news: layoffs, Synopsys insurance, Lehman, PTO
• Random patent news: Lehman, Rogan, Microsoft, BT
• Random patent news at the end of the year
• Random patent news & happy holiday wishes
• Critique of politically motivated German software patent study
• Critique of Lessig's "Future of Ideas"
• Biotech patent news: Bay Area IP job, German stem cells, seeds

NOVEMBER 2001

• US Postal Service suspends Express Mail to the PTO - SCREWUP
• Random patent news: W3C; German PO
• Random news - FTC & IP, DVDs as software, German IP
• Notes from the Cato Institute "Future of IP" conference
• More on why business methods are technical
• Language problems and the EU patent; PTO budget; claim meaning?
• Dumb business method patent of the month
• Don't use the word "entrepreneur", or be sued?????
• Debates in India over the IP of plant protection and farmers

OCTOBER 2001

• Random patent news - cloning, employee-inventors, TiVo sued
• Random news - Affymetrix/Hyseq; MGM; Netcentive's IP auction
• Protest over handling of paper trademark files at the PTO
• Notes from Patinnova 2001 in Cardiff
• New genomics IP job; one of the first patents in history
• Digital Rights Management patents for sale
• Cato Institute conference on the Future of IP - Nov. 14th

SEPTEMBER 2001

• Random patent news - big win, WIPO contest, UPOV, human cloning
• Random news: Fenwick layoffs; silly patent; IP history conf.
• Problems with electronic filing at the PTO
• Napster; Example of IPO filing with patent commentary
• Lots of random patent news; Festo, Avanti, Motorola, MIT/Sony
• Greg's October European lecture trip
• Greg in Europe in October; UN Resolution on IP and TRIPS
• EPO/China IP symposium; Webvan sells software for $2.5 million
• Art using a patent;

AUGUST 2001

• Random news: Federal Reserve, SBA, EPO, Israel, PrePub, UCITA, DoJ
• New IP job in Bay Area; Trademark Office suggestion
• Netcentives; music protection scheme hacked
• Music royalties; Monsanto upsetting farmers again; Festo
• Microsoft/Open Source & patents; DMCA resources
• EPO/PCT refuses to search business method patents
• Casino patent lawsuit; Open source news; new copyright service
• A pure crappy drivel pathetic MPEG patent asserted by TechSearch
• A complaint about lawyers, examiners, SPEs and MPEP

JULY 2001

• Update on PTO problems; German software patent court decisions
• Two reviews of the Hague Jurisdiction conference
• Sex scandal in the Patent Office (okay, it was in 1887)
• PTO eliminating paper files; EPO filings up; Festo intro
• Nursing carts; PTO after-final actions problem?; Festo
• More comments from lawyers on Festo
• Life patenting in Europe
• Kodak/Filenet; Canadian copyright; British infringement rules
• Israeli patent law; generic drug business method patent
• Illegal prime number; Sweden; Hague; France; EC/EU; Indonesia
• Guidant wins $140M; RAID patent lawsuit; Some Festo strategy
• EPO tables ESC patent apps; book review;
• Congress to give Bruce Lehman $1,000,000 ??????

JUNE 2001

• Some ancedotal stories about patent history in Germany
• Philippine backdoor to US patent; EPO/PCT gossip; DMCA harsh?
• PATNEWS back - Gemstar, PTO, Microsoft, PCT, IBM, Lemelson
• New fund to invest in patents; mice; kudos BrinksHofer; UCITA
• Exactly how is EPO downgrading PCT searches?
• Did patenting inspire the Theory of Special Relativity?

MAY 2001

• Patent reform being rushed through Congress once again
• Patent lawyers criticize 10-20 IDS refs lament from examiner
• Pat scammers guilty; Australian inventing education materials
• PTO hiring freeze?;
• Microsoft; EPO reducing ISA/IPEA workload; Wind Done Gone
• EPO strike; UCITA; Beatles; French PO; drug licensing; GAO study
• Coble/Berman warn Godici over paper files; EPO examiners strike
• An ex-examiner's complaints about everyone and lack of quality

APRIL 2001

• Random patent news - INTA; Ecuador; movie pirating; California
• Previo publicizes patent lawsuit with full page newspaper ad
• Patent world - boycott Microsoft's .NET technology
• Music royalies; Online legal forms; Japan; Hotel porn profits
• Microsoft; Hank Barry; Monthly atrocious business method patent
• International farmers against patenting life forms
• Free patent portfolio analysis tool; latest list of awards
• EPO examiner complains; Dickinson to Howrey; Festo; Microsoft
• Dutch examiners strike; Developments and review of Festo
• A festive Festo pun; City of New Orleans getting into patents

MARCH 2001

• Security concerns at law firms and the Patent Office
• PTO flushes Rozmanith patent down the toilet
• PATNEWS back online, with new features to come
• Napster; Br.Tel. patent; Idealab; 1879 murder over denture patent
• Napster, music, Internet technology, etc.
• Letter from pharma CEO whose drug advertisement I criticized
• Is MgB2 patentable?; Hegel in a patent; NCR sues Palm/Handspring
• Diet drug being promoted using Patent Office's goodwill
• Costa Rican genetics; law firms' business drops; unusual claim
• Comments from author whose economics paper I criticized
• Breaking open sources licenses; What's NetZero claiming?
• Biotech news: Biotech IP job; NAS conf.; stem cells; UPOV
• Bay Area IP job; Boies; Antitrust critique in view of Microsoft
• Bad golf patent?; Bad disk patent is asserted in lawsuit?
• A critique of Bessen/Maskin's innovation and patents paper

FEBRUARY 2001

• Using a baby's bottom as an inkstamp ....
• US Marines abusing patents? Silly hotel/restaurant patent?
• Software copyrights as threatening as software patents?
• Random news: conf at Berk;
• Greg lecture Thursday on P-2-P patents
• Crushing Napster Part II: Bad P2P ethics
• Biotech IP job; FDA Orange Book patents web site
• Attempt to rollback copyright term extension fails

JANUARY 2001

• Should biological nonsense be patentable?
• Peanut butter prior art; UCITA; John Locke and patents
• More biotech patent news - notes from cloning conference
• Lots of biotech patent news
• Kudos to Fenwick, Alston, Brobeck, McCutchen, Boalt Hall
• IP job in So.Cal.; Valenti on Congress
• EPO hiring in US; PTO databases silliness; TechSearch; Altavista
• Does the PTO hate little children and their lunches?
• Dickinson not asked back? Can the CAFC use slang? A joke
• Another really dumb encryption patent
• ACTV sues Disney; ATT/Katz settle; Openwave/Geoworks settle
• A critique of Bessen/Maskin's innovation and patents paper

DECEMBER 2000

• NetZero gets Web ad patent - is it enforceable?
• Will "Festo" force applicants to really search prior art?
• Should design patents be eliminated? Copyrights in Europe
• Random patent news - I am keynoting a litigation conference
• Prior art for the British Telecom hyperlink patent
• Milberg Weiss doing patent litigation?
• Axiomatizing IP laws - dictionaries used by the CAFC
• Another pre-IPO IP job; BT sues Prodigy; More on Festo and DOE
• An old patent plays a role in Florida recount court battle
• A dependent claim workaround for Festo? UCITA's motivation?

NOVEMBER 2000

• The equivalence of hardware and software in codesign world
• Pfizer loses Viagra patent in the UK
• How and why Napster will be crushed
• Hot pre-IPO IP job; table of patent lawsuit monetary awards
• Heated elections for examiner's Union executive
• Greg Aharonian sued by TechSearch/Niro for patent infringement
• Georgia CLE; Funny PTO search bug; Basmati rice; Chinese piracy
• Edata wins appeal, but exaggerates importance; EPC/EPO voting
• EPO/EPC; Survey patent; Nick Godici in Boston; Cloning a child
• (Amended) Why pre-publication is a partial opposition process

OCTOBER 2000

• The Terminator Chicken?? Donate a pig? PATNEWS vacation
• Stambler; Nicotine; Bio IP rights; ants & antibiotics
• Senior bizmet examiner leaves; business method law proposed
• PTO search systems still stink; USA/Jordan patent treaty
• Lessig versus Valenti; the rapper Chuck D & Napster
• EC releases software patent study; UK signs patent agreement
• Do dictionaries define "patent" incorrectly?
• Congress passes new federal Technology Transfer law
• Biotech IP job; Chiron wins big; Andean Community Has New IPR Law

SEPTEMBER 2000

• Worst software patent dependent claim?
• Wall Street Journal exaggerates crappy mutual fund patent
• Patent quality: uncertain enough to drop Validity Presumption?
• New ecommerce book with 59 pending patents
• More on the PTO warehouse roof - Examiners want 20% raise
• More on patent abstracts and PTO operations
• Letter from Examiner's Union Chief to Patent Advisory Committee
• Interesting management/examiner labor negotiations at PTO
• Horrible ecommerce patent claim
• Diet drug being promoted using Patent Office's goodwill
• Congress deciding PTO fees - call now; Basmati patent loses
• Bizarre drug claim; pissed off examiner; long abstracts good
• Are patent abstracts now being written meaninglessly?
• Are patent abstract now deliberately written short? The UK?
• Apple licenses 1-Click; really bad biz patent; new reexam rules

AUGUST 2000

• US government denying existence of biopiracy??? Canadian oncomous
• Three Greg lectures in October - Am.Chem.Soc. & patents in August
• Random patent news- submarines, chemicals, PTO biotech, etc.
• Random patent news - Adobe sues Macromedia; PTO; EPO business patents
• Random mostly patent news from around the world
• PTO sued for rejecting "hydrino" patents
• NSF publishes meaningless patent statistics data
• Fashion patent update; anti-commie patent; PTO/Senate gossip
• Biotech patent news - NIH stem cells; Russian Church; WIPO
• Apology for Sunday's outburst - Greg in Taiwan in November
• Another idiotic ecommerce patent infringement lawsuit

JULY 2000

• Will pre-publication cause interference chaos at the PTO?
• Will Sightsound's Sander apologize at Roundtable for crappy patent
• Toasting a toasted PTO's toastily examined toast patent
• Rough draft of my notice to opposed a trademark application
• OAU proposes sui generis rights for bio IP rights in Africa
• NIST threatens antitrust against potential crypto patent moochers
• MIT/Convolve sue Compaq/Seagate over disk drive vibration patent
• Gore; PTO's lack of common sense with business method patents
• Detailed notes of PTO Roundtable on Business Method patents
• Biopatent news; German Softpats; Cuba; Architectural design
• A mostly purely mathematical patent claim
• 2700 shakeup; totally pathetically crappy business method patent

JUNE 2000

• Xerox loses;PATNEWS not evil;Reiffen wins;Congress steals PTO fees
• Washington patent politics
• Using a trademark to violate state/church separation
• Stambler; CNet patent; Microsoft patent; Bournemouth IP centre
• Software and book reviews, a bad pun, and assorted trivia
• Should I file a trademark protest against "patentbusters"?
• Russia's version of TechSearch asserting a patent on ... bottles
• Reexamination request filed against Rozmanith patent
• Petition against software patents in Europe
• Juno sues Qualcomm/NetZero; 3Com sues Xircom; Judah Folkman sued
• How incompetent is the PTO's Public Relations Office?
• Gene test patents cause debate at HHS panel meeting
• Dickens Y2K; WIPO; Columbia Univ.; Trend Micro; Japan Patent Off.
• Crooks in Congress to steal $300 million from PTO fees
• British Telecom patent: too lachey, uninfringeable and invalid
• Another Internet/ecommerce patent litigation saga
• Judge rules against Compuserve over crap software patent

MAY 2000

• Yet another type of sloppy patent claims
• Phone.com sues Geoworks; PTO/EPO/JPO bizpats; WTO; Lessig
• Patent news from around the world
• Patent examination system is intellectually corrupt
• PTO gene sequencing? Japense BizPats; PTO customer blues???
• PATNEWS from Munich - changes in European patenting coming
• Help Thailand doctors bust Bristol Myers DDI patent
• German conf. on software patents this week - I will be there
• Fourth Amendment under attack
• European patent policy activities
• European and American patent news
• EPO revokes neem patent; human genes to be banned in Europe?
• Does a Bible passage, or Nazi practice, qualify as prior art?

APRIL 2000

• Univ. Rochester's "submarine" patent torpedos G.D Searle
• Rockwell ECommerce asserting pathetic call center patent
• PATNEWS in the Economist; ATT IP lawyer at MIT on April 13th
• Let's bust Stambler; Boycott AOL's patent of 1-search shopping?
• Lemelson Foundation to sue 430 companies?
• InTouch sues Amazon for online music sampling
• IBM upsets UK over patent; Unisys back with GIF; IBM pat cites
• Greg in Berlin on May 18th; Maryland passes pathetic UCITA
• Biotech patent news - AIDS gene patent, anti-WTO petition
• (Walker Asset's) trivial/obnoxious business method patents
• Why software prior art archiving is/will be very difficult/costly

MARCH 2000

• Who's lying about the new PTO patent search systems ???
• WSJ editorial bashes software patents; new bad PTO busmet policy
• PTO Commissioner's online discussion with PTO examiners
• Overtime/comptime; Blame Greg for EastWest; Latest PTO URL policy
• New PTO policy on Appeal Conferences
• More gossip on PTO screwed up patent search databases
• Konrad; Amazon; woman patents herself; gene patent lecture
• Konrad patents being asserted?
• India adopting a Bayh-Dole equivalent; a bad physics patent
• House IP/PTO hearing; Examiner's comments on search systems
• Harvard's Lessig gets it wrong about software patents
• European Parliament opposes human embryo patent; WTO & TRIPS
• EPO patent quality dropping to low US levels; bad BizMeth patent
• EAST/WEST; patent reform suggestions; CAFC; bad Japanese translation
• Dickens lets you bet on the Y2K patent license fee
• Critique of the Pope's apology to the world
• Consumer rights in Hague Jurisdiction Convention being weakened?
• Biotech stock price rising because of questionable patent?
• Another very crappy patent awarded to a Gray Cary client
• A silly business method patent that shows PTO inabilities
• A critique of Jezz Bezos recent patent policy suggestions
• $80,000 egg; Taxol; Konrad; Stupid BizPat; More on Amazon
• "Clear and convincing" versus "preponderance of evidence"

FEBRUARY 2000

• Zero quality business method patents - and how to abuse the system
• Y2K patent (cess)pool being formed
• PTO bans URLs in patent apps - how clueless is Stephen Kunin?
• More on UCITA; Verio trademarking "whois"?; Boycott Barcadi rum
• More on PTO's banning URLs in patent specifications
• Latest Amazon patent sparks outrage
• Lastword on URLs; BizPat Forum at UChicago Law School Feb 23
• IBM sues Informix; Inventor wins $13 million; Lucent; PwC IP forum
• How totally technically incompetent is the Patent Office?
• Eurosoft pat talk in Palo Alto; IBM/Informix; EData; Linux patent
• Biotech patent news from around the world
• Bad bioexports from Peru; Plant patents in Asia
• 400,000 page app; bogus patents; Dickens reissue; PwC broadcast
• Worst Searched Set of Software Patents for 1998

JANUARY 2000

• Worst software engineering patent of 1999; worst beer keg patent
• Worst business method claim of 2000
• Worst Internet patent claim of 1999
• WWW.BUSTPATENTS.COM - PATNEWS' new Web site
• Software patent validity information at www.bustpatents.com
• Should output of AI-CAD programs be patentable?
• Programmers protest article praising Amazon's 1-Click
• PATNEWS in the new millenium
• New Millenium - New PATNEWS
• NAS Feb 2/3 Conference on extending IP rights in Washington, D.C.
• Let's attack Geoworks with prior art and put options
• IEEE letter opposing passage of UCITA by the states
• Greg v. Q.Todd economics and economics on my Web site; Dickens
• Gossip from the PTO; gossip from Japan; Genentech loses
• Complaints sought about PTO's restriction requirements
• CIVIX;Worst educational/religious/wasn't-pro-se?/doll patent
• Biotech patent news from Guyana/Brazil, Mexico, Peru, London

DECEMBER 1999

• University technology fair - Atlanta - Feb. 2000
• Support Call for stem cell research; AAAS evolution statement
• Senator attacks PTO; oncomouse; UK biopiracy; message from Seattle
• Random patent news
• Problems with Japanese patent lawyers; more on those bad claims
• PTO to reexamine Dickens/Boeing Y2K patent; Microsoft/Priceline
• IP seminars in January and February; more on Dickens
• Does earlier patent kill Dickens patent? IBM/EMC; Wang/AOL
• Biotech protests from Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Peru, India
• AskJeeves; Wang; Intel/TechSearch; EPO allows GM plant patents
• Anti-abortionists picketing Geron Corporation Friday morning
• Amazon wins injunction against Barnes & Noble

NOVEMBER 1999

• Y2K patent stirs controversy - someone even sends in prior art
• Y2K patent being asserted, surprising computer consultants
• Washington Post covers PTO search system scandal
• W3C declares P3P doesn't infringe Intermind patent
• Text of examiners' petition to Congress
• Some weird patent claim phrases
• New PTO patent search system scandal continues to fester
• Linux gurus debate impact of crappy patent on Linux
• Legal patent upsets some legal software companies
• Latest gossip on games being played with patent reform
• EAST/WEST - $40,000,000+ fraud with PTO automation procurement
• Dog crappy patents
• Dickinson confirmed; Hiring freeze at the Patent Office
• Comments from Telecom 99; Agric. Dept. obsessed with Terminator
• A variety of complaints about a variety of PTO operations

OCTOBER 1999

• Will examiner's patent searches be worse with new search tools?
• Priceline sues Microsoft - Priceline will lose
• Pfizer must pay $143 million to Trovan over trademarks
• PTO's new patent searchs systems - more complaints about waste
• Open Market: How useless are small portfolios of Internet patents?
• More PTO gossip - complaints of examiners - a defense of CAFC
• Monsanto "terminates" its Terminator seed technology
• Latest news on patent reform manipulations in the Senate
• Inhouse patent database: triple damages or not????????????
• Ig Nobel prizes awarded at Harvard - one went to an old patent
• Bill introduced for compulsory licensing of some health patents
• Are PTO trademark operations as mismanaged as patent operations?
• Amazon sues Barnes & Noble

SEPTEMBER 1999

• Who invented aspirin? Priceline vs. Microsoft for hotel bookings
• The growing flood of "Wall Street" patents
• Should disturbed examiner's patents be reexamined
• Priceline hiring; Lemley to Berkeley; Howrey Simon & Arnold White
• Priceline bravado; Is Citibank opposing patent reform?
• PTO finishes OCRing patent texts back to 1790
• NCR sues Netscape; Some details on Lemelson lawsuits
• Monsanto interferes in Pakistan's sui generis law process
• Is PTO obviousness random and therefore meaningless?
• EPO changing divisionals? PTO issues bad peptide software patent
• Clinton/Blair to stop gene patents; Rifkin goes after seed corps
• Civix-DDI; US copyright haven; Videologic; Unisys; Lucent; Intel
• Are Internet client/server claims nonenforceable?
• A patent on curry??? Indigenous people versus TRIPS
• A crappy pending software patent is being "asserted"
• A bunch of (un)reliable gossip about the Patent Office, etc.

AUGUST 1999

• United, Spiegel and Hyatt sued over patent 5,253,341
• Two stock market tips involving intellectual property; trademark
• Management of digital IP - Apr. 2000 workshop at Rutgers
• Internet patents - too many, too invalid, too lied about by PTO
• Inside story on how HR1907 was passed
• Infringement lawsuit filed against map drawing Web sites
• Immoral condom patent; World Seed Conf; UPOV; Monsanto; TRIPS
• ISC to be sued; Senate reform; Marimba/Novadigm; Compaq/eMachines
• HR2654 to be voted on Monday at 2 PM; UCITA approved
• HR2654 shelved - US patent reform from a European perspective
• HR1907 - yes 07 passes, HR2654 was a fake diversion
• Global biotech news: UPOV
• Canada to drop application secrecy protection? CAFC nominee?
• Bottle design patent; 3Com/Olivetti; Mickey Mouse's copyright
• Biotech patent news - creationism, third world
• Are PTO classification capabilities being downgraded?
• 12 Internet credit card companies being "extorted"

JULY 1999

• Some PTO gossip from Comm. Dickinson; UN criticial of IP grabs
• Should Cuba receive royalties? More Australian patents on 'net
• Random patent news: PTO/ADA, more bad software patents
• Random patent news
• More random patent news
• Gossip on problems at EPO
• Crappy natural language patent asserted against AskJeeves
• Comments from president of GPC; more on lawsuit investing scams
• Biotech patent news from American and Europe
• Belzberg - this summer's pathetic business patent

JUNE 1999

• Zurko; Borland; Intel; Provisionals; IBM; Int. Design Pats
• What percentage of software patents are valid?
• Was FTC judge re VISX misinformed about PTO operations?
• The Ten Commandments, or methods of patenting religions
• States Immune from Suits for Pat., Copy. and Trade. Infringement
• Prior use deserves no protection; More PCT gossip from PTO
• PTO prior art hearing and results of my survey
• More gossip on interference problems at the PTO
• More gossip on dysfunctional interference process
• IEEE Amicus Curiae brief on reverse engineering
• Global patent news: Japan, Europe, Korea, UPOV, India, France, Dutch
• GSA announces new site for PTO office facilities
• Fire PTO librarian; New reexam still stupid; Coble bill markup
• FTC rules VISX didn't defraud PTO; Patent reform bill update
• Complaints about rushed patent bill; Why Rohrabacher's betrayal?
• Comments on Zurko; comment from Zurko herself; Judge Rich
• Business Week's 100 Years of Innovation; Kathleen Meserve dies
• AEA/VCs/BIO/SIIA urge Congress to rush patent reform bill
• $5000 anti-Sightsound prior art collection available

MAY 1999

• Why not include opposition period in patent reform?
• Web consortium effort to kill Intermind patent
• US satellites stealing European ideas for US companies to patent?
• Patent reform update: big/small convergence, public still ignored
• Patent reform now House bill - will PTO fight it?
• Patent meetings/lectures in May/June
• PTO to have hearings on software prior art problems
• PTO guarantees? Excel decision supports State Street
• Orange County/San Diego annual joint IP seminar
• IP Rights for traditional ecological knowledge
• Harvard lawyer blasts PTO - more bad March software patents
• Go slow on patent reform - too many problems
• Global biotech: Philippines, Africa/OAU, Australia, WIPO
• Global biotech: Ecuador, Pakistan
• Global biotech patent news: Kenya
• Commissioner/ExaminersUnion squabbling
• Coble bill passed; UKPO; drug imports; promoters arrested; TI
• Biotech patent applications treated poorly
• 20 Representatives protest rushing of patent legislation

APRIL 1999

• Triple damages; IP moot court winners; sexual trademark inadequacy
• Tradesecret insurance; Monthly crappy Microsoft software patent
• Some survey questions on patent litigation
• Question: corporate patent searching and triple damages?
• PTO hearing on a truly international design patent
• More PCT complaints; Australia PO; UK designs; Microsoft sued
• More IP insurance; Web to study Microsoft; WIPO's future of IP
• Lots of random patent news
• Judge rules against Compuserve over crap software patent
• Japanese Supreme Court allows generics to use patented drugs
• How worthless are PTO PCT searches? Bad chocolate patent
• EC version of ruling on use of patented drugs and generics
• Complaints about PTO PCT and processing paper/electronic patents
• Chubb offering intellectual property insurance
• Biotech patent news: Ayahuasca, China & UPOV, UPOV alternative
• Am.Univ. IP conference; RAFI vs. ASTA over Terminator
• "Methods of doing business" means absolutely everything

MARCH 1999

• Thursday hearing on patent reform; Rohrabacher's bill
• TRIPS and patenting life; Latin America transgenics; UK MP views
• Strange PTO examiners
• Seminar on the business of patenting business models
• Salon; Inventor Conference in Alabana; patents on NPR
• Patent jobs; Silly EPO's PDF patent images; WIPO Ecom IP Seminar
• Patent fraud buster sued; some patent jobs; compulsory licensing
• Eurasian seminar in SF; MegaSuperKudos to EPO's ESPACENET; AEA
• EPO relaxes software patenting restrictions
• Current patent reform process is fraudulent
• CARE/Monsanto no; PhRMA/OTR; GMO Japan; Cuba; Africa; China
• AUTM/LES; Word EPO form; PTO Agent Exam; Toy & Game Forum

FEBRUARY 1999

• US biotech companies wreck biotech talks in Columbia
• The end of patent litigation???? Someone despises me real bad
• Silicon Valley lawyers blast PTO over software patents
• Sightsound waving wet spaghetti; nice review of State Street
• Patents wrongfully expiring? EPO appeal rulings online; Democrats
• Patent news and gossip from around the world
• Newsletter for spies and spooks
• More biotech news and views around the world
• Microsoft shocks Web world with another questionable patent
• How unethical are Microsoft's IP practices?
• Future examiner staffing problems at the UK patent office?
• Europe patents grace period; new EC IP; Australia; UK trademarks
• David Pressman to speak; pros and cons about his book
• Canada; Venezuela; Diana/Elvis; Client investing; Australia

JANUARY 1999

• Worst Searched Set of Software Patents for 1998
• Worst "Method of doing business ..." patent of 1998
• What patent lawyers earn; Judges blast a few IP lawyer
• PTO holding limited public forum on Jan 22.
• Netword's URL lawsuit tossed out by District Court
• Is the PTO deliberately sacrificing patent quality?
• Indigenous knowledge at risk
• India's Biodiversity Act : finally, a step in the right direction
• EETIMES says patents meaningless; Nutrionists complain as well
• Cloning; Chem pats; Canadian PO changes CEO; file electronic PCT
• Boycott against RiceTec; NIH testifies about techtran/stem cells
• Biotechnology issues around the world
• BIOPIRACY: A NEW THREAT FOR THE AMAZON
• Auction patents; Openhouse day at UCBerkeley EECS Department
• Are US PTO PCT searches complete waste of money?
• Architects complain about bad patents; PTO's addiction to bad
• Action brought on 19 October 1998 by Kingdom of the Netherlands
• A poorly drafted/allowed software patent claim? Nvidia sued
• A few patent examiners complain about patent quality
• 'Lumads' oppose biopiracy

DECEMBER 1998

• Subscribing to PTO Official Gazette; British Trademarks online
• Preparations for the 1999 Ministerial Conference: General Council
• Patent books, software, insurance, registration, scams, victories
• PTO withholding refunds? Patent registration system proposed
• Monsanto Sues Canadian Farmer Over GE Crops
• IBM's free software offer - how about its patents?
• How To Sell A Wonder Herb
• FTC's invention promotion scam victim's fund
• EC to harmonize computing patents; EPO seminar on searching
• Comments about CAFC?; Consumer guide to patent law firms; Zurko
• Biopatenting controversies around the world
• Africa Targetted by Genetic Engineering Groups
• A PATNEWS to take you into the holidays

NOVEMBER 1998

• Was Microsoft given its filewrappers back temporarily?
• VMEbus-ers complaining about non-patent prior art
• Tribes meet to discuss genetic colonization
• Supreme Court's Pfaff decision; training PTO clerks; why 25 cents
• Random patent news over the holidays
• Patent status; Quantum computer; Adobe sued; Israel; IPO meeting
• PTO's strange ways of servicing customers
• PATENTEC offers a good price and good quality PCT copies
• Nancy Linck joins Guilford Pharmaceuticals; more on PTO rules
• Mouse grows elephant eggs; Marijuana oranges; Biopiracy; Breasts
• More random patent news
• Lemelson's (non)inventiveness in light of prior art
• Kudos: IBM expands its patent Web site
• Japan's New Plant Variety Protection System
• IBM kills White House software patent study
• I REALLY LOVE the PTO's new proposed rules
• Book review: "Inventing Software"
• "Alter the genome - go to hell" - those wacky Catholics

OCTOBER 1998

• Two weeks of software patent news; GARAGE.COM; Europe patent info
• Some curious non-software patents
• San Fran news article on Lehman resigning
• Revised list - law firms handling software patents; WIPTF talks
• Pfaff at Supreme Court; Linck;
• Part II: Questionable software patents from Aug/Sep 1998
• Part I: Questionable software patents from Aug/Sep 1998
• PTO's San Fran conference - useful or PTO stunt? - More from OED
• PTO clerks to become examiners ????????
• OpenMarket outsucks NetWord; Walker Asset/Priceline doesn't travel
• Mystery of 5805697; More on Tronzo v. Biomet
• More biotechnology complaints from around the world
• Lehman to resign at the end of the year
• Jane Myers should resign/be fired/get a clue; Ig Nobel prizes
• Gossip from Washington about Hatch and S507
• Cognex sues to declare Lemelson's patents invalid
• Biopatenting news and controversies around the world
• Biopatenting news and controversies around the world
• A really short patent claim involving sperm
• 17,500 software patents to issue in 1998

SEPTEMBER 1998

• Trademark Commissioner Hampton resigns
• S507; UKPO eliminates patent application fees; news from WIPO
• S507; Prior Use; Nolo; Rice; Neem; Push; Golfballs; Russian patents
• S507 removed from Bankruptcy bill
• Quickee patents?; Bated breath; Guy Kawasaki; Quality; AIPLA/IPO
• Petition to stop human gene therapy
• Parody of today's IPO alert
• PTO's trademark database; WIPO meeting on Indigenous People
• Non-patent prior art to invalidate a presidency: 102 or 103?
• Nolo; PCT prices; India; French patents online; S507; Skilled-n-art
• Microsoft's antitrust and the PTO
• Linck is "fired"; Trademark data useless; Examiner abused; Waste
• Help stop the Terminator seed patent
• Current status of S507 - probably will be voted on
• Cloning; Gene therapy - NIH inventor omitted from a patent?
• Clinton, Lehman, TRW, Loral and Monica
• Initiatives for the Protection of the Rights of the Possessors of

AUGUST 1998

• Two lectures on Internet patents; random tidbits
• Two compliments to the US Patent Office and Comm. Lehman
• Prices for ordering PCT documents
• Priceline patent not search well; India to join PCT?
• PTO screws up Los Angeles bar exam
• Microsoft - wins two cases, but patents dynamic BitBlt & music?
• How obvious is somatic cell cloning?
• Help bust a patent; A bad Internet patent claim
• Dr. Seuss and bioethics
• Constitutionality of S507; Timely comments from Copyright Office
• Can PTO insult a patriotic citizen on its Web pages?
• Book reviews; Kudos to the UK Patent Office; PTO relocation
• Ad blitz paints lawyers as sick but curable

JULY 1998

• Was Pat Jordan fired? Diana's face; States infringing patents
• State-Street reversed; Microsoft gets Reiffin dismissed
• State Street: methods of doing business ARE patentable
• Senator McCain trying to fight PTO's wasteful relocation
• Patent lawyer to rule Japan?
• PTO wants comments on full text; PTO CoSci Bar requirement a joke
• PTO not qualified to examine Internet patents
• OED having problems with 1998 exams; more on College Savings Bank
• Netword sues Centraal, even after I trash their patent
• More on Lucent/Cisco; A big push to vote on S507
• Monsanto has its Bt patent invalidated
• IP protection in Asia-Pacific - conference in San Fran next week
• How secret are your searches at the PTO Web site?
• Gossip from inside PTO about Lehman and relocation
• Europeans dis USPTO and US :-); More on Pat Jordan
• Cirrus; Network Associates; Cyrix; IBM; Lucent; Cisco; sex
• Are PTO examiners sardines? WIPO to create patent megadatabase
• "PATNEWS" is prior art? Diana's face; African inventor hero

JUNE 1998

• PTO OED specialist seeking letters of recommendation
• No software patent in Europe? NAFTA Pat Office? OED letter hoax?
• Let's sue PTO to free UCSD to provide patent texts on 'net
• Lehman sleazes patents/trademarks onto the Internet
• HP sued by Micro Solutions over parallel port interfaces
• GAO report on Bayh-Dole Act
• Eurolawyers want software patents; More gossip about PTO's OED
• Does ABA think Lehman is a bad PTO manager?
• Dept. of Energy offers fulltext - why not the Patent Office?
• DEC not liable for keyboard injuries
• Compaq sued for $10 billion for copyright infringement
• CAFC affirms Hyatt didn't invent microprocessor
• Book review: Landis on Mechanics of Claim Drafting
• ABA calls for more government information for the public

MAY 1998

• Winning lawyers fees; Fraudulent pending patent hype
• Wang's lawsuit gets tossed; Help fight distortions of S.507
• The randomness of biotech patent examination
• Small and independent inventor succeeds with new hinge
• SE Asia groups protesting biopiracy; more nonsense from Lehman
• Review: PLI's 1998 Federal Circuit Yearbook
• Quality of issued patents in 1998 to suffer
• Protest today to the European Parliament about biopiracy
• Postcard campaign to fight Basmati patent
• Mormons, blacks, racism, genes and bioethics
• May 20 Palo Alto lecture on software patent litigation stats
• Goffney to leave PTO July for Akin Gump
• Genetically altered food lawsuit; Interior Dept. sued bioprospecting
• District Court kills Freeny/EData patent
• Critique of Incyte CEO's lecture on god and biotechnology
• Complaints from PTO examiners; lawyer argues against S.507
• Bad Database Protection Bill; NIH-Berkeley biotech IP conference; BIO

APRIL 1998

• Wang sues Netscape and America Online; Who's suing who?
• Survey request; Lotus case cite fix; Senate copyright bill
• Rule 56 contempt: Action Technologies/Gail Hayes/Blakely Sokoloff
• Review: software law article; Review: "From Patent to Profit"
• PTO has a nice trademark application form on the Internet
• PTO attempts to set biotech patenting morality policy
• Odetics wins $70 million from Storage Technology
• Nader/Love write Clinton about Amgen/EPO/DOE; More PTO fee theft
• More Lehman insults; NIH & biomed IP; Phily IP meeting
• Lehman's resignation in the works?
• Is Intellectual Property Legitimate?
• Goffney and Hampton to leave as well as Lehman
• ESTs; Taq; Australia; Japan; PTO biotech patent statistics
• Drug companies reject invention by the Department of Energy
• Dolly pregnant; Patent on Maxwell's demon?; Banning gene patents
• Do drugs really cost $300 million for FDA trials?
• Biopatents - how pissed off is the Third World??
• Agricultural Dept. pissing off Third World with seed patent
• A bioethics survey from UPenn; WSJ quote from James Love was false

MARCH 1998

• UCB DNA reexam; Bayh-Dole study; year's worst patent claim
• The Wang patent auction; Individual suing Sega and Nintendo
• Patent problems involving the V-chip
• Open Market patents bogus? Seminar in Phily; Neat patent diagram
• Onsale bar reviewed; 3 software patent seminars/lectures
• Next patent fight: making customized music CDs
• More on new patlaw group; Rice plant patent challenged in India
• List of US/EC TRIPS-related disputes at the WTO
• India; JPO; EPO; Genentech; modems; Chiron; Onsale bar; CAFC
• India's bioresources?; FAO to guard seeds; Gene patents bad?
• Hypertext MPEP; CDROM of Venture Capital firms
• ABC reports on fights between Lehman, Goffney, Hampton

FEBRUARY 1998

• Y2K; stamps; GAO; biotech deals; help with Russian prior art
• Universities' profits; NatSemi patent job; sinks; modems
• Unisys/LZW patent bad?
• Speakers for panel on IP & EC; more thread art; S507/VC
• Senate and House bills prohibiting human cloning
• Rumor on candidate for next PTO commissioner
• PTO to eliminate search rooms in new facilities ????
• Monsanto/Mycogen; NatSemi/Intel; S3/Intel; Rogaine; Kaiser/Bogart
• Microsoft sued over multithreading patents - the filing
• Lehman/Dickinson; Australia; Guide to 1997 Internet PCT filings
• Lehman going?; Job in Israel; More on Hong Kong patents
• Lawsuit heats up over Bogart's prenatal blood test
• If Dickinson, what happened to Goffney ???
• IP in Northern California; Multithreading patent won't prevail
• How sloppy is software prior art searching at the PTO?
• Feldenkrais or Federalkrap ???; Has Lehman finally resigned ???
• Dickinson up for Deputy Commissioner of the PTO
• Congress to steal $116 million from PTO in 1999; Hong Kong; USCFC

JANUARY 1998

• Who owns your genes and body parts??????
• What isn't obvious in the patent world?
• What is the essence of being a patent lawyer?
• Some recent licensing royalty rates
• Patents/NPR; Japan to accept patent applications electronically
• PTO officials in Santa Clara on the 27th and 28th
• PTO blows $860,000 licensing search engine for trademarks
• Ownership of body parts in Europe
• More on the University of California
• Lehman out? Examiners squabble; Trademarks; Holo patent canceled
• Happy New Year!!!! Pay your taxes :-(
• GE invented Web bookmarks? MCI invented window titles in 1996?
• Examiners gaming with Board of Appeals; PTO wasting $100,000,000
• EPO/PTO; cloning attacked; Paragon/P&G; UK; coke machine
• EPO to put full text of patents onto Internet; Someone smearing PATNEWS
• Court reaffirms Univ. California shortchanged faculty-inventors
• Corrections to previous stories; Lawyer complains about PTO
• Brucey babe - Japan putting patent/trademark data on Internet

DECEMBER 1997

• Trademark data suppressed; PTO gets WPI; new IP service firm
• Software inventor taking on Microsoft?
• Small company beats Upjohn; some interesting new patent claims
• Patents in the worlds of Dilbert and Ann Landers
• PTO wastes $115,000 grading bar exam; PTO corruption patent access??
• PTO management having $25,000,000 Christmas party?
• PTO exam; TRW settles with Inmarsat; golfballs; small vs large
• PTO exam; Novadigm/Marimba; RSA patents invalid?
• Ongoing PTO mismanagement
• New book/CDROM - guide to Internet patents
• Mostly biotech patent news
• More on drug knockoffs - Lehman's watch ending at the NEH
• Microsoft's motherboards? Motorola's biochips? DNA computing
• Marketing your invention on Home Shopping Network
• Lots more PTO mismanagement and a few lies
• How to "extend" a drug patent
• EPO translations; More complaints on patent drawings

NOVEMBER 1997

• Why PCT software patent searches are so bad
• US Copyright Office offering email news service
• Subscribing to copyright list; PTO exam; prolific inventors
• Student inventor of the year; two deceased inventors
• Some patent lawsuit settlements/awards
• Patent judge caught lying
• PTO screws up Bar exam processing; Canadian to chair WIPO
• PTO eliminating paper searching
• Optics editor confused; Examiners protest paper loss; IP talk Chicago
• Neem at EPO?; Judge Ware; Inventors contest; Prior use rulings
• London EPC lecture; PCT news; EPO kills neem; software prior art?
• Licensing questions and answers - biotech, corporations
• Israeli IP job; costs of drugs/FDA; PTO killing paper files
• Intergraph sues Intel over microprocessor patents
• Congratulations to IBM (well not really); Is Intel a bully?
• Complaints about PTO's rules for patent drawings
• BIOPATNEWS: Cloning's Wilmut at MIT; EC; EPA; Rabbits; $$$

OCTOBER 1997

• Unocal's patent upheld; new Net search patent; UCC 2B
• UK judge blasts Raychem's claims; Ovonic Battery wins in Japan
• Two weird patents - 1 no buyers, 1 no infringers
• Software review: should inventors draft patents?
• Ridiculing and construing patent claims
• New Senate Bill, S1226, includes Patent Office reform
• Lawyers' comments on inventors drafting patents
• Kudos to Taiwan's United Microelectronics
• Jerome Lemelson has died
• How wacko is Grego?; and Comments from Silicon Valley
• How to bust a software patent
• How hectic is the examiner's workday?
• History of DEC/Intel lawsuit - Japanese IP Web sites
• DEC to sell chip manufacturing plant to Intel
• DC gathering about Microsoft
• Comments from lawyers about IPNS stories
• CEO of Cadence blasts US intellectual property system
• Apple & Exponential; IBM & Taligent; Wildfire & General Magic
• 1997 software patent statistics: IV - filing the lawsuit
• 1997 software patent statistics: II - Internet patents
• 1997 software patent statistics: I - raw data
• 1997 Software patent statistics: III - bad software patents

SEPTEMBER 1997

• What's on the other side of the Channel from France?
• UNESCO condemning cloning; Biotech industry stats;
• Turmeric patent killed; Lycos touting patent; 56K modem patent?
• Telomerase; "Summer for the Gods" - Scopes trial book review
• Patent poster; Litigation rates/costs; How slow PTO?
• PTO orders reexamine of yet another patent
• PTO management testing out patent registration system??
• Obviousness problems - comments from lawyers; DEC/Intel; bad claim
• More patent practices; Inventor of the Year - Aaron Feuerstein
• More on PTO office actions
• Lehman to also manage Nat. Endowment Humanities?
• Lehman to NEH; more on Boy Scouts; Adobe beats Quantel
• India to appeal against WTO ruling on patents
• Ants, worms, porkers and lawyers .....
• ATT patenting Web images that have URLs

AUGUST 1997

• Web site for IP royalty rates
• Turmeric; Clozapine; Esp.Seq.Tags ESTs; Cloning; Telomerase/Geron
• Tit-for-tat: Intel countersues DEC
• Silly robot software patent; auctions of sets of patents; Cellpro
• S507/HR400 constitutional? Part 2 of an argument
• Novadigm alleges Web standard-to-be infringes their patent
• Neem patents, or should Sections 102(a) and 102(b) be changed?
• More on cross licensing & Intel; IBM settles with modem patentee
• McAfee sues Symantec; DFC protests WIPO copyright treaties
• MCI helps Katz sue ATT after Sprint and TCI settle
• Internet Bios; Internet Phone; Microsoft & softpats; Intel/DEC
• Intel's countersuit against DEC of dubious credibility
• In re Zurko and software patenting at the PTO
• How much of Java is being patented?
• Do "prior use" rights already exist?
• DOE seeking patent lawyers in Bay Area and Chicago
• Aug. 4th Barron's bashes HR400/S507
• 1986 software game patent being asserted

JULY 1997

• What's up with Motorola and electronic books?
• Some in Congress write to Comm. Dept. about examiner treatment
• Software patenting is a joke
• Sexual harassment and management abuse at the PTO
• Senators are bought to suppress free access to APS
• Professional searchers witness to US registration system
• PTO exam; Cellpro/Baxter; Indonesia; UK PO; Hong Kong/China
• More on PTO exams - more on PTO's APS versus NIH Medline
• More on Intel and DEC; More on PTO, ESTs and now the NAS
• More on Intel and DEC - Complaint about PTO's exam regrading
• More on 'Abuse of Examiners' - NIH shows how PTO lies
• House meeting today to steal PTO fees
• FTC freezes assets an invention promotion companies
• Eli Lilly beats UCalif; other biotech news; NAS letter to PTO
• District Court invalidates Action's groupware software patent
• Complaints from the PTO examiners
• Cloning: patent claims, and policy statements from around the world
• Abuse of examiners by PTO management; bad decision in Japan
• A mess of recent bad software patent claims
• A letter to the PTO's FOIA office requesting patent text data

JUNE 1997

• Taxing patents; Dec and Intel; Qualcomm and Motorola and Ericsson
• September PCT seminar on drafting PCT applications in Berlin
• Senators want FTC after Micrsoft; Using trademarks to bust patents
• Random patent news: PTO, Mafia, PTDLs, Israel, Patent bar exam
• Powerful agrobio group petitions Clinton
• Lehman to speak Friday in San Diego at ABA conference
• Latest news on S507 patent reform
• Is PTO Director re S507/HR400 unconstitutional?
• International patenting news
• Cyberspace Law Conf. - Dayton - June 13, 1997
• Cellpro - Universities/NIH/John Hopkins/Becton/Baxter
• Book review: 1997 Federal Circuit Yearbook
• 40,000 questionable software patents by the end of the decade

MAY 1997

• US academic licensing statistics
• Students want more patent rights
• Software patents - Xerox suing; IBM to sue everyone else?
• Significance of Intel's lawsuit against DEC
• Senators chastise Lehman/Kirk for large inventor bias
• S507 approved by committee, now to be voted by whole Senate
• Qualcomm versus the world
• Patent nonsense in New York Times
• More on the chromosome testing lawsuits
• More on gene sequences, ESTs, PTO, and the NIH; cloning protests
• Less expensive lawyers for patent litigation?
• Interesting example of patent politics
• Intel/DEC - Edata winning? - Fed court worsens software pats
• Intel strikes back at DEC
• Gripes about a chromosome patent being asserted
• Dec/Intel; Trend Micro; prior art meeting at White House
• DEC's patents, and genetic notes from AAAS meeting
• CBD on net - Some bio patenting tidbits
• An MIT thesis is copyrighted to death
• A new low in obvious patents

APRIL 1997

• Still hope for defeating HR400
• Send an email letter protesting HR400; Robert Rines urges HR400 defeat
• Questionable PTO Internet search policy
• Patenting in Israel
• Patent problems at Canadian universities
• Patent news for/about small and independent inventors
• NIH to protest PTO's mostly functionless EST patenting
• NIH battling with PTO over patenting of ESTs
• Microsoft to aid organized crime?; 3M sues/unsues Toshiba and IBM?
• MIT sues Dolby Labs; Is INPEX legitimate?
• Lots of software patent news
• Justice weeps - HR400 passes on a voice vote
• Justice Department, software antitrust and intellectual property
• Illegal secrecy at the Patent Office?
• How to lobby against HR400 - HR400 comments from New Zealand
• Help fight S. 507
• HR400: Lehman insults small and independent inventors again
• HR400 passes on voice vote; More on amendments to the passed HR400
• Corrections to my story on Canadian university IP
• Clinton killing HR400 and S507 ??
• Claims: Longest chemical; silliest mechanical; trivialist electrical
• Buckyballs - PTO & EPO bumbling patent applications
• "Skilled in the art". Which art?

MARCH 1997

• You can clone your own way ............
• Yet another ex-examiner complaint - HR400 being rammed through
• Universities shining in the patent world
• Top IP law schools - another complaint from an examiner
• This really is the LAST two examiner complaints
• Structure and function in gene patenting
• Software patent struck down in England
• Should PTO Commissioner Lehman resign?
• Scientists' call to ban human cloning
• Patent laws being amended in India
• Patent law firms forgot to pay attention
• PTO's Huther to Census Bureau; Siber leaving IBM; some GATT stuff
• PTO examiners increasingly unhappy
• PTO allowing patents on gene sequences without functionality
• One claim style the new software guidelines should eliminate
• More on how to fight HR400
• Lehman to lie in Congress today - PTO GOCO unconstitutionality
• Judiciary approves HR400 - House vote April 7th or so
• Is a corporatized PTO unconstitutional?
• Inadvertently sent out to everyone, instead of SKGF people; HR400
• IP dispute center being formed in Japan
• Help a patent office / Who's purchasing patent reform?
• Congratulations to winning high school student scientists
• Congratulations to MIT
• Changes to Finnish patent law

FEBRUARY 1997

• Using water; Worst patent claim of 1996
• Update on Internet Patent News Service
• Two patent jobs positions
• Oppositions filed for EPO blood cell patent
• NIH patent service contract awards
• More graphics patent lawsuits
• Longest and shortest pending patents
• India and US swap priority date rights; some Indian attorneys
• How to write letters to Congress
• How patent lawyers disagree.
• EPO/Netherlands is hiring examiners and searchers
• Current status of Patent Bills in Congress
• Congress hates small/independent inventors
• Conference on NAFTA and IP in US/Canada/Mexico
• Bill Gates gets worst software patent of the year award
• Bayer to pay Barr and Ruby $24.5 million each
• Are examiners being overly "restrictive"?
• ABA says - IP lawyers make the big bucks
• A new patent bill is introduced into the House.
• A letter to Congress to protest stealing patent fees

JANUARY 1997

• Yugoslavia and Ghana join the PCT; Biggest users of the PCT
• Tax aspects of applying for a patent
• Supreme Court since 1937 on the Internet
• Silicon Graphics and Lockheed battling over software patents
• Searching / working laments from ex-PTO examiners and lawyers
• Patent reform in Europe and Canada
• PTO choking itself to death?
• MerchantGould get NIH contract; how juries decide evidence
• Los Angeles area patent conference Jan. 30/31
• Inventing contest for students
• IBM patents base-B "printf"
• Herbert Hoover and inventors
• Haworth Incorporated wins $211 million
• Former PTO Commissioner Mossinghoff joins Oblon, Spivak
• Five day patents in New Zealand; Patent/trademark software lawsuits
• Fax patent lawsuit is another Freeny patent
• E-data lawyer behind second patent infringement blitz
• Developments in UK's National Patent System - dangers IBM Web site
• Another blow to software copyright protection
• Agrobiotech conference in Monterey, California in April
• 1996+ EPO pats on net - Russian IP crime laws

DECEMBER 1996

• Tibco/Teknekron & Netscape/Microsoft/IBM/Sun/Intel & IBM
• Software patents are everywhere in the Official Gazette
• One executive's complaint about patent litigation
• New product? Better do a patent search, OR ELSE!!!!!!!
• NIH disclaims patent on human cell line from an indigenous person
• More on that "trivial" music patent
• Loophole in Europe patent protection
• Inventor wins $1.2 million from negligent licensee
• Inventor and grandmother of the year - Pat Billings
• Internet software company Tibco ignoring its patent lawyers?
• How to bust a spectroscopy software patent
• Gemstar acquires StarSight - both will drop lawsuits
• EPO reduces fees; Book reviews; dangers of releasing modified organisms
• CIA getting involved with patent infringement?
• ASEAN to set up regional patent agency; biotech patents and stocks

NOVEMBER 1996

• WIPO politics and Nigeria
• Tons of biotech patent news from Minneapolis
• Thomson CD patents found invalid - $40 million/year at stake
• Software patents and the new ban on medical procedure patents
• Shame on Commissioner Lehman
• PTO limits gene pats; Europe protest gened soy; Invent with soy
• More on Theis lawsuits; News on Russian trademarks
• More biotech patent news
• Mobil kudos two Mobil inventors in Business Week
• Microsoft licenses Elkin's 1978 audio signal patent
• History of one person defending his patents
• Fee schedule for trademarks in Russia - Employee inventor rights
• Economics and IP of cDNA sequence databases; Monsanto's soybeans
• Canadian patents searchable over the Internet
• Another Internet patent lawsuit in the making
• A weird construction in a claim
• $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Inventor prize

OCTOBER 1996

• Top 50 University Tech Transfer operations
• Stanford professor argues that high tech patents are useless
• Some false marketing by E-data?
• Recent changes in Russian patent fees
• PhD thesis argues against First-to-File
• Pendencies by group - Win $250,000 - Biogen wins $30,000,000
• More gossip on E-data, Zache, Hyatt
• Microsoft suing Corel? & SPIE inventing seminar in Boston
• How valuable is a biotech patent?
• Government council for inventing new vehicles
• Fairly trivial software patent
• EPO-Hague is recruiting Engineering and Science Graduates
• Another reason why the E-Data patent is invalid

SEPTEMBER 1996

• Weird software patent lawsuit - the Internet is a player piano
• Some very old medical prior art from Tibet
• Software patent guidelines from the European Patent Office
• Silicon Valley's 50 fastest-growing tech firms and patents
• Pharmaceutical examiners at PTO as crippled as software examiners
• Patent shenanigans at Sun Microsystems ala Dell?
• PTO announcement on examining anti-terror patents
• Law conference at UTexas-Austin on Nov 7/8
• Hoffmann-LaRoche suffers setback in Taq battle with Promega
• Genetics Institute licenses its gene library
• Biotechers, stay out of my nose
• Biotech patent conference in Minneapolis in October
• Be careful - Sun Microsystems asks for prior art for '646
• An investment firm seeking transdermal technology
• Accelerated examination for anti-terrorism patents
• 7000 Supreme Court decisions now on the Internet
• $50 CDROM of Supreme Court decisions

AUGUST 1996

• Which court has jurisdiction over the Internet?
• Water can't be patented, so your house burns down.
• Visx and Summit arguing over patent royalties, together are sued
• Tips for taking PTO patent professional registration exam
• Tech Transfer advice from MIT's Tech Transferers
• Should Ford Motors buy Novell?
• Senate agrees with House to steal $54,000,000 from PTO fees
• Review of BNA's US Patent Quarterly on CDROM
• Report on licensing royalties and trends
• Profit figure sales of PTO patent information
• Patent lawsuit over handheld audio recording device
• Panel discussion on patent harmonization in Boston on 9/9
• PTO not using drug encyclopedias to aid searching
• NASA's Tech Transfer show in Anaheim in October
• Microsoft and Netscape agree on fighting Internet patent
• Info on new European Community Trademark
• First of the Web/HTML software patents issues
• Eli Lilly's large patent filings for anti-obesity proteins
• Another disasterous mess at the PTO mail room

JULY 1996

• Who's suing who in the patent world
• StarSight wins arbitration against Scientific Atlanta
• Sen Hatch introduces S.1961 = H3460 + copyrights
• Quickturn wins TEO against Mentor at ITC over EDA
• Patent law changes are not always rational
• Pacemaker companies suing each other
• Mentor's version of the ITC action with Quickturn
• Is HR3460 in trouble?
• India government council challenging US drug patent
• HR3460 delayed until 1997
• E-Data ordered to clarify what is being infringed
• Congress is trying to steal $50,000,000 from the PTO
• Beginning of the end for E-data patent
• A very long CIP chain; an overly specific patent claim
• A multiple assignee single inventor multiple exemplary OG entry
• (Anti)aging telomeres might be involved with AIDS

JUNE 1996

• UK court ruling against patenting of software
• Suggestion to improve PTO mail room flow
• Some attention for the inventors at Trimble Navigation
• Questionable Japanese patent ruling overturned
• PTO rules TI engineer invented microcontroller, not Gil Hyatt
• Lehman to restructure examiner corps / eliminate US Classification
• Is this Microsoft fax software patent obvious?
• IEEE proposes new software protection idea
• E-data gets its day in court
• Brazil adopts new patent law for pharmaceuticals
• Biotech patenting woes continue in Europe
• An interesting measure of novelty for drug patents

MAY 1996

• Wacko patent of the month / PCT publication of Wildfire patent
• Value of a university biotech patent set
• Submit your new invention/product to NASA's tech transfer show
• Study on pharmaceutical research productivity and patents
• Some reader comments on the EC/EPO patent information problem
• SmithKline loses patent arbitration; W. Hemisphere IP conference
• Should IP lawyers discourage investment software patents?
• Report on Japanese R&D and intellectual property laws
• PTO faces 90 year backlog on genetic patents due to sequences
• One man's campaign against patent maintenance fees
• New patent practitioners group; Internet group setting a patent policy
• Little prior art is bad; disclaimed prior art is worse
• IBM to sell off some non-core computing patents
• How much bad software patents will cost you
• German patent trends
• EC refuses to post EPO abstracts onto Internet
• Cuba joins the PCT
• Coalition to challenge patenting of genes
• Breakdown of PTO income for 1995
• An interesting question and answer about sub-licensing
• A nice article on patenting of "third world" genes

APRIL 1996

• Why bad (software) patents are bad beyond being bad patents
• Two new CDROMs from Micropatent: PCT and trademarks
• Taiwan and US sign patent agreement? Inventor sues Comm. Lehman
• Seminar on Software Intellectual Property at Berkeley
• Prior art for Internet "applet" patents - Eolas, Prodigy, etc.
• Preliminary software patent statistics for 1996
• Patent counts for Silicon Valley firms
• PTO strikes lousy deal with Chinese Patent Office
• PTO examiners to meet with Congress to protest pending laws
• Latest release of fantastic finite element program
• Israel joins the PCT - inventing in Muslim countries
• Is the following concept patentable?
• Help support Edison's laboratories from decay
• Help save telephones on the Internet - email the FCC
• German patent statistics for 1995
• Federal judge declares mutual funds patent invalid
• Critique of Samuelson and Kapor's new software protection scheme
• Almost free full text patent searching from Chemical Abstracts
• ATT "True Voice" patent survives reexamination, mostly
• A recent really rewritten reissued patent claim - really
• A neat patent, an ugly patent claim, and a verbose patent claim

MARCH 1996

• Yet one more flaw of the new software patent guidelines
• Who's currently suing who?
• Virginia-area briefing on Computer Decency Act
• Ultimate Lemelson Submarine - 1957 priority - for animation
• US Treasury sued for infringing counterfeit protection patents
• The PTO is having hearing on DNA sequences
• Reengineering at the PTO: management versus examiners
• Patents and the Uniform Commercial Code
• Ordering copies of patents from the Patent Office
• Japanese banks sue Citibank over electronic money
• Fee schedule for Japanese patent agents
• Enzo Biochem's antisense gene patent invalid because not enabling
• DoE funding human genome intellectual property studies
• Details on PTO hearing on medical methods
• Canadian Biotech/Pharmaceutical Patent Law Fights
• A patent anti-dedicated to Professor Kahan
• A patent anti-dedicated to Professor Kahan

FEBRUARY 1996

• Yet another "Comptons" bogus software patent lawsuit scare
• UK Patent Office accepts priority of US provisionals
• Starting date of operations of Eurasian Patent Convention
• Japan biotech patent zapped by Chinese prior art?
• Is Taiwan weakening intellectual property enforcement?
• How to claim a data structure in a software patent
• Get your European Technology Transfer Regulation exemption
• GAO report on government corporations
• Derwent offering patent preparation services
• Comments from PTO OED director Karen Bovard
• A programmer's analysis of Prodigy's patent claims re Sun's Java
• A patent law citation that isn't
• A nice history of the GIF controversy
• A model of how biotech companies patent and sue

JANUARY 1996

• Who will be the next CAFC judge?
• Want to live forever?
• Patent news stories - a 1995 bibliography of sorts
• Number of Japanese patents and applications
• More patent news stories - a 1995 bibliography of sorts
• Lotus strikes out at Supreme Court
• How to buy a tape of ABC's Invention special
• Finland to join the European Patent Convention
• FTC gets Dell to drop patent claims
• Does Sun's Java infringe Prodigy's patent? NOT
• Did peer reviewers steal a company's invention?
• British company zapped by 50 year old patent
• A Heroic Inventor dies
• 1995 US software patent statistics - 6142 patents in 1995

DECEMBER 1995

• Will EPO be ignoring US provisional patents?
• Sharplan Lasers sues Reliant Technologies over laser patents
• RSA loses encryption patent rights to Cylink; IBM no longer Big Blue
• Provisional analysis from WIPO; send email for the hearing
• Provisional Patents: EC/PTO exchange letters; FTC investigates Dell
• Pizza Hut sued;17-year term bill to House floor
• Patent law changes in Pakistan
• PTO blocking examiner's Internet access; WTO names appeal judges
• News and products from WIPO and EPO
• Molex forces Berg to stop selling SIMM connectors
• Is Dialog going to sue the PTO's OEIP ?????
• Derwent has two new chemical databases; Gene sequences filing software
• Courts strike a blow for those fighting patent invention fraudsters
• Congratulations to ABC and the PTO
• Coherent and Uniphase make a deal; Varian and Lam still unsettled
• Bristol-Myers Squibb and Rhone-Poulenc-Rorer disputing taxol patents
• Bay Networks and 3Com cross-license; Lenzing can't overcome Courtaulds
• Apple and Microsoft stop talking about relicensing Windows
• A patent claim totally rewritten on reexamination

NOVEMBER 1995

• University patents add more than $20 billion and 150,000 jobs
• Two more PCT countries; Eurasian PO open; PCT lowers some fees
• Question from PTO patent examiner; Two trivial software patent claims
• PCT filings, membership on the rise
• New Windows program for estimating patenting costs
• More bad software patenting woes
• Is the US patent system a registration system????
• Is the PTO suspending processing of software patents???
• Foreign inventive activity to count in U.S. priority proceedings
• Followup: Is the EPO ignoring US provisional patents?
• December 15 PTO "open meeting" on connecting APS to the Internet
• DNA/RNA sequence submissions overwhelming the PTO
• Comments from universities on dealing with industry and IP
• Be paranoid, very paranoid, in England if you are inventing
• Apparently some software patenting is being suspended
• An Internet "notary" for electronic document verification
• Action sues Novell over email software patents
• Aboriginal person is claimed in a US patent

OCTOBER 1995

• UK patents in one year; Derwent hiring; UKPO statistics
• Time Warner releases thought control software for children???
• Senate aide gets tour of PTO - meets nice examiners
• Patents using subliminal techniques
• Patenting software in Japan
• PTO releasing legal analysis of software guidelines
• More really trivial software patents
• Information on inventing in Denmark
• Gossip from PTO Commissioner Lehman
• FTC investigates a patent pool, though too late for German company
• Court upholds $62 million award against GE for MRI infringement
• Analysis of Doctrine of Equivalents re Hilton-Davis
• An obvious spectroscopy software patent claim?
• A complaint about the PTO patent bar exam grading process
• 4th Edition of "Patent It Yourself" now available
• 300 PTO examiners oppose PTO corporatization; Hollywood patenting

SEPTEMBER 1995

• White House to make PTO performance driven
• TRW: should the PTO allow orbits to be patented?
• PTO putting patent abstracts on Internet
• Orville Redenbacher - the inventor
• Lesotho is the 81st member of the PCT
• Leading chemical and drug patenting companies
• Interesting chemical/drug patent claim
• Intellectual property in Taiwan nad Korea
• First half 1995 software patent statistics
• Eastman Kodak loses patent case in Japan
• EPO to offer accelerated regional prosecution
• Dates for Congressional and PTO hearings
• Congress planning to steal more PTO registration fees
• A IPNS reader argues against pre-publication.
• The answer is "champerty" - what's the question?
• The Senate wants to merge the PTO and NIST
• Is Commissioner Lehman a spy for Japan?????

AUGUST 1995

• Yet another software patent lawsuit
• UK Patent Office to speed up patent processing
• Taligent's blanket of object oriented software patents
• TRW versus Inmarsat - patent wars in outer space
• Patent Office releases utility requirement guidelines
• PTO looking for search tools
• PTO hearings on 18-month publication in September
• PTO changing the Disclosure Document program
• Nice article on patents for motion picture industry
• Microsoft versus IBM; Invest in UK patents; EPO and software patents
• Michigan State Univ. sues Research Corporation
• Juries can play a role in deciding infringement
• In re Travato vacated
• Here comes the next nonsense software patent lawsuit
• Full text to the son of Compton's software patent
• FTP sites for biocomputers
• FTC's activities with antitrust and patents
• Eolas claiming rights to embedded apps over the Web
• DNA, proteins as software - software as genetic biocycles
• Albania joins the PCT; Eurasian Patent Office almost opens

JULY 1995

• Two "How come?" patents from Compaq and GE
• Trivial signal processing software patent claim
• The effect of GATT Amendments on using the ITC
• NEC looking to hire a patent attorney
• More rumors from the Patent Office
• Middle East software piracy / Microsoft sued for programmer theft
• Means+function and patents+taxes
• Lawsuit over patented tuition plan ?
• IBM's trivially short buckytube patent claim
• Filing statistics for the South Korean patent office
• Excellent CAD program for inventors
• Argentinian patent politics

JUNE 1995

• fYRo-Macedonia joins the PCT
• Wonderful welcome to WTO
• Who's suing who in the patent world
• Who's suing in the NIH bio world
• Three rumors out of the Patent Office
• Software piracy estimates by country
• People rushing to file patent applications by June 8th
• PTO releases proposed guidelines for examining software patents
• Justice Department checking Microsoft patent practices
• Interesting chemical patent claim
• Intellectual Property in the Arab World
• GE ordered to pay Fonar $100 million over MRI patents
• EPO policy statement on software patents
• EPO patent now extendable to Latvia
• Costs of applying for European patents
• ABB sues FMC - oil drilling equipment; Trademark lawyers have no clue

MAY 1995

• Will the PTO choke to death by June 8th?
• Weekly list of unethical software patents
• Weekly list of unethical software patents
• Wayne State University has to surrender patents to a company
• Tips for filing patent applications in Japan
• TRW space patent released today - posted to USENET
• TRW patents outer space
• Software patenting chaos continues
• Profits at drug companies to decline as patents expire?
• Pharmaceutial companies and generics battle over GATT
• Patenting strategies of top telecommunications companies
• PTO withdraws it's "In re Baird" notice
• PTO Commissioner to release new software guidelines May 25
• Netherland abandons National patent route
• Kudos to Dr. Manuel Patarroyo and the Colombian government
• Internet: Highway or Sueway?; Examiner comments on PTO searching policy
• German Patent Office criticizes German academic inventors
• Former PTO commissioner accuses current PTO commissioner of inaccuracy
• First biotech researcher was Pope Innocent VIII
• FDA allows drug companies to extend patent protection
• Extremely long and very short exemplary chemical claim
• East German patents; TI wins $51.8 million; CAFC and corporate ethics
• Congress on Knowledge Intellectual Property Rights - Vienna 8/95
• CAFC dismisses IBM's In re Beauregard appeal.
• Are inventors Benedictines?

APRIL 1995

• US pharmaceutical companies complain about Brazil
• Turkmenistan joins PCT - Derwent extends patent coverage
• Statistics on preliminary injunctive relief in patent litigation
• Pharmaceutical patent reform bogs down in Argentina
• Oil companies suing each other over gas fuel patent
• Microsoft buys 10% of Wang to settle patent infringement
• Justice Department relaxes intellectual property antitrust rules
• Inventor's show in May in Connecticut
• India Parliament fails to amend patent legislation
• First Baltic conference on Industrial Property
• CAFC restricts the role of juries in deciding infringement
• An odd electrical and odd chemical patent claim

MARCH 1995

• Worst software patents of the decade awarded to HP and IBM
• Unusual patent claim drafting style
• US corporate intellectual property losses
• Tips on dealing with patent law firms
• PTO announces new plans for software patenting
• PCT Statistics for 1994
• Lotus loses big copyright case - Borland dodges $100 million
• Hong Kong Intellectual Property Office has a Web site
• Dr. Robert Rines against 20 year term & 18 month publication
• Deputy PTO Commissioner Kirk to resign
• Congressional bill introduced to prohibit surgical patents
• Another "submarine" patent, 500K of text, to Gil Hyatt
• Annual statistics from the Chinese Patent Office
• A really loooooooooooooooooong first claim
• A humongous, hierarchical, chemical Markush group

FEBRUARY 1995

• Workplace complaints from PTO examiners
• UK examiner insults US examiners, & suggests I should be paranoid
• Two interesting patents: saving lives and surfing in a box
• Silicon Valley/Hollywood IP law firms joint venture
• Really non-novel recently issued software patents
• NIH and U.Utah settle breast patent gene squabble
• MPEGII patent squabbles; Fenwick & West helps MIT help RSA
• Lemelson milks an Apple, wings a Wang
• Jerome Lemelson's Secret Agenda????????
• Is the PTO being spun-off?
• Iceland joins the PCT
• How Group 1200/1500 does its prior art searches
• Hey Seer: PTO reexam rejects 51 claims in Teknekron's DP patent
• Hear Gary Reback, the lawyer fighting Microsoft
• European Patent Office rules DNA is not life
• Comments from a PTO mechanical examiner
• Comemrce Secretary Brown mentions Greg Aharonian - my 15 minutes
• Ashlar sues SRDC over CAD software interface
• ATT "True Voice" patent up for reexamination
• A message from a Congressional aide about 17/20 term battle
• A bad software patent from EPO
• 3 neat software patent drafting styles

JANAURY 1995

• Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati files brief against Microsoft
• Two law firm commentaries on the impact of GATT
• Singapore joins Paris Convention and PCT; squabbles in Argentina
• Should Seer Technology's client/server patent be invalidated?
• Random patent news: Genentech, Intuit, Honeywell, BNA CDROM
• Patent news from Japan, China, Vietnam and India
• PTO did NOT shut down an Internet search site, but ........
• PTO accepting USENET FAQs as formal prior art
• Official PTO comments on GATT and NAFTA
• New PTO biotech utility examination guidelines
• More controversy on 17/20 year patent term - a new House bill
• Including a technical report verbatim in a patent specification
• Inadequacy of PCT/PTO/EPO/JPO software prior art searches
• How to get the Wilson, Sonsini vs. Microsoft brief
• Compuserve and Unisys squabbling over GIF and LZW
• Comments from Commissioner Lehman; PTDL APS use isn't there
• ATT Videoconferencing patent with C++ source code
• A great critique of Unisys' LZW patent enforcement
• 1994 US SOFTWARE PATENT STATISTICS

DECEMBER 1994

• Uganda in PCT; Palestine PTO; Israeli software patents; UK PTO woes
• The largest source code patent?
• Shortest, strangest chemical patent claim just issued
• Settling patent infringement cases in Japan
• Recent NASA patented technology from NASA Tech Briefs
• Reader in Australia is seeks comments on the concept of petty patents
• Patent Office revokes third patent
• NY Bar's Clipper debate; BF Goodrich's Inventor Contest
• More on weird, short chemical patent claims
• More bad news for Agracetus - More good news for Burroughs Wellcome
• Mexico patent application fees; Mexico joins PCT
• Gossip on patent law firms around the country
• Fast track biotech patent processing changes being proposed
• Fascinating account of the laser patent wars
• Derwent is looking to hire biotech (patent) abstractors in the UK
• Compaq sues Packard Bell over notebook/desktop design patents
• Commissioner blasts Republicans; 17/20 hearing; PTO source code rules
• CAFC Travato clarifies Allapat; Question from IPNS reader
• A humongous chemical Markush group
• A badly drafted claim
• $25 million judgment over software trade secret theft

NOVEMBER 1994

• Why math algorithms are very patentable
• Two different courts handle infringement in Japan
• Titles to recent patent news stories in the general press
• Really long first claim - a questionable practice
• Questionable educational device patent awarded
• Patenting still tough in Japan - Genentech loses TPA case
• Patent news from Australia and Taiwan
• PTO examiners disappointed about PTO outsourcing search work to EPO
• More on the rejection of the Compton's multimedia patent claims
• European Patent Office issues pure math software patent
• Data General files patent infringement suit against IBM
• DOE sponsoring a program to promote energy efficiency
• Compton's multimedia, and bunny rabbit software patents rejected
• Commentary on my commentary on pure math software patents
• 17 or 20 years for patents: Data shows it doesn't matter

OCTOBER 1994

• Worldwide losses of revenue resulting from intellectual property theft
• Software patent statistics - January to September 1994
• Proceedings on patent arbitrations available from WIPO
• Patent consumer news from the FTC and Germany
• PTO propose amendments to make CFR compatible with GATT
• PTO outsourcing some of its searching work to the EPO
• PTO cancels PAMS procurement
• New book on intellectual property rights for government contractors
• Mexico amends its patent laws
• Japan's MITI examining patent rights for new technologies
• Former PTO Commissioner Ladd dies
• Commentary on biotech and pharmaceutical patenting
• Chemical patenting comments from PTO 1200 Director Terapane
• Another Lemelson "submarine" software patent
• A criteria list for assessing new inventions

SEPTEMBER 1994

• Worst software patent of the month - zipcode database
• US Department of Justice investigating CD-ROM industry and patents
• Two clean examples of Markush groups in claims
• PTO will be charging PTDLs to access APS
• PTO wants to regulate Invention Marketing companies
• News from the European Patent Office
• New book from Canada on plants, patents and GATT
• NASA patent/licensable technologies - September 1994
• More rumors on the PTO automation project
• Monsanto offers inventing prize
• Did the Alappat case involve software or hardware?
• DOE in middle of squabble over solar cell patents
• CAFC decision overturns case dealing with "best mode" disclosure
• CAFC decision differentiating between "one-piece" and "integral"
• Burroughs Wellcome sues SmithKline Beecham
• Average pendency time for software patent applications
• Australia to adopt 20 year patent term
• Appeals court affirms that HP and Microsoft didn't infringe on Apple
• Another non-novel software patent for a CASE tool
• Want to work for the PTO? Here's your chance.
• US & Japan sign patent agreement
• Two interesting patents with source code
• Three new PTO Depositories plus APS/Internet rumor
• The strange patent turns out to be PTO booboo
• Swaziland joins the PCT next month
• Patents plaguing medical procedures field
• PTO to reexamine Billings/Novell software patent
• PTO not to appeal Alappat decision favoring software patents
• PKP cryptography members suing each other
• New patents from NASA appearing in NASA Tech Briefs
• Lotus and Borland back in appeals court
• Japanese Patent Infringement Insurance
• French spies & patents & copyrights
• First woman solicitor at the PTO
• EC to standarize design patent laws
• Cryptography patents and cartel under challenge
• Company awarded $2.6 million over optics infringement
• CAFC rules that software is patentable
• British Patent Office unions fighting privatization
• Another Circuit Court decision on software - in re Warmerdam
• An observation on changing patent reexamination
• A guide to software patent court decisions

JULY 1994

• Wanna be a patent spy for the Justice Department?
• Two reexaminations filed on one biotech patents
• Two government actions involving patent royalties
• Patent protest letter sent to Clinton
• PTO having trouble with "Internet" trademarks
• NASA patents from July NASA Tech Briefs
• List of tobacco related patents
• Lawsuit war breaking out over fax technology
• Justice Department investigating CDROM "cartel"
• Help sought in filing a patent reexamination against ATT
• Four IP/patent jobs at the University of Minnesota
• Estonia and Liberia join the PCT - now 72 countries
• Electronic records as patent evidence: CFR 37, et.al.
• A company seeks profitable IP to exploit big tax loss

JUNE 1994

• Wang suing Microsoft?
• Two GE diamond film patents are challenged
• Patent injunction requests can be tricky
• Novell petitions Patent Office to reexamine Billings' patent
• Nintendo infringes patent - may owe $300 million+
• Microsoft and STAC settle for less than $120 million jury award
• Lithuania becomes 69th member of the PCT
• Hughes gets $144 million, wanted a billion
• Compton's files over 30 pages of modifications
• Comments from the PTO commissioner on global patenting
• Calgene and Rhone-Poulenc sue Monsanto and Upjohn
• Billings seeking $220 million from Novell
• Are federal dual-use tech funding economically meaningless?
• Announcement of new Japanese Patent regulation
• A book on the invention of zippers
• 10,235,904 combinations claimed in a set of Markush groups

MAY 1994

• Wall Street Investments and Patent Data Analysis
• Two electronics patent deals: Motorola, and ATT/Interdigital
• The PTO's computer systems and networks
• Prosecuting biotech patents - interesting ancedotes
• PTO sponsoring National Inventors EXPO in July
• PTO revokes another patent, this time in electronics
• PTO reexamining second software patent
• News from the European patenting scene
• New ruling from PTO on "means plus function" claims
• Kenya becomes 68th member of Patent Cooperation Treaty (fwd)
• International patenting news items: India, Argentina, Germany
• DOE/NIST will evaluate your energy inventions for free

APRIL 1994

• Software patenting "crisis" worsening
• Interesting patent ancedotes
• Former Soviet Republics form Eurasian Patent organization
• Another bad software patent (the BUNNY) causing trouble
• Another bad software patent (Bunny Rabbit) causing lawsuits
• A patent for designer sperm

MARCH 1994

• Two interesting IBM software patents that include source code
• Three dimensional animation
• Slovenia, Georgia, Trinidad and Tobago join PCT
• Nuisance lawsuits over bad software animation patent
• Justice Department attacking patent monopoly practices
• First technical patent ever - from 1421
• Compton's patent rejected during reexamination
• Comments from the USPTO Commissioner made at recent hearings
• A variety of patent news stories
• 100+ software patents from 1971

FEBRUARY 1994

• Software patent protection in New Zealand
• Position statement on software patents from Autodesk
• Patent Office to reject most of Compton's patent ??
• PTO seeking comments on experimental use patent rights
• PTO backs off from first-to-file harmonization
• Oracle Corporation's position paper on software patents
• New stories about patent infringement lawsuits
• More problems for Compton's multimedia patent
• Microsoft owes Stac $120 million over patent infringement
• Honduras, Estonia, El Salvador join WIPO
• Court of Appeals reconsidering jury trials for patents
• Comments from PTO Commissioner on software patenting
• Bill filed to pre-publish patent applications after 18 months

JANUARY 1994

• VHDL/Verilog/Ada and hardware/software patent equivalence
• News from the British Patent Office
• Microsoft is hiring a software patent lawyer - OH NO
• GAO testimony to USPTO on harmonization
• China joins the PCT

STARTUP 1993

• Videotape of biotech patent workshop available for sale
• Uzbekistan becomes 60th PCT member
• UN publishes book on Intellectual Property
• TI and Compaq announce patent cross license agreement
• Swedish Academy of Engineering book on Swedish and Japanese IP
• Supermac and Rasterops battle over graphics patents
• Patent of AMP subsidiary Carroll Touch ruled invalid
• Patent 4,791,356 lists 18,000 lines of C source code
• PTO seeks comments on National Information Infrastructure IP aspects
• PTO rules in favor of Scios Nova's bFGF DNA patent over Salk Institute
• Novell can't get Billings lawsuit dismissed
• NordicTrack is seeking new health and fitness products and ideas
• New book - "Pharmaceuticals Biotechnology & the Law"
• Gillette and Scripto sue over erasable inks
• General Instruments and Scientific Atlanta cross license patents
• Exxon Chemical wins $48 million from Lubrizol
• Court rules that Honeywell owes Litton $1.2 billion for infringement
• Compton NewMedia announces new broad multimedia patent
• Comments on internal IBM patent policies
• Bayer trademarks the word 'aspirin' in Russia
• Action Technologies announces patents on workflow technology
• 41 patents claims to Compton's multimedia patent

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