Fwd: Inventors Eye, Patent office news letter

Here is the latest copy.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Inventors Eye <listmaster@usptoenews.gov>
Date: Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 5:25 PM
Subject: Pasedena Conf., Pro Bono Asst., Patent Reform and more at the USPTO
To: JohnSokol@gmail.com




Inventors Eye

 <http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/independent/eye/201108/index.jsp>

 California Regional Inventors Conference Registration Is Open
 The United States Patent and Trademark Office and Invent Now® will
hold a west coast regional conference at Pasadena City College on
August 12-13. Senior USPTO officials, successful inventors, including
National Inventor Hall of Fame inductee Dr. Gary Michelson, and
intellectual property experts will be on hand to provide practical
advice and information for novice and seasoned inventors.

 Read more
<http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/independent/eye/201108/pasadena.jsp>

 A Message from the Associate Commissioner
 If consideration of patent reform legislation were a football game,
it would now be first and goal on the one-yard line. In June, the
House joined the Senate in passing a patent reform bill by a wide
margin. These bills would bring the greatest changes to this
nation's patent system since 1835.

 Read more
<http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/independent/eye/201108/maulsbymessage.jsp>

 Pro Bono Pilot Program in Minn. Helps Independent Inventors Gain
Patent Counsel

 One comment most often heard from independent inventors is that it
costs too much to get a patent and that they can't afford the cost
of getting competent legal service to assist them in the preparation
and prosecution of their patent application.

 Read more
<http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/independent/eye/201108/probono.jsp>

 Spark of Genius: Giving through a Trademark

It is commonly believed that necessity is the mother of invention,
and yet to the owners of the trademarks on Toms® and Nokero®,
necessity means the responsibility to transform a trademark into a
vehicle of humanitarian deeds.

 Read more
<http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/independent/eye/201108/sparktrademarkgiving.jsp>

 <http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/independent/eye/201108/ffai.jsp>

 advice

 Providing Inventors More Communication and Efficiency

 Participate in the Full First Action Interview Pilot Program.

 <http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/independent/eye/201108/events.jsp>

 events

 Where Inventors Meet

 The USPTO's Inventor Chat August 18th and more events near you.


<http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/independent/eye/201108/organizationsnetwork.jsp>

 network

 Organizations

 Organizations and resources for the independent inventor community.

 <http://www.uspto.gov>

 Inventors Eye
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When Patents attack. The patent system is broken.

This is a excellent story about how the patent system is broken.
This American Life.  When Patents attack.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/26/138576167/when-patents-attack

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110725/03174515229/very-basis-our-patent-system-is-myth.shtml

Ask Slashdot: Open Patent Licenses?

Ask Slashdot: Open Patent Licenses?

"We are working on a new piece of code that will be protected under a GPL license, this is fine for the code itself, but what about our 'innovations'? Are there any 'Open Patent License' models similar to the GPL or Creative Commons? We have Google patenting the highlight of search occurrences, Facebook protecting the word 'Book,' and Apple registering body movements. This is becoming ridiculous to a point. Now the patent trolls are making a killing as well. Does the open source community has a good way to protect its innovations and inventions? There are some initiatives to buy patents and release them to the public or at least place them is a protected area, but where would my very small company register a new way to include titles in a private message? Where could Drupal patent the use of 'hooks' to let developers interact with the core of the application? (If they invented this, I am not really sure.) I don't want to wake up in 10 years and discover that X huge company patented my innovation and that now I actually have to pay them for it."

There's OpenPatents.org, there's the Open Source Hardware and Design Alliance, there's CERN's newly-updated Open Hardware license, and there are domain-specific patent sharing organizations like the Open Patent Alliance; what else is out there?

I ran across the Patent for the Lava Lamp.

I just love the Google patent search engine.
Lava Lamp.  Patent number: 3387396  Filing date: Mar 4, 1965