Information Filled Under 'uspto' Category
Are Patents "Monopolies"? Monday, July 13th, 2009
On occasion you get some defender of patents who is upset when we use the m-word to describe these artificial state-granted monopoly rights. For example here one Dale Halling, a patent attorney (surprise!) posts about “The Myth that Patents are a Monopoly” and writes, ” People who suggest a patent is a monopoly are not being intellectually honest and perpetuating a myth to advance a political agenda.” Well, let’s see. First, see my post Epstein and Patents , noting that the pro-patent Epstein writes: Patented goods are subject to a lawful monopoly created by the state in order to induce their creation.
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Are Patents "Monopolies"?
Per a USPTO press release issued earlier today: Commerce Secretary Gary Locke Takes Key Step to Address Patent and Trademark Office Challenges U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke today announced the appointment of former USPTO official and long-time patent professional Nicholas Godici to look at ways to strengthen the management structure of the USPTO and provide an up-to-date assessment of the challenges the office faces. Godici, hired by current Acting Under Secretary for Intellectual Property and USPTO Director John Doll at Locke’s request, will work with USPTO officials to identify areas of concern and to assist in the transition to a new director
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Appointment of Former Commissioner for Patents Nicholas Godici to USPTO Consultant Position.
Don’t believe the anti-hype around Twitter . Twitter hype punctured by study , reports the BBC on a recent Harvard B school finding : The median user has written only one tweet, and “the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets.” As though it sealed Twitter’s fate, the BBC adds: Research by Nielsen also suggests that many people give the service a try, but rarely or never return. Earlier this year, the firm found that more than 60% of US Twitter users failed to return the following month.
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Don’t believe the anti-hype: Twitter succeeds by leaving room for failure
Just in time for Ada Lovelace Day comes the news that Susan Crawford is headed to the White House as special assistant to the president for science, technology, and innovation policy. Susan is one of clearest thinkers I know on technology policy — which is critical to the continued development of technology (see, for example, her “Biology of the Broadcast Flag” ( PDF ), showing early the errors of technology mandates). She founded OneWebDay , an “Earth Day for the Internet,” and reminded a global community that we sometimes need to demonstrate the Web’s values in order to preserve them.
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Susan Crawford to the White House on Ada Lovelace Day
There’s nothing like a misfired copyright claim to make a presidential campaign see the value of fair use. After finding several of its campaign videos removed from YouTube for copyright claims, the McCain-Palin campaign has fired off an eloquent defense of fair use — and another illustration of where the DMCA’s counter-notification process falls short. The McCain campaign complains that its ads and web videos posted to YouTube have been removed on the complaint of news organizations whose footage was quoted: [O]verreaching copyright claims have resulted in the removal of non-infringing campaign videos from YouTube, thus silencing political speech.
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McCain’s YouTube Takedown Inspires Fair Use Fervor
I’m at Berkman for the open meeting of the Internet Technical Safety Task Force , a group convened at the pressing of state attorneys general to address children’s safety on social networking sites. The day kicked off with statements from Mass and Conn. attorneys general, to be followed by presentations from technology companies offering “solutions” and suggestions
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Won’t someone think of the children’s speech?: Internet Technical Safety Task Force
There’s an interesting article at the New York Times on Bayh-Dole entitled: ” When Academia Puts Profit Ahead of Wonder .” (The article is the most e-mailed article on the nytimes.com website right now.) In general, the article is critical of Bayh-Dole . For example, the author says: Perhaps the most troublesome aspect of campus commercialization is that research decisions are now being based on possible profits, not on the inherent value of knowledge.
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New York Times writes about the impact of Bayh-Dole
The Federal Circuit held this week in Jacobsen v. Katzer , that Java Model Railroad Interface author Robert Jacobsen’s release of software under the Artistic License gave him the right to sue for copyright infringement those who distributed modified JMRI software without obeying the conditions of its license. The decision confirms an important cornerstone to many of the open source and free software licenses: Taking the work without accepting its license’s conditions is an infringement of copyright, subject to all of copyright’s enforcement options
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Federal Circuit Confirms Key Free Software Licensing Practice
PIPRA and Morrison & Foerster, LLP played a key role supporting public sector interests on behalf of CIMMYT in recent negotiations surrounding CIMMYT ’s role in a $47 million dollar project to deliver drought-tolerant maize to sub-Saharan Africa. The Bill & Melinda Gates and Howard G. Buffett Foundations announced their support this week for a project, led by Nairobi-based AATF (The African Agricultural Technology Foundation ), in collaboration with Monsanto Company and CIMMYT (The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center ) that will work to provide new varieties of water-efficient, locally-adapted maize for small-scale African farmers
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Water-Efficient Maize for Africa: PIPRA Supports CIMMYT in Negotiations
Monsanto owns at least two patents on “Roundup Ready” crops that are resistant to glyphosate herbicides. When farmers purchase seeds for Roundup Ready crops they sign a “Technology Agreement”, which requires among other things, that the farmers do not retain any seeds for replanting and that they pay a licensing fee. In 1998, McFarling, a farmer from Northern Mississippi, signed the agreement, paid the license fees, and ultimately purchased Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybean seeds
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Farmer petitions Supreme Court to review Roundup Ready patent case
This year’s World Food Prize was awarded to Professor Philip Nelson of Purdue University, a long-standing member of PIPRA. The Prize is given each year by the World Food Prize Foundation to recognize people who have “advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity, or availability of food worldwide.” The Prize, which is considered the Nobel of agriculture, was established in 1970 by Norman Borlaug, himself recipient of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize
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Purdue Professor Wins the World Food Prize
The World Bank’s Private Sector Development Blog has a short commentary about a recent study by the Bank. The study shows that the percentage of people living in poverty decreased over the past 25 years; however, the total number of people living in poverty did not decrease signifigantly, except in the People’s Republic of China. The authors also suggest that much of China’s poverty reduction is due to agrarian reforms by the Chinese Communist Party since 1970
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World Bank study reveals mixed progress on poverty reduction
“It will be the reference for the next generation” says Ariel Pablos-Mendez, Managing Director of the Rockefeller Foundation at BIO 2007 in Boston on May 6 at the official launch of the 2000 page Intellectual Property Handbook. This collection of 153 chapters on the art and science of intellectual property management teaches us “to think of using IP in the public interest.” Lita Nelsen, head of technology transfer for MIT and one of the editors of the two volume reference book, describes it as “the How-To manual for using the tool of IP.” It is geared, she says, toward two distinct audiences.
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PIPRA and MIHR introduce IP Handbook