October review: civilization comes to end

Well it has been a month without posting, so hopefully this is not your primary source of IP news and information. For that you should probably be reading Lawrence Ebert, Duncan Bucknell, Dennis Crouch, Stephen Nipper, Peter Zura, Doug Sorocco and/or the patent docs. Hopefully e^(ip) is a nice change of pace once in a while...

October thoughts and news below:

Patent professionals were on the edge of their seat for the release of "Flash of Genius", the tale of inventor Robert Kearns, and his 12 year patent litigation with Ford. It opened to solid reviews; with the Rotten Tomatoes consensus:

"The touching underdog story of a single guy against a massive corporation, Flash of Genius is a well-paced and well-written tale with a standout performance by star Greg Kinnear."

Decent reviews, established Hollywood star, this is going to bring Patents to the mainstream right? Right? Um...

October box office totals for two movies which opened on October 3:

Beverly Hills Chihuahua - $78 M

Flash of Genius - $4 M

Bad times... maybe if they had gone for the contentious, high stakes patent disputes of Gary Michelson, who won a $1.35 billion settlement from Medtronic, maybe that would have upended the dog movie juggernaut?

Anyway, also in October, the world's financial institutions collapsed, the four horsemen were sighted, etc. However, from what I am hearing, that has not seemed to impact IP markets too much. Everything seems surprisingly stable on that front.

Finally in October, I came across a work summarizing the nature and dynamics of IP negotiations and deal making. By the 21st century modern philosopher Fall Out Boy, in their treatise "This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race", the opening stanza is apparently told from the prospective of IP brokers in the narrative first person:

"I am an arms dealer, fitting you with weapons in the form of words."