ABA Survey

In case anyone reading this blog is an attorney and would like to help the ABA, I received the below e-mail this morning: 

The ABA Journal is surveying lawyers about the job market and the current state of the economy. We'd appreciate it if you could let readers know about our survey with a mention on your blog. Here is the link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=9Dhw2g7bX_2bxfq4mW8eB1Cg_3d_3d

Survey results will be published in the January ABA Journal. If you post a note about our survey on your blog and send us the link, we'll be sure you're among the first to know when we're ready to post the results. Answers will be kept confidential and used only in combination with all other responses received. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact me.

Thanks for your help.

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."

10 steps to importing 500+ Google Toolbar bookmarks into Google Chrome

Just upgraded my internet experience by switching to Google's new Chrome browser. Faster, cleaner - very good overall. 

Except there is no toolbar support. Several hundred carefully organized bookmarks live inside my Google Toolbar, and without a way to import these, my Chrome experience was suffering.  

So after a bit of fiddling, this appears to be the easiest way to import your favorites state from Google Toolbar into Google Chrome:

1. In your Google toolbar favorites click "Manage All"
   
2. When the webpage comes up, in the bottom center there is a link which says "Export to: My Computer" - click that link and save the file to your desktop.
   
3. In IE 8.2, the favorites button is under the gold star on the upper left, click the gold star to reveal a submenu which reads "Add to Favorites..."- click the small black down arrow next to that text to reveal an additional submenu button called "Import and Export..." . 
   
4. Now select "Import from a File" and click Next.
   
5. Select "Favorites" and Click Next
   
6. Click browse and find the file you created on your desktop in step 2 and click next.
   
7. Select the folder you want the favorites to reside and click import.
   
8. In Chrome, under the wrench in the upper right, click "Import Bookmarks and Settings" - select all four items and click import.
   
9. Click Ctrl+B to toggle the bookmarks bar in Chrome, the Google Toolbar links will be under the "Other Bookmarks" folder on the far right.
   
10. Drag and drop folders from that folder to the Favorites Bar, customize as desired. 
    

Hope this helps. Cheers.

Chief IP Officer

(Image courtesy of http://www.vcwear.com/)

Coming up in Amsterdam is the first ever Chief IP Officer Summit being presented by Intellectual Asset Magazine and Ocean Tomo.

I will not be going this year, but wanted to prepare something important for those who will be attending.

The CIPO in every company must be the CEO and no one else. Whomever is designated functional head of IP (whether a licensing, legal, technical, or financial professional), it must be their job to:

1) Iteratively and clearly understand the strategy and needs of the business.

2) Determine organizationally, what IP issues will need to be addressed by whom and how important will those issues be relative to the other issues on that professionals plate. (This prioritization step is left out of nearly every corporate IP strategy I have ever seen.)

3) Look for opportunities where the IP function can make other functional tasks easier in the core business. (This includes providing IP based market analysis, competitive insights, technology positioning, financial valuations, inventor recruiting, etc.)

4) Design an IP organization that can rapidly address the highest priority needs to enable the business. Not just the traditional IP needs.

5) Deploy and execute.

6) Measure your results, in dollars, yen or euros, and report back to the executive staff.

Despite one's career ambitions and the need for a functional head to manage the complex and critical needs of an IP department, disassociating IP from the core business is a bad and dangerous idea. We have the opportunity to eliminate many of the negative connotations and stigmas associated with other (often) disassociated functional heads (e.g. CIO, GC, etc.) and it is important we remain focused on doing so.

For example, when IP is a stand-alone organization, the office and function is often seen similar to that of a CIO and IT department; fundamentally serving as a necessary enabler, but not critical or core to business development. In this situation, typically a substantial licensing program is necessary for the organization to remain relevant.

If one looks at a CIPO as head of a function in a legal organization, too often they are unfortunately labeled as business roadblocks; one which needs to be checked with, hassled by, and finally overcome before products can be offered. It takes a special person to avoid and mitigate that perception and interact seamlessly with technology and business leaders.

If we remain focused on enabling business development faster, as above, our function will naturally align with executive decision makers.



So while the title Chief Intellectual Property Officer (or something similar: IP Managing Director, VP of Intangibles, Exalted Head of the Unseen) is important to differentiate IP from other functions, it is absolutely critical that we do not unintentionally disassociate our function with the core business. As an industry, instead of creating another peripheral function, our goal should be to make CEO's, CIPO's themselves.

Free Patent Drafting

My father passed away last Monday. Exactly one week earlier he was told that his oral cancer was no longer operable and that he had about one week left. His previous surgeries removed much of his upper and lower jaw and cheek. After his last surgery, the doctor remarked that "there is more of your face in the jar than on your face" and further surgeries would most likely be out of the question.

I have been with my family in Maryland the last few weeks and just returned to San Francisco on Tuesday.

Smokers, those who chew tobacco, and black men make up 95% of all oral cancer cases. My father was in none of these three classes. There was no treatment which could manage or contain this cancer as it formed, spread and ulcered.

So, if there is anyone reading this sitting on an invention dealing with the management or cure of oral cancers, I would like to draft your patent application for free. I will research the art, scope the claims, draft the examples and detailed description to the best of my ability. I formerly examined patents in class 250, Radiant Energy Systems, an example of which can be found here: US Patent 6809325 - "Apparatus for generating and selecting ions used in a heavy ion cancer therapy facility."

I will then find you attorneys or agents with domain expertise to review, file and prosecute the application(s), hopefully at significantly reduced cost.

There probably aren't too many inventors in this space who don't already have an IP department they can turn to for assistance, but if I can facilitate one or two of these a year, at least it is something. Please e-mail inquiries to emgill@gmail.com.

Thanks.