Good reporting

(Reporter Sara-Jayne Adams of the UK's Intellectual Asset Management and Erin-Michael Gill)

Sara-Jane Adams has pulled together a number of IP professionals for this months cover story (registration required) on fighting back against the IP backlash, especially with respect to international perceptions of IP. Interesting topic and bit of a surprising read.

Also, I recently started Twittering (http://twitter.com/gillip_com). While it is not exactly an outlet for the kind of in depth IP journalism one might find in IAM, it is a good place to park small interesting insights from time to time. Here's my latest tweet:

gillip_comNote the portfolio license option - MSFT offered all YHOO's IP at a discount b/c of search deal. Good value for both -http://bit.ly/13yQ4m

The longer point is that the IP provisions in the Yahoo search deal could seed a broader collaboration with Microsoft. Allowing MSFT to incorporate YHOO technology - even at a discount - would at least be new revenue into YHOO, and could be a valuable test drive of sorts leading to something far more significant down the road.

Anyway, if you would like to follow my feed, feel free.

Cheers,

e^(ip)

plenIPotentiary discussions at 2009 IPBC

An international working group, assembled and tasked by the UK's Intellectual Asset Management Magazine, met for the first time late last month to discuss and define the role of Chief Intellectual Property Officer for attendees of the IP Business Congress in Chicago.

The results of these discussions were shared at the IPBC and will be further developed into articles and other publications by both IAM and the session facilitators (Ron Laurie and Rob Sterne). Great overview here by Joff Wild and key point summary here by Duncan Bucknell. At the end of the conference, they held a brief roundtable and recorded a few of us answering questions related to the CIPO role.

Full CIPO working group:

Carl Horton, GE

Sherry Knowles, GSK

Ruud Peters, Philips IP & Standards
Marshall Phelps, Microsoft
Todd Dickinson, AIPLA

Peter Cicala, Shire Pharmaceuticals
Damon Matteo, PARC
John Squires, Chadboure & Parke (Goldman Sachs)
Scott Frank, AT&T
Erin-Michael Gill, OQO

Beatrix de Russé, Thomson

Bill Elkington, Rockwell Collins

Duncan Bucknell, Duncan Bucknell Company
James Malackowsi, Ocean Tomo

Bo Heiden, CIP Gothenburg
Shinjiri Ono, Yuasa & Hara
Ian Harvey, IP Institute
Anne Culotta, Halliburton
Wayne Sobon, Accenture

$25,000 Reminder

(image courtesy of Flickr)

Just a quick note: While a patent is one of the most useful incentives to invention, direct financial incentives work too. If you know any promising collegiate inventors (graduate or undergraduate), please help them submit their work to the National Inventors Hall of Fame Collegiate Invention Competition. They are giving out over $50,000 in awards with the winner receiving $25K. Application info can be found here: www.invent.org/collegiate

TeamPatent

One of the most interesting new services out there for both inventors and patent professionals is an NSF-funded start-up called TeamPatent. It is designed to enable faster and more accurate patent drafting, and looks to also have immediate uses for speeding certain patent examination tasks as well (verifying support in the spec for new claims, checking complicated claim dependencies, determining if there is inconsistent element numbering / descriptions in the drawings, etc.). The site is open for free Beta testing while they advance development.

Flash demo from their site below.

Cheers,

e^(ip)

Intellogist

Quick note: 

Much of the discussion of patent quality or patent reform, fundamentally depends on the quality of the art available to those making the determination of patentability. Ensuring that every relevant document which could potentially invalidate a given application is considered both by the applicant in making a filing determination, and the examiner in determining claim scope and patentability in an examination, is one of the most critical inputs to the patent process. 

With respect to this goal, one of the most useful new sites for patent professionals is Intellogist from Landon IP (one of the firms the USPTO uses for outside PCT searching assistance). It provides a free online repository of patent searching resources and IP software package reviews. While some content still needs to be updated, as is, it seems to be a very useful resource. 

Best,

e^(ip)