USPTO launches beta version of new site

If you're reading this blog then you clearly like to live on the edge. And I can imagine nothing edgier than a brand new beta test for the USPTO's website redesign.

The redesign is pretty dramatic, and my first impression is a positive one. I'm particularly fond of the new "HOW DO I" menu at the right-hand corner of the header.

I'd like to applaud the UPSTO for opening up a forum for public comments (other than, of course, the Federal Register). Users can make suggestions by sending an email or, in a very "Government 2.0" manner, log in to Google Moderator to comment and view the suggestions of others.

Supreme Court to rule on business method patents

The Supreme Court agreed last week to weigh in on last year's landmark Appeals Court ruling on business method patents.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the Supreme Court will hear Bilski v Doll in the fall. Last fall, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., ruled that business method patents, which are a mainstay in high-tech companies' intellectual property portfolios, must meet some very strict standards in order to be valid.

The business method patent debate has polarized interested parties into two camps: one side argues that loose standards for business method patents will encourage innovation; the other argues that the opposite is true.

That being the case, even the best writing about this topic that I've seen on the Web is rife with diatribes, so the blogger in me has to cede control to the librarian, and I'm going to recommend reading the Wall Street Journal's coverage of this topic via a library database.

If you have a library card with SFPL, it's easy: just go to the library's Articles and Databases page, click on "Periodical Finder" towards the top, and punch in Wall Street Journal. Scroll down until you see "Wall Street Journal Eastern Edition," and click the link to Proquest Newsstand. Enter your library card number, and you've got full access: no ads, no pop-ups, and, best of all, it's already paid for. Try using these keywords: "bilski" and "patent." (It's worth noting that you can read the WSJ this way every day.)

If you don't have an SFPL library card, there's a good chance you can get to this stuff via your local public library.

In Praise of: Daisuke Inoue, an inventor responsible for making us all stars

There's a great feature in February's (sorry, I'm a little behind) WIPO Magazine about man who describes himself as lazy but who I think is a genius.

Daisuke Inoue, who claims he took up playing the drums because he was lazy and "all you have to do is hit them," stumbled upon gold when he began taping backing music to popular songs so that people in the party could provide the vocals. It seems that when Inoue found that he was unable to accept an invitation to perform music for a business executive's party in 1971, he decided to send a substitute -- prerecorded music that guests could sing along to. The rest is history.

What's unique about Inoue is that he has never pursued any kind of IP protection for his invention. In an era of patent trolls, endemic piracy, and countless legal battles between corporations, it's refreshing to learn that the person responsible for such a popular invention isn't really worried about the potential millions that he could have made had he pursued a patent.

“I’m not an inventor. I simply put things that already exist together, which is completely different. I took a car stereo, a coin box and a small amp to make the karaoke. Who would even consider patenting something like that?”

I'll make sure I dedicate my next 5 minutes of karaoke superstardom to Daisuke Inoue, the genius behind karaoke.