Patent models for sale

Check this out: http://www.nytstore.com/ProdInterCode.aspx?prodcode=875&intercode=1172

The New York Times Store, which sells lots of cool, expensive, and often kind of useless decorator goods, is selling off a cache of U.S. patent models. The models are actual models submitted by inventors to the US Patent Office before the model requirement was lifted in 1890.

According to the Rothschild Petersen Patent Model Museum website, one of the reasons the USPTO stopped requiring models was because of space limitations, which is totally understandable and, to me at least, evokes a funny image of someone trying to squeeze another model of a gadget into a crowded garage somewhere in D.C.

The invention of inventors

Chlorophyll Paint, invented by Vennesya Huang

With their fresh perspectives and busy minds, kids can be really creative inventors. The USPTO is working with the Ad Council (children of the Reagan era will recall their memorable egg-themed PSAs) and the Inventor's Hall of Fame to give them a space to exercise their innovation.

InventNow is a kid-oriented website with information and activities for the budding inventor. This site is a lot of fun -- learn about patents, play games, and check out other kids inventions in the gallery. Best of all, inventors who submit their designs to the site receive a printable "InventNow Patent."

The gallery is loaded with great inventions, but I think my favorite is Vennesya Huang's Chlorophyll Paint, which converts CO2 into oxygen, thus improving the air quality of any room painted with the stuff. Brilliant!

Glee-full copyright infringement?

Here's an interesting op-ed (via the Balkanization blog) from a Yale Information Society Fellow named Christina Mulligan about modern strict interpretation of copyright in the context of mash-ups and reinterpretations of music videos on the TV show Glee.

Mulligan poses this question: does the law favor copyright holders so much that it impacts people's ability to advance knowledge?

How about "Good Mornay-ing?"

Leave it to budding restaurateurs in the East Bay to come up with a creative way to avoid trademark litigation.

According to her blog Local Lemons, Allison Arevalo, along with her business partner Erin Wade, made a good-faith effort to ensure that the name of their forthcoming Oakland restaurant, Little Mac, wouldn't be a problem to a certain other restaurant that goes by the name Mac.

It turns out the name was a problem, and so it's a good thing that they checked it out. As much as it was probably a pain to have to go back and re-brand the business after building up a local buzz over the past couple months, it could have been devastating to have to change the name after opening.

The lesson? Do your best to think of possible conflicts with a business or product name as early in development of said product or business as possible. The Little Mac folks ran the name by a lawyer who suggested they check in with McDonald's before opening the restaurant. By doing so, they avoided a potentially ugly legal dispute. Read more on developing a strong mark in Stephen Elias and Richard Stim's Trademark: Legal Care for your Business or Product Name (Nolo 2007).

BTW, I love the solution they came up with to their restaurant name problem: they held a contest. Whoever comes up with the best name gets mac and cheese for life. Yes!

Google and USPTO team up to provide bulk patent and trademark data

The USPTO announced last week that Google will make available, for no cost, bulk data files that had previously only been available through the USPTO for a fee.

What does this mean for us consumers of patent and trademark data? Not much yet -- the data, available from Google in large ZIP files and containing such information as patent images, bibliographic data for patents and trademarks, assignments and fees information, and Trademark Trial and Appeal Board proceedings -- is available only in unaltered (except for formatting for ZIP files) form.
But there is a potential value for the public in that, by making the data available for free, the USPTO and Google have removed a barrier to third-parties who may take the bulk data and create innovative means of accessing patent and trademark information.

Score one for open access to government information!

USPTO proposes a tiered (instead of tired?) approach to patent examination

The USPTO announced Thursday a plan to change the way patent applications are processed. The proposed plan would give applicants the option of choosing one of three paths for examination, based on their perception of the necessity of a quick examination and willingness or ability to pay extra for a faster examination.

The proposed three-track plan would send applications down one of the following paths:

• A "priority" track, in which applicants pay an extra fee to have their application pushed to the top of the pile.
• A middle track, in which applications are examined in the order in which they come in, which is identical to the way in which virtually all applications are currently processed.
• A slow track, in which applicants can choose to delay examination of their patents for up to 30 months.

The slow track kind of baffles me. I do understand that some applicants may benefit from a greater amount of time for market research, product development, etc. It's just that I've never known anyone to complain that an application was examined too quickly...

Anyhow, the arguments for and against will commence as the USPTO seeks public comment for advice on whether or not to do the program, how to determine the fees, and some additional aspects of the Office's proposal to reduce examination backlog time. There's a nice treatment of the piece from the Wall Street Journal here. Here's a link to the official Federal Register Notice.