November 19th, 2009

Trademarks are always adjectives. That is the first thing I learned in trademarks class in law school. Take that as a given. Trademarks are always adjectives. By corollary then, trademarks are never verbs.

Enter GOOGLE®. GOOGLE is a search engine that prowls the internet and Finds Things with reasonable efficiency, and it is very popular. So popular, in fact, that the name of the website and company — Google — is now defined as “to search for on the internet.”

Whoa. That’s a verb. Notice the infinitive there? “To search…” That must mean that the word being defined is a verb. “To google.” I hear “google” being used as a verb in common parlance all the time: “I googled myself” instead of “I ran a GOOGLE® search on myself.” It’s shorter. It’s easier to say. It’s wrong.

By making the mark synonymous with that which the mark is meant to identify, the English speakers of the world have admitted the verb “to google” into the English language. English does that. It gloms onto new, interesting and fun words and simply swallows them whole. It did that with aspirin, cellophane and escalator. It’s doing that with XEROX® and KLEENEX®. And, it seems, English is glomming onto GOOGLE®.

French, on the other hand, does not glom. The French language is governed and controlled by a group of word scholars in Paris called >L’Academie Française. These etymologists examine every new word that comes their way to see if the word is eligible for admission into the French language (don’t ask me about the standards they use; run a GOOGLE® search on “l’academie française” and find out for yourself). Therefore, when a new word makes it into the French language, it’s a pretty big deal.

Regardez ici — that means “Look here” for you non-French-speakers — and see what has happened in French. I even heard a rumor from a French-scholar client of mine that it’s officially listed by L’Academie.

Wow. The French have admitted “googler” (pron. “goo-GLAY”) into their language. Is this admission based on usage the death knell for the GOOGLE® mark? After all, if a mark comes to mean what the product or service is, the mark can be challenged as being generic. Even fanciful marks can turn generic with usage: the list of these is long. Escalator. Cellophane. Aspirin.

Stay tuned.

Tags: Google, L'Academie Française, Trademark Law
Posted in Trademark/Service Mark | 1 Comment »

October 18th, 2009

• USPTO's 14th Annual Independent Inventors' conference scheduled in Alexandria, VA. Worth attending, inventors!! http://tinyurl.com/yzajolb #
• RT @nansen Verified. WARNING do NOT open tweets/DMs saying 'ur in this vid' or check out video.It's phishing scam to STEAL your password! #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Tags: Tweets, Twitter
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

October 14th, 2009

14th Annual Independent Inventors Conference.

It will be held at the USPTO on November 5-6, 2009. The cost of registration is $120.00, which covers both days.

If you are an inventor, independent or not, this conference is worth attending. No better place to get information than straight from the horse’s mouth, and, in this case, the USPTO is the horse.

Posted in Patent, Universal IP | No Comments »

October 13th, 2009

According to the Wall St. Journal today:

—————–

“Although the office has traditionally operated with a backlog, the pile has increased in recent years. Even though there has been a drop-off in applications during the recession, it hasn’t helped examiners catch up. One reason is that overtime has been cut, so examiners spend fewer hours processing applications. What’s more, because the office is entirely funded by user fees, the dropoff has left it with a budget gap.

“Patent rules haven’t changed significantly in five decades, despite many attempts by Congress.

“This year, a fragile compromise between pharmaceutical and technology companies on a Senate bill could make a difference. The bill would institute a “first-to-file” system that would award patents based on the date an application is filed, rather than on the date of invention was made.”

—————–

A first-to-file patent priority system. Wow.

That would match with much of the rest of the world’s patent practice, so it would go a long way toward harmonization of worldwide patent law. It is, though, a BIG break from the way the US has traditionally handled patent application priority, based on a first-to-invent system. Here’s the difference:

A first-to-file system is a race to the patent office. Whoever files first wins. The actual date of invention is irrelevant.

A first-to-invent system grants patent rights based on proof of the date of invention. The date of filing is the presumptive date of invention, but the inventor, should an application be filed by someone else on the same invention, has the opportunity to prove that she made the invention first and worked diligently on the invention until the date of filing. This is called an “interference.”

I didn’t know that there were so many interferences before the USPTO that instituting a first-to-file system would make a difference in the patent application backlog. While I’m all for a first-to-file system for reasons of international patent law harmonization, I think it’s folly to believe that instituting a “first-to-file” system would make the least dent in the patent application backlog.

So prove me wrong.

Posted in Patent | No Comments »

September 20th, 2009

• I'm looking for a med mal plaintiff's atty in upstate NY to take on two hospitals & several doctors who screwed up badly. Any suggestions? #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Tags: Tweets, Twitter
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

September 18th, 2009

Click here for the story …

“The 2008 National Medal of Technology and Innovation winners are:

•Dr. Forrest M. Bird for his pioneering work in the field of respiratory and cardiopulmonary care including the revolutionary BABYBird®. This device dramatically reduced the infant respiratory failure mortality rate from approximately 70 percent to 10 percent. His more recent medical invention of Intrapulmonary Percussive Ventilation (IPV) ® concepts have reduced pulmonary failure in the most critically injured military and civilian burn patients from about 75 percent to 5 percent. Dr. Bird’s innovations have saved millions of lives.

•Dr. Esther S. Takeuchi for the development of the silver vanadium oxide battery technology which powers the majority of today’s implantable cardiac defibrillators and innovations related to other enabling medical battery technologies that power implantable pacemakers, implantable neurostimulators and left ventricular assist devices. Dr. Takeuchi’s innovations have saved and dramatically improved the quality of hundreds of thousands of human lives.

•Dr. John E. Warnock and Dr. Charles M. Geschke for their pioneering contributions that spurred the desktop publishing revolution and for changing the way people create and engage with information and entertainment across multiple mediums including print, Web and video.

•International Business Machines Corporation for the IBM Blue Gene supercomputer, which re-established United States leadership in high performance computing. Blue Gene’s systems architecture, design and software have delivered fundamental new science, unsurpassed speed and unparalleled energy efficiency, which have had a profound impact on the worldwide high-performance computing industry.”

On a personal note, Dr. Bird’s invention, taken to a new level, saved my daughter’s life about five years ago, so I’m delighted he won this prestigious award. Congratulations are due all around, so congratulations to the 2008 National Medal of Technology and Innovation!

Tags: 2008 Medal of Technology and Innovation, Charles M. Geschke, Esther S. Takeuchi, Forrest M. Bird, IBM, John E. Warnock
Posted in Patent, US Patent & Trademark Office | No Comments »

September 10th, 2009

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor gets feisty on big bench debut.

It’s always fun to watch what the Nine Wise Ones are doing, but if this is “feisty,” the reporter who wrote this piece hasn’t seen many oral arguments before any appellate court, let alone the US Supreme Court.

Justice Sotomayer, the newbie Justice and the first Obama appointee to the High Court, asked a couple of questions. Supreme Court justices do that. So do appeals court judges. Usually they ask more than a couple of questions. There are times when the lawyers arguing the case can’t catch their breaths from the barrage from the bench. Seems to me that Justice Sotomayer sounds pretty restrained, not “feisty.”

But that’s me.

BTW, I’m glad to see that she doesn’t feel obligated to wear the ruffles and fluff around the collar that her two lady predecessors on the Court insist on wearing. Her picture is in a plain black robe, which is what every Supreme Court Justice should wear, regardless of gender.

Welcome to the highest bench, Justice Sotomayer.

For public consumption, Justice Sotomayer’s colleagues on the US Supreme Court bench are:

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. (Bush II)
Associate  Justice John Paul Stevens (Ford)
Associate Justice Antonin Scalia (Reagan)
Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy (Reagan)
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas (Bush I)
Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Clinton)
Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer (Clinton)
Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. (Bush II)

Two Justices have retired in recent memory:

Associate Justice (Ret.) Sandra Day O’Connor (Reagan)
Associate Justice (Ret.) David H. Souter (Bush I)

It’s fun to see how these people stack up politically (yeah, I know, the US Supreme Court is supposed to be free of politics. Ri-i-i-ight.). The appointing president is a good indicator of whether a Justice will swing toward the liberal or the conservative.

Those appointed by conservative presidents:

Roberts
Stevens
Scalia
Kennedy
Thomas
Alito

Those appointed by liberal presidents:

Ginsburg
Breyer
Sotomayer

Justice Stevens has been known to decide liberally, as has Justice Kennedy. I don’t know Chief Justice Roberts well enough yet to know how he leans (I suspect he’s a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, though), and Justice Sotomayer is, of course, brand-new (though she seems to be fairly liberal in her views). Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito are pretty straight-line conservative, and Justices Ginsburg and Breyer are pretty straight-line liberal.

Heaven help Roe v. Wade with this line-up.

Tags: Justice Sonia Sotomayer, US Supreme Court, US Supreme Court Justices
Posted in US Supreme Court | No Comments »

August 31st, 2009

Disney to Buy Marvel for $4 Billion – ABC News.

Wow. Just wow.

Disney is already among the biggest entertainment businesses in the world, what with the movies and the theme parks and the hotel properties and the Broadway shows and all the rest of it. I believe they even have an inroad in the comics market (if they don’t now, I’m sure they did when I was a kid; I remember Mickey Mouse comics). Marvel has a thoroughly different look from Disney, so this will be an interesting evolution. I wonder if Superman will develop the Disney eyes?

Tags: Disney, Marvel Comics
Posted in Contracts, Copyright, Franchising, General Business Law, Licensing, Trade Dress, Trademark/Service Mark | No Comments »

August 30th, 2009

• RT @tweetmeme Community Can Be SO Powerful http://bit.ly/K0Gl5 I don't usually RT stuff from my marketing contacts, but this is REALLY GOOD. #
• RT @ChrisBellNZ Those accused of breaking copyright will have internet connections cut off under new laws proposed by UK gov't bit.ly/4i229K #
• RT @GeekforWii NWFanboy Nintendo, Hillcrest Labs settle patent infringement case: According to a Bloomberg report, … http://bit.ly/DIEXs #
• RT @rvazquez Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, others sued for patent infringement http://bit.ly/4tYIP #
• RT @arieldesign "A Good Trademark: A Historical Perspective" – Steven Heller http://bit.ly/4EBDHE #
• RT @haleymaple RT @ewusiak: Anheuser-Busch pulls 'Fan Cans' at some colleges; trademark issues involved http://usat.me/?36058832 #
• RT @DIYMKTchat RT @SannWood: Win a new HP Printer – ask a trademark or copyright question: http://ad.vu/jskq join #smbchat Wed 8/26 8pm ET #
• Love it!! RT @mikk_IPRDefinitions of invention on the Web: http://blpqu.tk #
• Words to live by: RT @billymcline Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall. Confucius #
• so…how long does it take to delete a tweet???? so far, it's been many seconds; in fact, it's pushing a minute. Not good…. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Tags: Tweets, Twitter
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

August 30th, 2009

The link for the video, in case it doesn’t show up, is here.

UPDATE: Microsoft Appeals Word Patent-Injunction Case – WSJ.com.

As well they should.

Watch for the case to get argued before and decided by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which holds exclusive jurisdiction over patent cases.

The district judge’s ruling does seem to me to be a bit overbearing: Microsoft can’t sell Word because a part of it infringes a patent held by a Toronto-based company called i4i. 14i now has a permanent injunction against Microsoft granted earlier this month.

Your Honor, wouldn’t an enforced license and a hefty money judgment have done the job without threatening the software base of thousands if not millions of companies worldwide who rely on Microsoft Office products to get their own work done?

Don’t get me wrong here: I in no way approve of or endorse Microsoft’s aggressive patent infringing policies. However, Microsoft products are heavily used and therefore needed in the business world, and this ruling potentially disturbs many, many other businesses which are already struggling in the current economy. Requiring businesses to switch software midstream could spell collapse for many small and medium-sized businesses that simply cannot budget for the conversion from Microsoft Word to a new word processing system when the time comes to upgrade (for you know that Microsoft will sue in patent anyone who puts any code that in any way resembles its code for reading Word documents into word processing software…).

And the wheels on the bus go round and round…

Posted in Patent | No Comments »