I'd like to draw your attention to Dennis Crouch's latest posting on Patenly O, presenting an actual estimation of waiting times for a first USPTO Office Action .

I don't know if the statistics refer to all US Applications, i.e. including those filed as a PCT National Phase. As far as I know, Applications filed as a national phase of a PCT Application take longer than Applications originally submitted as a US Application.

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Prof. John F. Duffy analyses at Patently-O the probable position of the USPTO towards software patents as presented in a series of cases. Specifically, patentable subject matter must result in a physical transformation of an article that is tied to a particular machine. A general purpose computer may probably not be regarded as a particular machine, and data structures and numbers (e.g. webpage rankings) may probably neither be regarded as articles nor as being physically transformed. Well – some news for the software industry.

The analysis is recommended as being not only thorough but also quite easy to read.

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As cleantech develops as an industry, so do cleantech related patents. The Cleantech Group at Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti P.C, publishes a quarterly growth index 

of patents in the field of clean energy. Patents in the field are primarily related to fuel cells and secondarily to wind, sold and hybrid electrical energy in a similar weight, the former are the only field characterized by a continuous growth in patent numbers. Overall the study  includes over 200 US patents per quarter which is quite small. It is important to keep in mind that the current state of the cleantech field may better mirrored by the numbers of patent applications, however these are not published till 18 months after filing, and prosecution may take at least a time period that is similar in duration. The index

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 A webpage at wipo presents annually selected notable inventors. I would like to share with you some inventions for daily use by these notable inventors

(WO/2001/033409) COMPUTER GENERATED POETRY SYSTEM

by Raymond KURZWEIL;

 

(WO 03/103559) Hybrid Human/Electric Powered Vehicle

and

(WO 02/011641) Apparatus and Method for Cleaning Teeth

by

Dean KAMEN; 

 

(WO 98/049868) LIGHT ENHANCED BULLHORN

and

(WO 03/091099) ROTORCRAFT

by

Elwood Norris;

 

 and finally

 (WO 98/028988) EDIBLE TOY FIGURES CONSTRUCTED OF CEREAL, AND METHOD

and

 (WO 98/038810) DISPOSABLE WIRELESS TELEPHONE AND METHOD

by

Randice-Lisa ALTSCHUL.

 

I hope you have enjoyed!

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A possibility for opposing pending patent applications in the US is presented by Dennis Crouch in his blog Patently-O under the title "poor-man's opposition proceedings ".

The US law does not allow opposing a patent application (in contrary e.g. to israeli procedures which are partly based on receiving third party's oppositions), however they do commit applicants to submit to the patent office any relevant subject matter.

So, the procedure comprises sending such subject matter to the applicant, thus making him obligated to disclose it to the patent office!

I like this

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 I would like to recommend the Duncan Bucknell blog , which contains a wealth of information and articles in different IP related themes. The posts are very well organized namely in a weekly report of news from all over the world (with indication of the blogs reporting them) and also in scorecards which hold the items categorized after the relevant firms (e.g. - find all IP issues relating to Apple). Just delve

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Here's a nice article about patenting the atomic bomb

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89127786 

 Some interesting quotes:

 "The idea behind the patent program was to give the government some legal protection ... when the U.S. government exited World War II, they owned patents on practically everything related to atomic energy research at that point ...  By 1947 ...  about 2,100 patent applications [were] approved for filing."

 It is indeed very fortunate for the free world, that the US had owned the patents, and not somebody

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Victoria Slind-Flor reports at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=at.BdRGGrFkk&refer=germany that the leading large firms in the area of WIMax technology pool their patents in this area in order to ease using the technology in consumer electronics.

 This step should reduce royalties, can anyone refer to such a step in other areas of

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Hello again,

following Biomed 2008 in Israel and after talking to some ex-scientists that have turned to patent drafting, I would like to share with you a word of encouragement. Here's an article from USAToday (from a year ago) indicating that (as David Bowie sings) - we're not alone!

Yours,

Ophir.

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I would like to share my fascination with the patent clustering agent SparkIp (at www.sparkip.com , easily available via PatentPal I reported earlier). It visualises clusters of patent relating to keyword in a way that makes wandering through patent landscape enjoyable. I did not understand how it works, as it does not seem to follow the classification system (it includes only US patenets and some of the applciations currently), and am not fully convinced it is reliable, but it is surely intriguing and potentially add a qualitative factor to patent search.

I would be happy to learn more about it and gain from your experience with it.

An update - On June 16 SparkIP will launch a new and improved version with many additional features including international patent coverage, exports,

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