Category: Blake’s Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights

I am happy to report that I just returned from the 2018 National Association of Patent Practitioners (NAPP) conference in Alexandria, VA at the Patent Office.  The conference was 3 days long, and included learning about topics such as current issues in Intellectual Property; Overview of Information Management Tools and “Gadgets” on USPTO Website; The Key to Identifying the Broad Inventive Concept; provisional patent application practice, international patent applications and utility models, and much more.  This conference helps me stay current on patent law and practice.  The program can be found here.

The June 2018 update of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board Manual of Procedure (TBMP) is now available on the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board webpage. The revision describes current practice and procedure under the applicable authority and relevant case law reported between March 3, 2017, and March 2, 2018.  More information is available here.

The USPTO is hosting a Patent Quality Chat webinar on July 10, from noon to 1 p.m. ET.  The Chat will be about “Improving Access to Global Patent Data.”

Imagine free access to patent application information from patent offices around the world through one single, secure portal. Global Dossier, a concept delivered by the IP5 Offices (USPTO, EPO, JPO, KIPO, and SIPO), provides such access and more. Attend this webinar to learn about all the Global Dossier services, especially the Citation List for robust prior art searching, and to discuss potential new functionalities for Global Dossier in the future.

This webinar is designed for all those involved in patent prosecution and prior art searching.

No registration needed to attend. More information, including how to attend, is available here.

Registration is now open for Invention-Con 2018, a free two-day conference that will be held at the USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, on August 17-18 from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. ET each day. This year’s theme is “From Concept to Commercialization.”

You’ll hear from successful entrepreneurs and inventors about bringing ideas to market. You’ll also get practical advice on:

• Navigating intellectual property protection processes.
• Strategies to protect your innovations with patents, trademarks, and copyrights.

If you are an inventor or business owner, make sure to register early for Invention-Con 2018; space is limited. For more information, go here.

The USPTO’s Inventor Info Chat webinar series continues on June 21, 2018 from 11 a.m. – noon ET, with an additional discussion of the Application Data Sheet (ADS). The chat will focus on answering questions presented in the April program, “Understanding the ADS:  Little Things Make a Big Difference,” and will provide the opportunity for additional questions to be asked.  More information can be found here.

Last week I attended the Inventors Association of Connecticut (IACT) meeting.  Steve Shwartz presented on Artificial Intelligence (AI).  It was an excellent presentation, and very good explanation on AI, and the current direction AI is heading.  Topics like this one, is another great reason to attend IACT meetings.  More information can be found here.

The inventors association of Connecticut (IACT) will be hosting a talk on “How AI works, how to put it to work, and why it won’t take over the world” by Steve Shwartz.

AI has had tremendous recent success: speech recognition, machine translation, face recognition, driverless cars and much more to come. A recent MIT study showed that 85% of CEOs believe that AI is critical for competitive advantage. This talk will explain at a very high level how AI works, how organizations and inventors can make use of the technology, and why fears of AI taking over the world are unfounded.

The IACT meeting will be held at the Fairfield University Library Room 101, at 7:00PM Tuesday, on May. 29, 2018.  More information can be found here.

Join the USPTO on May 17, 2018 from 11 a.m. to noon ET for their Inventor Info Chat webinar “Prior art and its use in determining patentability.”

This presentation is for inventors who want to understand what examiners at the USPTO consider to be prior art and how prior art is used in official correspondence to applicants.

More information, including how to attend, is available on the USPTO’s Inventor Info Chat event page on the USPTO website, which can be found here.

Sign-up is now open to attend the Aug. 14-16 “Inventor 3-Day Course” on examination practice and procedure at USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. The course is offered to members of the public as part of the USPTO’s Stakeholder Training on Examination Practice and Procedure (STEPP) program.

As a prerequisite, those accepted will be required to review several computer based training modules prior to the start of the course. This course is provided through a partnership between the Office of Patent Training and the Office of Innovation and Development and is not intended for those interested in representing applicants before the USPTO.

More information, and a proposed upcoming course schedule, is available on the USPTO STEPP page here.

Last Tuesday I attended the Inventors Association of Connecticut (IACT) meeting at Fairfield University.  Another patent attorney was presenting on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions.  After Alice, the two-part test on whether a invention is patent eligible is:  1.  is the claim directed to a judicial exception (law of nature, natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea); 2.  if yes, then does the claim recite additional elements that amount more to the judicial exception.

My normal practice is to write claims that are clearly not an abstract idea (claims directed to a law of nature or natural phenomenon are so rare in my practice that I have never written one).  However, patent attorney John Yankovitch says that when he must write claims that are directed to an abstract idea then he does part 2 of the test and adds significantly “more” to the claims.  In that endeavor examples of significantly more are:

1.  improvement to another technology or technical field, e.g. a mathematic formula applied in a specific rubber molding process;

2.  improvements to the functioning of the computer itself;

3.  applying the judicial exception with, or by use of a particular machine;

4.  transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing, e.g. manufacturing fat acids and glycerine from fatty bodies by the action of water at a high temperature and pressure; and

5. performing an unconventional step.

Mr. Yankovitch stated that examples 1, 2, and 5 seem to have the most success at the USPTO.

These are good rules of thumb!