Stanford Center for Internet and Society

Technology transfer, and the exchange of patents in particular, entering a phase reflecting a maturing of the practice. In the past I’ve reported about the Ocean Tomo patent auctions based on open-outcry bidding. Recently two additional efforts are starting.

Web 2.0 creates Web 2.1 opportunities.

This morning I passed the offices of Reputation Defender in Menlo Park. Intrigued by the name, I checked out their site. Their business scours the web -- social network sites in particular -- for potentially adverse commentary. An additional service works to eradicate offsensive content.

http://www.reputationdefender.com

What's the world coming to? The Madison County Record reports:

"In an article entitled, "TV Ads Lures Inventors," the IP Law & Business reports that ubiquitous TV lawyer James Sokolove refers 90 percent of patent leads he generates to SimmonsCooper.

From the most serene and blissful town of Marshall, TX comes Patent Litigation Haiku from Michael Smith's Eastern District of Texas Practice blog.

http://mcsmith.blogs.com/eastern_district_of_texas/all_patent_litigation...

Not as serene and blissful are some poems entitled 'Ode to Patent Trolls' and 'Patent Trolls Got No Souls' on http://www.savebodog.com/.

A rare Inter Partes patent reexamination just emerged from the PTO, cancelling all 5 claims. Patent 6,614,729 issued to Griner, et. al., for a SYSTEM AND METHOD OF CREATING DIGITAL RECORDINGS OF LIVE PERFORMANCES, is no more. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was the Third Party Requestor.

Claim 1 is

[1. An event recording system, comprising:

Let me clarify: '102(b)' refer to a portion the US statute for patentability of inventions, and '401(k)' refers to the ubiquitous retirement account vehicles.

Forbes.com has a good article entitled "Hedge funds and institutional investors are financing the latest wave of IP lawsuits." See, http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2007/0507/044.html.

Semiconductor Insights, a firm that reverse engineers products, took the screwdriver and pliers to an iPhone. They have a video on YouTube.

http://www.semiconductor.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPhciMud0MM

Greetings from the American Airlines Admiral's Club in Dallas, who among other nice amenities provides public web access. My inbox has this morning's New York Times digest of news. One article catches my eye: "Audio Slide Show: Lifestyles for Layovers", a review of what to do at 5 airports if you're stranded.

That's the question that greeted me this morning as I read my periodic communique from ACM. http://technews.acm.org/.

Reasons cited for declining CS enroll are offshoring of US work to other countries making CS an unattractive career, and a perception in decline of attractiveness as computer technology permeated many levels of society: it was losing status.

A recent order on 2/26/2007 in Apotex v. EON Labs (NYEDC 1-cv-00482) presents a fly-on-the-wallpaper view of a patent case that should have terminated much earlier than it did.