The 2013 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas drew the second-highest number of attendees in history. According to the official records, 104,800 people attended the conference, which is 17% higher than last year. For those of us who have seen the oil business in boom and bust cycles, the boom cycles are definitely more interesting! [...]
Repeal of Statutory Invention Registrations (SIRs) Statutory invention registrations were used by applicants for publishing patent applications on which they no longer felt they could get patents. By publishing the patent applications, they helped ensure that the inventions were in the public domain and no one else could subsequently get a patent on them. SIRs [...]
On February 27, 2013, U.S. Congressman Peter DeFazio (of Oregon) introduced H.R. 845, new patent legislation, which is entitled the Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes (“SHIELD”) Act of 2013. The bill is intended to deter patent litigation by Non-Practicing Entities (“NPE”). An NPE is most well-known as a patent troll. More specifically, the bill [...]
The song “Happy Birthday To You” is very well-known and frequently sung at birthday parties. Yet many people are unaware that the song is actually protected by a copyright belonging to Time Warner. For this reason, in January, the Free Music Archive and the WFMU, a radio station in New Jersey, hosted “The Birthday Song” [...]
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the AutoHarvest Foundation announced yesterday the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work together to spur innovation and generate jobs in advanced manufacturing. The two organizations will collaborate on the creation of an online environment for innovators to exchange information, facilitate [...]
