House Small Business Committee Touts Trade Agreements’ Favorable Affects For American Small Businesses

TradingMarkets.com: The House Small Business Committee today announced a the findings of a report on how trade agreements affect American small businesses and the general tenor of the news is upbeat. Here's a snippet from the related press release, Small Business Owners Report U.S. Trade Agreements Help Protect Intellectual Property:

Ranking Member Sam Graves (R-MO) said, "Protecting intellectual property is critical to our economy, jobs, and consumers. A violation of intellectual property laws directly affects a company's brand, market share, bottom line, ability to export, and creates a number of safety concerns for consumers. It's very easy to see the trickle-down effect this has on an economy. It is important that the United States maintains an aggressive strategy to protecting these highly valued assets."

Witnesses from industries such as music, technology and manufacturing discussed the important role that intellectual property has played in growing their business. Witnesses also explained how their businesses have been adversely affected by counterfeiting and piracy.

The Honorable Mr. Graves wouldn't lead the gentle reader astray, no sir. Check out what industry witnesses had to say about Mr. Graves' supportive words on the US' continued enforcement of intellectual property laws at home, and abroad, via the linked piece above.

CNN Politics: The White House's new IP enforcement plan is starting off in an old, familiar direction: eastwards. Towards China, that is. Mackenzie Green is on the spot with a topical piece entitled China will be focus of new U.S. anti-piracy initiative that clarifies IP Czar Espinel's careful targeting of a long-time IP infringement offender. From Green's piece:

Washington plans a "comprehensive review" of its support of U.S. business efforts to prevent intellectual property theft overseas, Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs at a hearing.

Espinel singled out China, saying that "due to the scale and scope of manufacturing, its industrial policies and its potential as an export market, it's fair to say that China raises a particularly troubling set of issues."

"Therefore, China will be a significant focus of our enforcement efforts as we address intellectual property infringement abroad," she said in her opening statements to the committee.

"Whether it's coordinating our law enforcement personnel overseas, developing a strategy to go after foreign-based websites, or using trade policy tools to address the competitive disadvantages that we face, China will be a priority," Espinel elaborated.

As our largest import provider, China stands squarely in the gunsights of US IP enforcement troubles and with piracy levels approaching 100 percent for certain electronic and software products, the nation needs to get some serious help reforming its weak IP protection laws.

AFP: And the US is not the only major power concerned with China's laissez faire attitude towards protecting the innovation of entrepreneurs: the European Union (EU) has had about all it can stomach and notes apprehension by EU businesses who are "increasingly worried about doing business in China, citing intellectual property protection as a major concern." From Shanghai we learn what European Union Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht recently said regarding China/EU trade relations:

"European companies are increasingly worried," De Gucht told reporters at a trade event at the European Union pavilion at Shanghai's World Expo.

"Most of it has to do with the protection of intellectual property because the core of our economy is of course intellectual property," he said.

The indigenous innovation policy forces European companies to register as Chinese companies to participate in the public procurement market and to bring their intellectual property "into the open", De Gucht said.

The EU is in talks with Beijing to improve conditions for European businesses, but De Gucht also said the bloc was working on measures to demand reciprocity in procurement markets

Chinese companies currently enjoy a very comfortable path towards winning government procurement contracts, as the law singles out domestic solutions as more desirable than those coming from overseas, regardless of which solution best fits the situation. Read the remaining portions of EU trade chief says China business concern rising and learn more about why De Gucht & Co. are bucking for a level playing field in China.

PopEater: Robert Burck, better known as the Naked Cowboy of Times Square, New York, is suing the woman billing herself as the "Naked Cowgirl" for infringing on his trademark image and goodwill. Zach Dionne reports on what the hullabaloo is all about in the insightful Naked Cowboy's Manager: 'Naked Cowgirl Is Basically a Criminal'. He writes:

The Naked Cowboy of Times Square (alias Robert Burck) recently filed a lawsuit against lewd imitator Naked Cowgirl in Manhattan federal court. The Cowboy's case rests on the fact that Sandra Brodsky has infringed his copyright and damaged his brand since 2008, Burck's manager, Todd Rubenstein, tells PopEater.

Rubenstein says Brodsky, who also goes by the name Sandy Kane, assumes Naked Cowgirl doesn't fall under the registered trademark of the Naked Cowboy, and "she is sadly mistaken."

"It's infringement; she's basically stealing intellectual property. She's gonna lose," Rubenstein tells us of the lawsuit. "And then she'll probably continue doing what she's doing, she'll be found in contempt of federal court, and she'll be incarcerated. That's the sad part about it."

Rubenstein says Burck's image as the Naked Cowboy is one of international renown and deserves the respect given to other Times Square attractions like "the Empire State Building" or "the Statue of Liberty." Get the details on a Naked Cowboy/Cowgirl duet record deal gone bad and other related gossip on the Naked Cowgirl's "lewd" behavior by clicking through to the real deal.

Bonus IP piece o' the day: BioPatent Design Conference 2010: Munich, Germany by Stephen Albainy-Jenei at PatentBaristas.com.

Salesforce.com Countersuit Targets Microsoft

PCWorld: Microsoft's recent lawsuit against Salesforce.com for patent infringement has been met with a similar motion in reponse. Chris Kanaracus of IDG News, provides more details on Salesforce.com's recent riposte in his topical article, Salesforce.com Sues Microsoft for Patent Infringement. Kanaracus writes:

Salesforce.com has sued Microsoft for patent infringement, making a move in response to an intellectual property suit Redmond filed against the on-demand CRM (customer relationship management) vendor last month.

A number of Microsoft products, including its .NET platform and SharePoint collaboration software, are in violation of Salesforce.com patents, according to the complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

Microsoft has willfully infringed on Salesforce.com's intellectual property, the complaint adds.

In addition to the lawsuit, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff called the company an "alley thug" and "patent troll" during the course of a routine business call, which is a bit harsh. Your move, Microsoft!

Telegraph.co.uk: China has long been seen as the primary flouter of international intellectual property laws, but recent changes to the country's IP enforcement regimen have made it more attactive to outside concerns, who are filing protective paperwork in large numbers. Andrew Cave reports on the sea change for China's IP prospects in his related piece, Intellectual property in China. Here's a takeaway passage:

...[A]s China continues to develop its economy rapidly, intellectual property experts say the nation is also starting to clean up its act on this issue.

“We think that China is becoming the new Japan in relation to intellectual property issues,” says Morag Macdonald, partner at leading intellectual property law firm Bird & Bird.

“These are still early days in terms of China turning around its position, but it is now possible to enforce intellectual property rights in China.

Among those Western companies that have successfully prosecuted IP cases in China, Cave points out that "3M, Kenwood, BASF Agriculture and electronics group Philips, have all pursued and won patent infringement cases in China, while Starbucks and Yamaha have won trademark cases." Encouraging news for businesses hoping to enter China's burgeoning consumer marketplace without fear of losing their profits to IP theft and piracy.

The Washington Times: The release of the White House's first-ever intellectual property enforcement plan has garnered plenty of media attention and a wide range of opinions from people who stand to lose or gain should the suggested changes in the document be implemented. One subject area expert, Marshall Phelps, a former corporate vice president for intellectual-property policy and licensing at IBM and Microsoft, offers his opinion on the importance of a stricter, and more robust, national IP enforcement strategy:

As the pace of innovation accelerates and the world economy becomes more competitive than ever before, the value of intellectual property becomes an even more critical part of a nation's economy. If America is to continue leading the world in innovation, it's imperative that the federal government make intellectual property protection and enforcement a top priority. The first-ever national intellectual-property enforcement strategy, to be presented soon to Congress, is a significant first step, and Congress should give it thoughtful consideration. Anyone who's concerned about maintaining an environment of innovation and creating high-paying jobs for the future should pay close heed.

Congress has lots of business on the table at the moment, but IP Czar Espinel's comprehensive IP plan should definitely get its day in the spotlight if America hopes to continue being the recognized champion of innovation and ideas. Be sure to read the rest of Phelps' thoughts on the value of IP rights to the United States' economy in PHELPS: Slamming the door on idea thieves.

Patent Baristas.com: Ever vigilant of their intellectual property rights, the lawyers at FIFA brought additional attention to a small problem by having a group of orange dress-wearing soccer fans arrested at a World Cup soccer match for violating South African intellectual property laws. Stephen Albainy-Jenei reports on this "tempest in a tea kettle" event that would better have been left unprosecuted in his timely post, Orange Miniskirt Debacle Less Filling.

FIFA officials took issue with a (very) small “Bavaria” tag on the side of the dresses, which they said infringed the rights of official partners and sponsors who paid millions of dollars to advertise exclusively at World Cup venues.  The dresses had been available free with a pack of beer at gas stations in Holland.  This raises the question:  How visible must the mark be in order to violate the Act?

Obviously the mark can be very small, in the case of the Orange Miniskirt kerfluffle, but, interestingly enough, a group of other Dutch fans, dressed in orange airline pilot and stewardess uniform, went unmolested, so FIFA must not have been entirely against fan solidarity, just the idea that some might try to interrupt their contractual agreement with the chosen beer provider for the World Cup, Budweiser. The rest of Albainy-Jenei's post contain read-worthy passages on South Africa's anti-"ambush marketing" laws and other similarly tasty tidbits.

Guardian.co.uk: Nobel prizewinning scientist John Sulston spoke at an event in London, England celebrating the 10th anniversary of the human genome's decoding and came out strongly against any efforts to lock up human genetic code under IP protection. Alok Jha reports:

...[B]iologist John Sulston said scientists and lawmakers must resist attempts by corporations and individuals to patent human genes.

In the US, for example, it costs a woman between $3,000 and $4,000 to be tested for familial breast cancer because a corporation owns the patent for the two genes involved. "The fact of the matter is that many human genes have patent rights on them and this is going to get in the way of treatment unless you have a lot of money," said Sulston. "And it's going to get in the way of research."

Sulston said he was particularly concerned about the intentions of scientists such as Craig Venter, who made headlines earlier this month when he unveiled work described in the media as "the world's first artificial life form".

Sulston is concerned that any intellectual property rights given to companies who sort out various portions of the human genetic code will end up hurting research and medical breakthroughs. These discoveries should be used to benefit greater humanity and would otherwise increase human suffering due to restricted access to genetic therapies and medicines that would not be affordable with IP protections. Read Jha's Human Genome Project leader warns against attempts to patent genes for more on open source genetics and related IP policies.

Bonus IP piece o' the day: Google triumphant, beats back billion dollar Viacom lawsuit by Matthew Lasar at ArsTechnica.com.

Glaxo Could Suffer Mortal Wound In German Generics Court Case

Reuters.com: Generic drug makers are hoping to deal a strong blow to GlaxoSmithKline's grip on a valuable lung drug in a Munich, Germany legal case that could spell the loss of millions of Euros in profit for the beleaguered pharmaceutical manufacturer. PREVIEW-German case tests patent on top Glaxo drug Advair by editor Sitaraman Shankar provides more details on this critical case that could shake Glaxo's conviction in future returns on R&D costs:

The trial is part of a complex legal struggle between Glaxo and a group of generic drugmakers, including Novartis (NOVN.VX) unit Sandoz and Teva (TEVA.O), which hope to sell copies of the two-in-one inhaler for asthma and COPD, or "smoker's lung".

With sales last year of $7.8 billion and revenues expected to peak at $9.5 billion in 2011, according to consensus forecasts from Thomson Pharma, Advair is a juicy prize.

While much attention has been focused on Advair risks in the United States, where an application to sell a generic could come this year, the threat in Europe is more immediate.

A generic version of Advair -- also known as Seretide and as Viani in Germany -- is in fact already sold in Greece by local manufacturer Elpen (link.reuters.com/jym99h).

Elsewhere, Glaxo retains exclusivity but the medicine's all-important 2013 combination patent has been overturned in both Britain and Ireland, and generic drugmakers have filed for regulatory approval of generic Advair in Finland, according to people familiar with the situation.

European standards for generics and their production while a patent is still in effect for the originator of a given drug formulation are a bit looser than they are in the United States which encourages generic manufacturers to fiercely pursue the ability to produce medications overseas which cuts into the profits of companies like GlaxoSmithKline.

The 271 Patent Blog: Peter Zura has assembled a comprehensive set of data covering The Companies Most Pursued by NPEs including a breakdown by most litigious Non-practicing entities, or NPEs, and general trend information about increases/decreases in lawsuits for a select list of tech industry heavies. You can read all about it in Zura's piece via the link above.

ArsTechnica.com: The folks over at Public Knowledge are launching a serious effort to get enough momentum up to present a new Copyright Reform Act for legal consideration/implementation. Nate Anderson reports on how the simple addition of 7 words to existing law would have a radical effect on the principal of fair use. He writes:

The CRA is a new project from Public Knowledge, with much of the heavy lifting being done by the Cyberlaw Clinic at Stanford and the Technology & Public Policy Clinic at UC-Berkeley. While Berkeley's noted copyright scholar Pam Samuelson works up a new "model statute" for copyright law in the digital age, Public Knowledge hopes to make smaller interim fixes to copyright law that won't require the same dramatic reworking.

This week, it released the first of these reform ideas (PDF) focusing on the principle of fair use. In addition to "criticism" and "news reporting" and the rest of the items in the fair use preamble, the CRA proposes the addition of three more: "incidental uses, non-consumptive uses, and personal, non-commercial uses." They might sound minor, but these suggestions are bound to provoke controversy.

There are many owners of copyrighted materials that would balk at allowing a 'fuzzilydefined' principle to be added to current law like "personal, non-commercial use," since businesses are always looking at every instance of use as a potential revenue-generation center. This term is scary enough that some supporters of Public Knowledge's CRA are feeling a bit gun-shy. "'Even the backers of the Copyright Perform Act, sympathetic as they are to fair use and an expansive reading of consumer rights under copyright law, do draw the line here. While they want to ensure that deference is given to things like time-shifting, the report notes that simply placing 'personal and non-commercial' in the preamble to fair use law isn't the end of the story. The four factors still apply, and any non-commercial personal use that 'sufficiently harms the copyright holder's market would not be fair.'"

ArsTechnica.com: In other IP protection news, Ryan Paul reports that Google has received a patent "that describes a software method for selectively restricting the availability of content on the basis of access privileges and geographical location" which has significant implications for the availability of protected content in various countries. Google's patent would allow it to remain in compliance with the patchwork-like layers of patent law that cover international IP protection rights and gain increased control and granularity over who sees what, where. Here's a brief explanation by Paul to clarify the difficulties facing content providers like Google:

Most countries are party to the Berne Convention, an international treaty that set the groundwork for modern copyright law. It's important to understand, however, that the Berne Convention and subsequent agreements of a similar nature merely define a set of minimum standards. Individual countries can establish longer copyright terms or enforce additional restrictions. Many countries, including the United States, allow copyright to last longer than the minimum that is mandated by international treaties.

A book that is considered part of the public domain in one country may still be covered under copyright law in another country. The lack of consistency in copyright law between nations has raised some really peculiar issues for content distributors. For example, Project Gutenberg Australia freely offers the full text of books by Charles Williams (my favorite author) even though the same text can't be published on the main Project Gutenberg website.

Different countries also have completely different ways of defining and protecting Fair Use rights. It may be entirely permissible to publish properly attributed excerpts of considerable length in some countries while others would view the same behavior as highly damaging and criminal.

Be sure to read Ryan's entire piece, Google content-filter patent about copyright, not censorship, to find out the rest of the story, gentle reader.

EnterpriseIrregulars: Entrepreneur, VC, and generally business-savvy guru Brad Feld offers up some thoughts on why Patents Are A Weak Measure of Innovation Activity. He writes:

The “pay to file” dynamic is a mechanism that undermines the integrity of the patent system.  Here’s the issue: assume I am a huge company that pays my engineers on average $100k / year.  I offer $1k for every patent filing they make during work time.  So, as an engineer, you can increase your compensation by 1% for every patent you file (forget about whether it actually gets granted).  As the large company, I’ve got a huge legal machine in place to file the patents – all you need to do as an engineer is going through a prescribed process, write up a bunch of stuff that gets dropped into the patent application, and come to a few meetings to review the patent application.  Is that worth an additional 1% of your comp regardless of the quality of the application?

Feld offers that it is, however, not just any old patent is worthy of protection if a company encourages a shotgun approach based strictly on patent application quantity and not quality. A bad product or service, patented or not, is still a bad investment. "Regardless of whether you think patents are useful, this is just such a crummy indication of 'innovation'." Other indications that might more accurately point towards innovation quality are market share of a given new product or detectable disruption of the status quo.

Bonus IP piece o' the day: Mike Masnick's Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures Using Over 1,000 Shell Companies To Hide Patent Shakedown at TechDirt.com.

IP Rights and Government Contracting—Same Strategy

Let’s assume that you’ve made the strategic decision to break into the vast government market.  What you may not realize is that once you’ve done so, you will have created some new intellectual property (IP) in your company.  And if you decide to set yourself up with a designated government status—small business, woman-owned, minority-owned, etc.—that can be viewed as a type of IP, too.  There are a number of places on the operational level where the analogy between capturing traditional IP rights and capturing government status tracks almost perfectly.  If you’ve taken the IP rights effort seriously and done it diligently, the government status endeavor will seem familiar.

First, let’s look at filing for rights.  If you want to establish yourself as a “woman owned business,” for example, you can self-certify in most instances—not unlike with trade secrets or copyrights where you can self-designate and proceed with business.  Similarly, if you file for a patent, you can create an advantage against large companies in the marketplace. In the government market, the Small Business Administration 8(a) status is not terribly different. If you can obtain this status, you have a preference in how your proposals and bid responses are analyzed.  Like a patent, it can take some time to get your official certification and you will go through several rounds of questions and clarifications. But from a marketing standpoint, you can use the “8(a) pending” status in your efforts once all of the information is filed, just like you can use “patent pending” once your patent application is filed.  This means that you can begin a lot of your marketing and business development efforts before your certification comes in the mail.

Next let’s think about the duration question. As with your traditional IP rights, all of these various statuses have expirations.  This is important to remember—Just as your patent has an expiration date, so does your 8(a) status, which lasts for seven years.  And with all of these designations, there’s another kind of “expiration date” to consider, and that’s when your earnings reach the upper limit that allows you to qualify for the status.  So with this particular form of IP, you need to manage both the duration of your rights and the pace/nature of your company’s growth.  This makes it slightly more surgical than a simple IP right, but the analogy holds.

Lastly, the nature of your marketing/business development effort will need to have a specific focus, sort of like original equipment manufacturer (OEM) or IP right plans. You’ll want to decide if there are any products or services that you have that would make sense to be on the GSA schedule, which allows agencies to buy that service (up to a certain amount) without a bid process.  You might also want to find others to market or place that service on their schedules, creating a distribution channel of sorts for your GSA offerings.  Your business development activity in this area needs to focus on companies that can assist and leverage your status and offerings to customers with whom their already work on a routine basis.  These offerings and services will also require you to create a pricing strategy that offers the government your best pricing. Therefore you need to rationalize this pricing across your business model to make sure it fits properly and doesn’t create precedents that your model can’t support.

The reality is that pursuing and obtaining government business can be quite lucrative and offer incremental revenue beyond your other lines of business.  However, you need to devise and fully execute a model, and all of the support elements, to fully respect this line of business.  When you do all of that, you end up with skills and rights that can translate into a great opportunity and new partners.

Rockstar Energy Fights Against Copycat Drink

Las Vegas Sun: A skirmish is breaking out between the makers of two brands of energy drinks, with claims of trademark infringement flying fast and furious. Steve Green graciously provides details of this fight for domination of a market space worth many millions of dollars in his topical piece, Rockstar sues competing energy drink maker over trademark. He writes:

Rockstar Inc. of Las Vegas, maker of Rockstar Energy Drinks, filed suit in U.S. District Court alleging trademark infringement against hip-hop legend Eric B and his New York energy drink company, RapStar360.

Rockstar says in the suit that the term “Rockstar” has been licensed with great success for energy drinks since 2001, more than 1 billion cans of the drink have been sold and annual sales total several hundred million dollars.

RapStar360's name and logo are strikingly similar to Rockstar's, complete with the inclusion of a star in the logo that closely mimics that of industry leader Rockstar and a color scheme of black and gold, also features of the Rockstar brand. "Rap Star adopted its trademark and trade name 'with full knowledge of Rockstar’s goods and trademarks, and with the intention that consumers would be confused into believing that defendants’ energy drink was sponsored, associated or affiliated in some way with Rockstar,' the suit charges." From all superficial appearances, Rockstar's claim appears quite strong but only a judge can divine the truth from what could turn out to be a caffeine-fueled battle of the Titans.

John H. Welch has a new tool to help indicate "the current state of trademark fraud jurisprudence" at his website, The TTABlog. Here's the inside skinny on this time-saving fraud detector:

Some say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and that is certainly true with regard to the TTABlog FRAUD-O-METER™ brand legal indicator. We all know that the CAFC in In re Bose Corporation jettisoned the TTAB's "knew or should have known" standard for fraud set out in Medinol v. Neuro Vasx, ruling that the Board had "erroneously lowered the fraud standard to a simple negligence standard." The appellate court also held that proof of intent to deceive is required to establish fraud and it indicated that even "gross negligence" is not enough, but it declined to address the issue of whether "reckless disregard for the truth" would suffice.

Read the rest of the accompanying article to find out how you can put Welch's FRAUD-O-METER to work for you in TTABlog Bonus: Your Very Own FRAUD-O-METER™.

North Country Gazette: A couple of shady types have gotten into trouble with the law over counterfeit products in Monitcello, New York. Here's more:

Gordon Jenkins, 49 and Rochelle Massey, 49, both of 36 Clinton Ave., were charged after State Police investigators, acting on a tip about the sale of counterfeit merchandise, conducted a four month investigation.

Police said that during the investigation, several items of merchandise were purchased at the “G-Men Beauty Supplies Store,” Broadway in Monticello. It was determined that the items purchase were counterfeit copies of trademarked merchandise.

On Thursday, State Police executed a search warrant at the “G-Men Beauty Supplies Store, and the residence owned by Jenkins. Items recovered included numerous pairs of Nike sports shoes, and Timberland boots, weapons, and a quantity of marihuana.

Gotta watch out for counterfeiters with baggies of 'marihuana,' right? Might affect their ability to spell or something. The two have been charged with both selling fake goods and holding some dope, but have already been released on a bail of $2,500.00 which points to this not being seen as a very serious crime by the Man. Read more in Two Charged With Trademark Counterfeiting.

TechDirt.com: The very popular vampire series, Twilight, takes place in the real place of Forks, Washington, and due to the extreme interest in all things related to the movies/books, a film maker or two has the idea to produce a documentary about the impact of the series' success on the sleepy, Olympic Peninsula, burg. Mike Masnick has more details on this dark tale:

Summit Entertainment, the studio behind the massively successful Twilight series of films, is suing another company that made a documentary. Apparently the Twilight books and movies take place in the town of Forks, Washington. In this case, a company called Heckelsville Media wanted to make a documentary about how the books and movies impacted Forks. It pitched the documentary to a few companies, including Summit Entertainment, who agreed to release the documentary in conjunction with the most recent film's DVD release. But one of the other companies that Heckelsville pitched liked the idea so much that it produced its own documentary on the same subject, which it's releasing a few days earlier.

Later in his piece, Summit Entertainment Sues, Saying Only It Can Make A Documentary About How 'Twilight' Impacted Forks, WA, Masnick suggests that Summit should let the marketplace decide which documentary people like and not over-react by trying to put the kibosh on the second company's efforts. Free markets only seem to be acceptable when they are highly regulated, for some strange reason, and Summit isn't doing much to dispel this theory.

Bonus IP piece o' the day: Perrigo gets favorable ruling in Mucinex patent suit at Reuters.com.

Chinese Intellecutal Property Law Changes May Stifle Foreign Investment

The Wall Street Journal: The number of patents issued in China has exploded in the last year or so but a change in the laws governing patentability might slow down that trend. Loretta Chao reports on how protective measure are changing the shape of patents and how they "could crimp foreign companies' willingness to invest in cutting-edge technology development in China" in her recent piece entitled China Issued Record Number of Patents in 2009.

The new rules, for example, require that all patent applicants who complete inventions in China apply for security clearance—a process that can take up to six months—before applying for patents abroad. They require patent applicants to declare any use of hereditary material obtained from humans, animals, plants or microbes if inventions are dependent on those genetic resources. They also force patent holders to license their patents to other producers if patents aren't "fully exploited" or if patent owners are deemed to be using the patents in an anticompetitive manner.

Chao quotes an expert in the field of Chinese intellectual property practices and reveals how bleak the outlook is for continued foreign interest in investing under the restrictive rules that contain loopholes detrimental to IP security.

Mark Cohen, an attorney at law firm Jones Day in Beijing, said the rules create uncertainties that could result in extra expense and delay for companies. Because so much research is conducted cross-border, it is unclear what constitutes an invention made in China that would result in the security examination, he said. The delay could increase the risk of trade-secret theft because it extends the period during which people can access the information or copy it before the invention is patented.

Learn more about strict Chinese government procurement regulations and reduced royalties for foreign companies via the above link to Chao's complete story.

ZDNet - UK: There's plenty of excitment surrounding Apple's latest technological wonder, the iPad, but the much-anticipated touch-sensitive tablet computer might be delayed due to intellectual property infringement claims. Eric Everson reports:

Imagine that you have this great product idea and a catchy brand name for it too. As managers, we have all been there at some point or another. Grandiose ideas of being patted on the back and welcomed into the inner circle of the executive leadership team come to mind as you envision all the profit your company is going to earn with this revolutionary new product… then the USPTO (US Patent and Trademark Office) snaps you back to reality as you discover that it’s already been done before!

As a U.S. Company, this is the epiphany that Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) either failed to acknowledge or figured they had the treasury and legal muscle to flex. As it turns out the iPad, is not a new product in the world of technology, in fact as even some of us more techy types may remember, it was Fujitsu that actually introduced the first iPad. Don’t just take my word for it, just look it up for yourself at USPTO.gov (Hint: start with US Patent: 7,228,469).

Whoops! I wonder how Apple is going to find its way out of this legal morass? Probably with liberal application of dollars and by bringing in the legal heavies to nudge out the competition. Learn how Apple's iPad woes are compounded by the hesitancy of programmers to invest time developing apps for the latest and greatest tech gadget by reading Everson's blog entry, iPad on Lockdown: Apple Faces a Twist of Intellectual Property Law.

PatentBaristas.com: There's a new website dedicated to intellectual property law and Stephen Albainy-Jenei provides the inside scoop in his topical piece, AwakenIP: Helping to Reignite Recognition of the Value of Intellectual Property. Here's the meat of the matter:

This website is an attempt to help reignite broader recognition of the full value of intellectual property. Much criticism has been levied against the usefulness of intellectual property and its place in our new economy, but there are those among us who continue to recognize the wisdom of maintaining strong intellectual property protection for worthwhile contributions that “promote the progress of science and useful arts.”

You can visit AwakenIP here and check out this nascent, and potentially valuable, site for your very own self. Tell 'em I sent you.

BusinessStandard: Latha Jishnu: Cautionary tale of trolls is an excellent analysis of the difficulties companies face when they create novel ideas only to find out that a non-practicing entity (NPE or "patent troll") holds a patent covering their idea, despite the fact that they did not "steal" the idea from an existing product but rather came up with their invention independently and without malice. Jishnu writes:

A just released report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers says NPEs fared far better than the patent holders in legal claims. The consultancy’s Patent Litigation Study of 1,400 infringement cases filed between 1995 and 2008 found that NPEs managed to get more than double the awards that the patent owners or practising entities as they are termed secured. While damages awarded to NPEs ran from $2.2 million to $10.6 million with a median of $4.4 million over this 14-year period, they raked in much more over the last seven years. PriceWaterhouseCoopers found the difference in awards was more than three times in their favour compared to practising entities: Their median was as much as $12 million compared to $3.4 million for patent owners!

Seems a bit odd, don't you think? Practicing patent owners who are producing products and jobs are losing the battle against holding companies that buy up IP in hopes of suing their way to wealth and infamy. Maybe it's time to reform US IP law to specify that a patent cannot just be held for use in legal matters without actually putting the patent to use? Comments? Bueller....Bueller?

Patently-O: Chock full of facts and figures, USPTO Fees 2011: Justifying the Fee Increase, explains the reasoning behind and results of a recent change in policy at the USPTO regarding the cost to patent applicants of applying for protection of their intellectual property. The author of the above piece sums up the larger implications of the 15% increase for the gentle reader:

Although a 15% increase in fees is significant. The current prosecution fees for a large entity total to $2,900. This includes Filing, Search, Examination, Publication, and Issue Fees. Many applicants pay additional fees for late responses, appeals, petitions and RCEs. The median fees paid for a large entity is probably closer to $4,000 and a 15% increase would be $600. For small-entities, the fees are reduced by 50%. Of course, the majority of the cost of patent prosecution is not found in USPTO fees, but rather in the cost of hiring patent attorneys & agents as well as the time spent by inventors and managers. For a large entity, the total cost of preparing an application and prosecuting the application through to issuance easily runs over $25,000. In that scenario, the $600 increase may be better seen as a 2.4% increase.

There are a number of excellent comments in the lively discussion that accompanies the piece and it's well worth a few minutes of your time to read the entire piece and then check out what other interested parties think for this unexpected, but necessary, change to the USPTO's fee structure.

Bonus IP piece o' the day: Pfizer Prepping for Patent Losses by Damien Conover at MorningStar.com.

Mobile Advertising Firm Receives Encouraging Patent News From WIPO

CNNMoney.com: A tech business focused on delivering advertising to users on a variety of different gadget platforms has received an affirmative finding by the World International Property Office on the patentability of its "novel and inventive" technology. From MyScreen Technology Found to Be Patentable by the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) come further details:

MyScreen's mobile advertising solution is designed to integrate seamlessly without interrupting users' regular call behaviors. Subscribers choose the type of content and ads they receive from categories such as sports, entertainment, lifestyle and health. Advertisers can use MyScreen's unique "ad value hot keys" to raise brand awareness, launch products and services, promote special offers, generate traffic to retail locations, improve customer loyalty and drive sales. MyScreen has secured agreements with operators who currently have about 182 million mobile subscribers and expects that number to increase significantly during the next 12 months.

The award of WIPO patentability will help MyScreen become a world leading in mobile phone advertising and has encouraged the company to file for patents in a number of countries including "United States, Europe, China, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, UAE, Egypt, Canada and Australia."

Lexology: Believe it or not, China is becoming an attractive place for bio/pharma companies to patent their drug discoveries. Mia Qu and Bessie Ye report on this unlikeliest of IP combinations in their topical piece, Protecting biological and pharmaceutical intellectual property rights in China. Here's the introduction to the lengthy piece on why it's good for drug companies to move to China:

While many industries are struggling to survive the global financial meltdown, biological and pharmaceutical sectors remain active despite of the change of international economic climate. To many foreign companies, China remains attractive as the world"s largest potential market for medical and healthcare services. As biological and pharmaceutical products rely heavily on the protection of intellectual property rights ("IPRs"), it"s essential for foreign companies in this field to gain thorough understanding of China"s IPR protection system before entering this potentially largest market. This article outlines China"s legal framework for biological and pharmaceutical related IPRs with analysis of this unique IPR protection system and related IPR enforcement issues.

Qu and Ye's piece is detailed in its description of the many protections offered by the Chinese for a variety of singular discoveries, including pharmaceutical ones. There are even protections offered for traditional Chinese medicines that aren't limited to one holder. Let us not forget that there are over a *billion* people in China and they have medical needs, too, including medicines to help them remain healthy and happy.

RBR.com: Media content provider Comcast is looking to take over NBC Universal but the sticking point might not be what one would expect. Tim Ehrhart, vice president of Chubb & Son, offers his take on the complexities facing Comcast as they cast their net into the deep waters of IP risk and due diligence. In his related piece, Media Mergers: Lights, Camera, Risk?, Erhart suggests that the problem is not insurmountable but will take some fancy footwork to negotiate an equitable and fair agreement. "As Comcast ventures into new media territory, it’s important for it to focus on myriad of potential unknowns. For instance, content providers like NBC Universal manage intellectual property and licensing rights issues every day; however, cable and Internet providers may not be accustomed to addressing these matters in the same context, and therefore need to prepare accordingly." Being in the insurance business himself, Erhart suggests that media companies perform extra-careful due diligence *and* purchase an extended reporting period insurance policy, just in case something critical is overlooked that could cause a large problem for the acquiring company in the future.

FutureLab.net: For inventors, the Internet's greatest strength can also become it's largest liability: freedom of information. Brian Ling examines one instance of a brilliant design idea being stolen and reproduced without the consent of the original inventor in his recent entry, How to Manage Your Creative Work and Intellectual Property Online. He writes:

Whenever a design is shown to the public there is a chance it could get ripped off. Design awards, graduation shows, public critiques, discussions with model makers, even obtaining costing for prototypes are all possible avenues where a design could get stolen.

The Internet is no different. In fact, because of the power of the Internet’s reach, the chance could be higher. However I do find it interesting that designers take more precautions showing work at graduation shows or manufacturers than on the Internet.

This being said, I have to say that the case of the copied Pocket Light happens rarely, especially if the stolen design was just a concept. The reason because the additional work required in taking a concept to an actual product requires far more effort than just coming up with an idea. In many cases it is very difficult to do if the designer that came up with the idea is not part of the development team.

The fact that the design process necessary to come up with a salable idea is not something that can easily copied is small compensation for the inventor who loses a great deal of income through Internet theft of their hard-won idea but Ling feels the real reward is not monetary but renown among one's peers. Be sure to read the entire piece at the above link if Ling's ideas inspire any kind of opinion on the matter at all.

Patently-O: With the recent change in patent term adjustments at the US Patent and Trademark Office, a veritable flood of requests is expected to hit the office in short order. Invalidity of the Extension of a Patent Term takes a peek at this coming storm that can only increase the time it takes of overloaded patent examiners to do their jobs. "Thousands of requests will be filed in the next couple of weeks asking the USPTO to recalculate the patent term adjustment (PTA) owed to recently issued US patents" the author writes, and suggests that the extension might be overstepping the legal boundaries of the USPTO and end in tears for patent seekers. "...[T]he PTO's approach of offering a second-window for recalculation could be seen as improperly extending the agency's authority. The PTO's improper extension of authority to adjust PTA is unlikely to leave a patent invalid." Whoops! That's just the opposite of what's supposed to happen to patent applicants seeking an extension. Looks like there will be a lawsuit or two in the offing unless a legal precedent is found for the USPTO's new-found extensibility motion.

Bonus IP piece o' the day: Patent infringement lawsuits raking in the big bucks at ArsTechnica.com by Jacqui Cheng.

Search Engine Goojje Possible Result Of Chinese Attack On Google IP

: Now Google's really got a reason to be pissed off at the Chinese for letting homegrown hackers attack the company's Gmail service, among other intellectual properties: a fake Chinese Google search engine. Mike Igan reports:

Although Goojje appears to be trying to cash in on Google's branding, a closer look shows that it may in fact be something of a tribute to Google. Goojje sounds like the Chinese word for "big sister." A message on the Goojje site reads "Sister was very happy when brother gave up the thought of leaving and stayed for sister." The site was reportedly created by a female college student in China.

The site may want Google to stay, but its very existence shows why Google may want to go. The second sentence of Google's now-famous blog post says it all: "we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google."

There are fears that the code could leak into other Chinese-based websites to be used for less than altruistic ends. "The real risk is when Baidu or some other search engines in China end up using stolen code from Google to compete against Google in the marketplace, and when the government of China uses stolen information and illegal access to crack down on critics of the Chinese government and suppress human rights." Read more on this developing pain-in-the-tuckus for Google in Igan's Fake Google search engine emerges in China.

PatentBaristas.com: Daniel J. Fiegelson guest authors a very thorough piece today and opens his lengthy look at a particular patent case with this salvo:

I’m not a district court decision junkie: since most patent cases revolve, at least in part, around claim construction, and since under Cybor the Federal Circuit reviews claim construction de novo, I tend to ignore many district court decisions – why bother getting into a claim construction-based case before the Federal Circuit has had its say on claim construction?  This case, however, Cancer Research Technology, et al. v Barr Laboraties et al. (really Schering v Barr) dealt with the question of prosecution history laches and inequitable conduct.  The i.c. part is primarily of interest to people practicing in the pharma and biotech fields, where patent applications are usually filed before extensive laboratory and clinical testing of compounds has been carried out.  The laches part is of greater general interest, although less so under the 20-years-from-filing regime.

In case you were wondering the "laches part" refers to a "legal doctrine that a person who waits too long to bring a claim alleging a wrong shall not be permitted to seek an equitable remedy" which plays largely in the aforementioned case. With a timeline stretching out over a decade, this example shows just how patent pendency is a larger-than-life problem for the good examiners at the US Patent and Trademark Office. Fiegelson's Prosecution Laches and Inequitable Conduct: Cancer Research Tech. v Barr Labs takes the gently reader on this rollercoaster ride of a legal battle and provides a solid legal lesson in the finer points of laches.

Discover: How's this for an eye-catching headline: The Intellectual Property Fight That Could Kill Millions. Sounds like a 'Chicken Little' story gone awry, but indeed, this particular IP fight does involve deadly genetics and the raises the increasingly relevant question of who owns them. Delthia Ricks tackles this touchy subject by laying out the game board as it currently looks with the tiny island nation of Bali taking on the rest of the world over the flu virus. She writes:

The recent frenzy in Bali stood in notable contrast to the research paralysis that has gripped this tropical archipelago since late 2006, when Supari declared that flu viruses circulating in Indonesia belonged to her government alone. It was a bizarre, 21st-century twist on an age-old intellectual property argument. Developing nations had long fought passionately over plant and native human genes, but no one had ever before staked claim to microbes that birds could carry anywhere. Yet the 57-year-old health minister insisted she had cause: Rich Western nations were patenting the viral genomes, then using the information to create vaccines that were sold for profit to other Western powers while benefiting Indonesia not at all.

Those are strong words and ones that Bali is taking seriously. Intellectual property doesn't always put people's lives in danger, but in this particular case, the lack of free access to the genetic information of certain virus strains in fact endangers millions of people through no fault of their own.

www.Reuters.com: Big pharma relies heavily on the protection patents provide them with in order to turn billions of dollars of research and development into even more billions of dollars in profits. A trio of the world's largest and most powerful pharma companies are in danger of being hoist by their own petard if they don't get some new drug patents in the pipeline post haste. According to Ransdell Pierson in New York and Kate Kelland in London, the pipeline is looking mighty empty and stock prices of the three companies in question are reflecting this unfortunate circumstance.

U.S. drugmakers Bristol-Myers Squibb Co and Eli Lilly and Co said on Thursday they expect 2010 earnings growth in line with Wall Street estimates, but Britain-based AstraZeneca signaled tough sledding ahead as all three gird for patent protection losses of important drugs.

AstraZeneca (AZN.L) will feel the pain almost immediately, announcing it will slash an additional 8,000 jobs in a further cost-cutting move as it faces expected generic competition in the United States this year for its breast cancer drug Arimidex and asthma medicine Pulmicort Respules.

Bristol-Myers (BMY.N) and Eli Lilly, which will not be hit by key patent losses before next year, posted generally solid fourth-quarter earnings, with Bristol beating Wall Street per share estimates and Lilly missing by just a penny. Bristol shares were up 1 percent, while Lilly slipped 2 percent.

Astra said it expects earnings per share for 2010 in a range of $5.75 to $6.15, down from $6.32 in 2009, and a decline in sales of up to the "mid-single-digit," sending its shares more than 4 percent lower.

This is a big change from the milk-and-honey days of yore when big pharma companies turned poorly performing medicines into erection pills and parlayed patents into huge profits. A number of different partnerships between the three might end up benefiting all involved as any small profit center could mean the difference between profitability or significant losses. Read Pharma fails to impress as patent problems loom for the rest of the story.

ArsTechnica.com: RIAA finally offers benighted Jammie Thomas the opportunity to settle for a somewhat reasonable amount of $25,000 dollars but it's not 100 percent clear if Thomas is going to take said offer or continue to fight against "The Man" with hopes of being found not guilty of copyright infringement via P2P music file sharing. Nate Anderson reports:

[T]he RIAA has given Thomas-Rasset a final settlement offer of $25,000, noting in a letter to her attorneys that a third trial is not in "anyone's interest." Should she accept the offer, it would in turn go to a musician's charity and each party would bear its own attorneys' and court costs. Otherwise, the RIAA will go ahead with the appeal. The RIAA gave her three days to ponder her options. Thomas-Rasset has already chosen to challenge the damage award, and one of her attorneys has since informed CNET that she is going to decline the settlement offer.

$25K seems like small money to get out of the potentially life-destroying previous amount of $2 million, but what do I know? Maybe Thomas is out to prove something and no amount of haggling over dollars will change her mind. Anderson has a few more details of this latest revelation in a long string of legal motions in one of the most infamous RIAA cases in his timely post, RIAA offers to settle Thomas-Rasset case for $25,000.

Bonus IP piece o' the day: Piracy letter campaign 'nets innocents' at BBC News.

U of So. Mississippi’s “The Garden” Offers IP-centric Startups A Leg Up

The For Rent sign on the University of Southern Mississippi's The Garden comes with a grassroots recruiting pitch.

"If you're an entrepreneur with intellectual property in smart materials - high performance materials - and you want to start and grow a company, we think we have a unique facility for you to do that," said Cecil Burge, vice president for Economic Research and Development.

The development of the previous home of the Van Hook Golf Course into a cutting-edge startup incubator with high tech resources on tap has been anything but easy. Kemp continues:

Then came Hurricane Katrina. The physical damage shut down construction for three to four months, but the financial reverberations were worse.

"We went through a design, and then we bid the building (The Accelerator) at the very height of the Hurricane Katrina run-up in construction costs," Burge said. "So our initial estimates where we could build the building for $288 a square foot turned into $400. The building has cost $26.6 million overall.

What Burge calls a "second hurricane" occurred with the recent collapse of the commercial real estate market.

The Garden should soon be up and operational and is looking for entrepreneurial tenants to join the 4 companies already signed up, so be sure to check out Kemp's Garden almost ready to open for more on the campus' bid to attract creators of valuable IP.

DownloadSquad: Microsoft recently patented an idea for the generation of "realistic" avatars. Sebastian Anthony comments on this unlikely bit of IP: "It's interesting to see such a technology being worked on. You can see its appeal -- perhaps for family video games, like on the Wii -- but you can also imagine more nefarious uses. (Would all the blonde 15-year-olds from California suddenly disappear from the Internet?) Slashdot is reporting that its primary use will be to encourage users/gamers to exercise: your health records would be used to generate a fat avatar in a gaming environment. The theory is that it would drive the gamer to lose weight, with hopes of becoming a prettier Elf." Who knows if people will attempt to game this attempt by Microsoft to bring realism to one of the most fantasy-filled places in the universe, the Internet, but bless 'em for trying. Read Anthony's complete take on this patented silliness in Microsoft submits new patent: now watch as the number of well-endowed girls on the Internet declines.

NextGov: Do intellectual property rights benefit "green" businesses? A fine question, indeed. Jill R. Aitoro's Intellectual Property: Hindering Green IT? provides a few thoughts on this increasingly important issue:

Coinciding with Copenhagen climate talks, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., introduced a bill on Thursday calling for the protection of intellectual property rights for clean energy and environmental technology in any global climate change agreement.

As of this blog post, full text of the bill was not available on the Internet, but apparently it complements similar bipartisan language included in the House Foreign Relations Authorization Act (HR 2410), which passed this summer.

Even though the US is seeking additional protections for its homegrown IP, there are many countries that would rather be able to get their hands on the US' hard-won technologies at bargain basement prices. "Nearly 80 countries submitted a proposal to discuss the weakening of global intellectual property rights for new innovations designed to reduce carbon emissions." I'm thinking that even if the United States is interested in helping third world countries to develop methods of reducing green house emissions there won't be much support for any effort to force companies to give away valuable ideas and products at home.

Ludwig von Mises Institute:  If you happen to be one of the people who think intellectual property protection is a bunch of brown bunkum, then you should read Stephan Kinsella topical piece, The Case Against IP: A Concise Guide.  Of particular interest is a quite comprehensive list of anti-UP resources that Kinsella has assembled. Of course, like any good sword, this one is two-edged; the same information against IP could be used to help gather ammunition to help fight the good IP battle by those in favor.

Chasing The Power Curve: Book review time, courtesy of Greg Herlein. He writes, "A *great* way to get past the hyperbole on the Internet and learn a lot about Intellectual Property is to read “Intellectual Property, The Tough New Realities That Could Make or Break Your Business” by Paul Goldstein (Penguin Group ISBN 978-1-59184-177-7)." This book could be very useful to the patent law beginner, Herlein notes: "Patent Law in particular can be tough to grok, but this book makes it very approachable with well-chosen case studies.  I found it an excellent way to fill in gaps in my knowledge of IP issues.  I’ve filed probably 30 applications and spent countless hours talking to patent attorneys.  Yet this book was still very useful for me.  I highly recommend it." Read the rest of his thoughts on this cold, hard look at IP in Herlein's aptly titled piece, Review: Intellectual Property by Paul Goldstein. You can order the book from Amazon here.

Bonus IP piece o' the day: DOJ Works Overseas to Protect Intellectual Property by Ryan J. Reilly at Main Justice.

US Convinces EU Signatories To Agree To WIPO Internet Treaty Terms

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke commended the European Union and 16 of its members for ratifying the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (collectively, the “WIPO Internet Treaties”).

Accordingly, a press release by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) stated, the European Union and all twenty-seven European Union member states have ratified the WIPO Internet Treaties. These treaties provide US rightsholders doing business in the European Union increased protection, and thereby enable US businesses to grow, secure investment and create jobs.

What's not mentioned is what concessions the US made, if any, to create the necessary conditions for a united EU vote, but one imagines they must have gotten something out of the deal. To learn more exact details of the terms of this treaty, be sure to read the rest of the story at the above linked article.

Harvard Business Review: Internet sensation and social media guru Seth Godin recently convinced a group of busy thinkers to contribute to an "open source" book (more accurately a *.pdf file) without the promise of financial compensation. From a commentary on Godin's latest publishing project, Chris Meyer & Julia Kirby explain:

When Seth Godin invited us to participate in his latest publishing project, a cobbling together of passionate missives into a single .pdf file, we took interest on two levels. First, of course, we were happy to contribute. The assignment, as given to 70 different business thinkers (including our fellow HBR bloggers Michael Schrage and Bill Taylor), was to write a short essay reflecting a strongly-held belief, and title it with the one word that summed it up. For us that word came easily: it's re-capitalism. We argue on our page of the collection, as we will in our forthcoming book, that capitalism can and will change fundamentally as the emerging economies increasingly become the engines of wealth creation.

"What kind of compensation or monetary gain comes out of such an effort?" you might be asking yourself. The "book" includes advertisements that pay money to one of Godin's preferred charities and the contributing authors get the notoriety and "gratification of supporting a worthy cause" while skimming along in the stratosphere of the chosen few. Seth Godin's Free Book and the Future of Intellectual Property will round out the above synopsis with more information on how this project differs from Godin's last book publication project.

Wired.com: Charlie Sorrel reports on the dismay Google's new "Nexus" phone has caused to the daughter of the author who used that same term in the narrative of his book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. He writes, "Isa Dick Hackett, daughter of the paranoid science fiction genius Philip K Dick, isn’t happy about the new Googlephone. The still unofficial handset may or may not be called the Nexus One, but Isa is already 'shocked and dismayed' about intellectual property infringement, according to the New York Times: Roy Baty and his replicant cohorts in Dock’s novella Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep were all Nexus-6 models." Sorrel then goes on to comment on the situation and sums up his feelings in one, short quip. "This is utter nonsense, of course" as nexus is a word in common usage and in his views doesn't warrant special protection or entitle Dick's daughter any kind of compensation for its use as the name of a cell phone. Whether or not Isa Dick Hackett decides to call in the big legal guns to fight the good fight will be seen but for sure the argument appears a bit weak on the surface. Nexus: Did Google Dream of Electric Lawsuits? for the win.

PC World: They Own WHAT? Nine Tech Patent and Trademark Oddities by Harry McCracken, Technologizer, covers a virtual rogues gallery of patent and trademark disputes featuring popular brands and products most tech-savvy consumers will recognize immediately. The stories behind some of the struggles faced by the likes of Apple Computer and Amazon.com are fantastic examples of how patents and trademarks can be both stumbling blocks for those hoping to create a new product or service or a source of revenue for the proud, and often lucky, holders of the rights in question. Here's just one example among those featured:

Early Apple employee Jef Raskin had a favorite apple. It was the McIntosh--but since that was also the name of a manufacturer of high-end audio equipment, he bestowed the new computer he was spearheading with an intentionally misspelled code name: Macintosh. He figured that would sidestep any trademark problems.

He figured wrong: The McIntosh loudspeaker folks weren't thrilled with the prospect of a similar-sounding computer, despite a letter Steve Jobs wrote them: "We have become very attached to the name Macintosh. Much like one's own child, our product has developed a very definite personality." According to Apple historian Owen Linzmayer, the computer company and the audio company struck a licensing deal in March 1983; early Mac ads include a credit for McIntosh Labs.

In 1986, Apple paid McIntosh a fee--how much remains a secret to this day--for permanent rights to the name "Macintosh." Twenty-three years later, the computers and the fancy audio gear continue to coexist.

ArsTechnica.com: Vice President Biden presided over a carefully chosen assembly of Big Content fat cats, government officials from a variety of Alphabet Agencies, and industry leaders this week much to the delight of the likes of RIAA and MPAA. Nate Anderson offers more details of this cozy cabal and asks some pertinent questions of the meeting's makeup in Biden's "IP roundtable" brings together Big Content, FBI:

This week, Biden was at it again, hosting a roundtable on enforcing copyright infringement cases. Who was invited? Top names from the government, including Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Biden, and Espinel, along with the heads of NBC, Sony Pictures, Warner Music Group, and HarperCollins.

Oh, did I mention that the guest list also included the heads of the MPAA and RIAA, top execs from News Corp., Universal Music, Walt Disney, and Viacom?

Or that top Obama advisor and confidante Valeria Jarrett was in attendance? Or that the head of the FBI and Secret Service were there? Or that the event billed itself "the first of its kind, and will bring together all of the stakeholders to discuss ways to combat piracy in this rapidly changing technological age," but didn't manage to invite any public interest groups or academics?

Ah ha! Another gathering without a dissenting voice like the secret international meetings on the US-led copyright enforcement laws of ACTA. Public Knowledge, "a Washington DC based public interest group working to defend your rights in the emerging digital culture", had this to say about this member's only confab, "'We were extremely disappointed to learn of the White House meeting to be held later today on the issue of intellectual property and 'piracy,' said PK's Gigi Sohn. 'It is unclear why three cabinet officers, several subcabinet officers, the directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service are needed to tend to the worries of the big media companies, particularly the motion picture industry which is completing a year in which it will set box-office records.'" Any one have other thoughts or comments to offer? Bueller...? Bueller...?

Bonus IP piece o' the day: FTC sues Intel, aims to shape the GPU market by Larry Dignan at ZDNet.com.