ip.com (as in “intellectual property”) just launched a feature where you can add a Patent Search Box to your blog sidebar, so your visitors can search patents right from your site.
Search Box code available here.
You can do full searches for US Patents, US Patent Applications, Prior Art, PRC (China) Patents and PRC Patents in translation.
So that’s kinda cool.
And here is a great place to initiate a Patentability Search
Read more: patent, patent searchIf your intellectual property goals are to protect your right to use your ideas and to prevent others from patenting them, publishing a technical disclosure rather than filing for a patent, may well make good business sense. For starters, the entire patent process can run $25,000 and up. Publishing a technical disclosure will cost you less than 300 bucks. This can make even more sense if you have multiple ideas or technologies you have developed, but no immediate way to monetize them. You also may not want to freeze out others from developing products around and in concert with your idea by filing a patent.
IP.com has a great free guide that you can download called “Defensive Publishing Via Technical Disclosures“.
Check it out.
Steve Jobs just announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference that they are dropping “phone” from the name “iPhoneOS” to become, simply, “iOS”. This is a smart move.
Uh oh. Seems like Cisco Systems runs a big chuck of the Internet on some thing called iOS. It’s deja vu all over again: you may recall back in 2007 when the iPhone was announced that Cisco owned the trademark for the name “iPhone”. Once again, Apple rolls out the strategy of “name it what we want, get legal to make it happen later”. Cool. If every company operated like this, it would make the job of naming companies much, much easier. And put more lawyers to work, recharging our economy in the process.
UPDATE: Kudos to Apple for making a legal deal with Cisco this time before launching the product. Says Cisco: “Cisco has agreed to license the iOS trademark to Apple for use as the name of Apple’s operating system for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The license is for use of the trademark only and not for any technology.”
Read more: Cisco, iOS, trademarksWorking on various healthcare projects lately got us thinking about the language used in healthcare patents:
Apparently, we are all becoming optimized healthcare reception systems.
Read more: healthcare, patentI am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. Beatle Walruses aside, is there really that much difference between “i” and “we”? There is if the next three letters are “pad”. Unless you died over 3 months ago, you are aware of Apple’s newly launched iPad. Now a German company with the delightfully apropos and Onion-like name Neofonie (“New Phony”) will be launching in June an iPad competitor tablet computer called…(pay attention trademark attorneys)… WePad! As in, “We have a Pad too.” Yep, iPad, meet WePad:
Geek.com picks up the story:
It’s everything the iPad was meant to be, according to German-based Neofonie GmbH that designed the device. WePad sports a large 11.6-inch screen and is fitted with a webcam and two USB ports, the two features sadly missing from Apple’s device. WePad runs Intel’s chip and a Linux software that supports both Flash content and Android apps. It’ll come preloaded with an open-sourced office productivity suite, too.
In case you’re wondering, yes – WePad will also do digital magazines. Neofonie teamed up with Europe’s largest magazine publisher Gruner+Jahr that promised to bring its flagship magazine Stern on the WePad.
It gets even better, as the company puts its indelible spin in the power of “We” (perhaps Nintendo might like to jump in here and Wii all over Neofonie as well), which is just so much more awesome than “I” (or “i”):
And if all of that wasn’t enough, Neofonie is dragging the Cupertino rival through the mud with its unapologetic marketing talk. For example, here’s how they defend the name choice:
Some people seem to think life is all about the I, and the Me, Me, Me. We beg to differ. To us, the power of many beats the power of one.
“Some people”, indeed. Unfortunately for Neofonie, “some people” also have an army of lawyers standing by to slice the “Pad” right off of their “We”. So if Apple sucessfully keeps them from using “Pad”, and Nintendo jumps in and says they can’t use “We”, they might be left with WePad, or eeP, at least until Asus’s legal eagles claim a risk of confusion with their Eee PC, and take away their “e”.
I think this padacious upstart should just go with truth in advertising, and call it the Neofonie. Ask any “Expert, texpert”. I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all Neofonie… And here are some major recently-granted Apple iPad patents that Neofonie would do well not to tread on:
More: Here are 82,212 ‘tablet computer’ related patents for your viewing pleasure.
Read more: accelerometer, Apple, Asus, bandwidth, bezel, channel, color, display, Eee PC, electronic, handheld, iPad, Neofonie, Nintendo, surface, tablet computer, trademark, user interface, WePad, WiiOn a slow day in hell, you can keep your home fires burning by getting all self-reflexive. Hence the ever-popular Company Names of Naming Companies name taxonomy.
Today’s exercise in self-reflexivity: Patent searching for “patent search” patents. Here’s a few to whet your whistle, from IP.com’s cool new Global Patent Search engine:
OK, that’s enough fun for one night. Go out and try it yourself. While you’re at it, see if anyone has a patent already for the latest new invention you’ve been tinkering with in the basement.
Read more: patent, patent search, searching
