Got an invention? Head to your regional patent office; Marketplace.org, 11/30/15

Lauren Silverman, Marketplace.org; Got an invention? Head to your regional patent office:

"There are lots of obstacles in the patenting process – money, time, knowledge. Every year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office receives hundreds of thousands of applications. There’s a backlog of more than 550,000 ideas that need to be sifted through.

The head of the agency – Google veteran Michelle Lee – hopes hiring more patent officers and stationing them at outposts across the country will speed up the process. The four regional offices that have opened are in Denver, Detroit, San Jose and Dallas.

The Dallas office will employ 80 patent examiners – meaning for the first time, applicants in the region won’t have to travel to the beltway if they want to meet face-to-face with their assigned examiners."

Patent office launches international application tracking tool; FedScoop, 12/1/15

Whitney Blair Wyckoff, FedScoop; Patent office launches international application tracking tool:

"The Patent and Trademark Office has debuted a new online tool that it says will help those filing for intellectual property protections abroad.

Called Dossier Access, the service allows users to track the status of patents in the world’s five largest patent offices: the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the European Patent Office, the Korean Intellectual Property Office, China’s State Intellectual Property Office and the Japan Patent Office.

U.S. patents only offer protection for inventions in this country. To receive similar protections abroad, inventors must file with foreign patent offices as well, USPTO’s Deputy Commissioner for International Patent Cooperation Mark Powell told FedScoop. But that process can be expensive and complicated. Even checking the status of an application can be tricky because other offices' application documents are not always in English, he said."

Pearls Before Swine; GoComics.com, 12/20/15

GoComics.com; Stephan Pastis, Pearls Before Swine: [Never Read the Terms and Conditions]

Everything You Know About Martin Shkreli Is Wrong—or Is It?; Vanity Fair, 1/31/16

Bethany Mclean, Vanity Fair; Everything You Know About Martin Shkreli Is Wrong—or Is It? :

"I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but I liken myself to the robber barons.” So says Martin Shkreli, the 32-year-old hedge-fund manager turned pharmaceutical-company C.E.O., who achieved instantaneous notoriety last fall when he acquired the U.S. rights to a lifesaving drug and promptly boosted its price over 5,000 percent, from $13.50 a tablet to $750. The tsunami of rage (the BBC asked if Shkreli was “the most hated man in America”) only got worse when Shkreli said he would lower the price—and then didn’t. An anonymous user on the Web site Reddit summed up the sentiment bluntly: “Just fucking die will you?”

“The attempt to public shame is interesting,” says Shkreli. “Because everything we’ve done is legal. [Standard Oil tycoon John D.] Rockefeller made no attempt to apologize as long as what he was doing was legal.” In fact, Shkreli says, he wishes he had raised the price higher. “My investors expect me to maximize profits,” he said in an interview in early December at the Forbes Healthcare Summit, after which Forbes contributor Dan Diamond summed up Shkreli as “fascinating, horrifying, and utterly compelling.”"

DC universes collide in epic final ‘Justice League: Crisis’ fan trailer; ComicBookResources.com, 12/18/15

Kevin Melrose, ComicBookResources.com; DC universes collide in epic final ‘Justice League: Crisis’ fan trailer:

"UltraSargent has debuted what’s described as the “final trailer” in the series that began in October, and it’s by far the longest and most ambitious yet. Using footage from DC Comics live-action adaptations dating back to Christopher Reeve-era Superman, the four-and-half-minute trailer offers a new take on Crisis on Infinite Earth, with Grant Gustin’s Flash at its center... As it stands, thought, Crisis draws from wide array of sources, from 1989’s Batman and 1990’s The Flash to Smallville and Supergirl. NBC’s short-lived Constantine even shows up."

Exceptions To Copyright To Remain On Agenda Of WIPO Copyright Committee; Intellectual Property Watch, 12/17/15

Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch; Exceptions To Copyright To Remain On Agenda Of WIPO Copyright Committee:

"Copyright exceptions for libraries, archives, educational and research institutions and persons with disabilities other than visual impairment will remain on the agenda of the next session of the World Intellectual Property Organization copyright committee. The subject is touchy as developing countries deem those exceptions vital for development and developed countries say that the current global copyright framework leaves enough space for national exceptions to copyright.

The topic of exceptions and limitations to copyright in favour of libraries and archives has made more progress than the other topics on exceptions and limitations and last week, during the 31st session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), delegates considered a chart, which had been prepared by the committee chair, Martin Moscoso of Peru.

The chart [pdf], according to the foreword by Moscoso, was “designed to serve as a useful tool to provide a structure to discuss the substance for each topic.”"

6 Men Admit to Running a Global $100M Software Piracy Ring; Wired.com, 12/17/15

Andy Greenberg, Wired.com; 6 Men Admit to Running a Global $100M Software Piracy Ring:

"On Thursday the Department of Justice announced that it’s reached plea agreements with all six individuals charged in a six-year massive fraud scheme, which prosecutors say sold more than 170,000 copies of Adobe and Microsoft programs including Windows, Office, Photoshop, and Creative Suite, complete with valid registration codes and even physical certificates of authenticity. The men, who were tracked by investigators at the Department of Homeland Security, offered those pirated copies of the software at a discount through sites including Amazon, Overstock, eBay, Craigslist, and in some cases their own individual websites. Five of the convicted men face up to five years in prison (the sixth faces just three years) and up to a quarter million dollars in restitution each.

“It appears to be one the biggest software piracy cases, if not the biggest, the department has ever handled,” US Attorney Tammy Dickinson told WIRED in a phone interview."