Michael Jackson's IP

Believe it or not, Michael Jackson had also at least one patent in his own IP. In 1992, he filed a patent application for a "Method and means for creating anti-gravity illusion". He is a co-inventor in this patent (link).
He claimed small entity and the patent became abandonned by failure to pay a maintenance fee. The invention is at least used in Smooth criminal.

Claim 1 reads as follows:

1. A system for engaging shoes with a hitch mans to permit a person standing on a stage surface to lean forwardly beyond his or her center of gravity, comprising:
at least one shoe having a heel with a first engagement means, said first engagement means comprising a recess formed in a heel of said shoe covered with a heel slot plane located at a bottom region of said heel, said heel slot plate having a slot formed therein with a relatively wide opening at a leading edge of said heel and a narrower terminal end rearward of said leading edge, said recess being larger in size above said terminal end of said slot than is said terminal end of said slot; and
a second engagement means, detachably engageable with said first engagement means, comprising a hitch member having an enlarged head portion connected by a narrower shank portion to a means for raising and lowering said head of said hitch member above and substantially level with or below said stage surface, said head portion being larger in size than said terminal end of said slot and said shank portion being narrower than said terminal end of said slot, wherein said hitch member can be moved through apertures in said stage surface between a projecting position raised above said stage surface and a retracted position at or below the stage surface, and when said head portion of said hitch member is raised above said stage surface, said first engagement means can be detachably engaged with said projecting hitch member, thereby allowing a person wearing the shoes to lean forwardly with his or her normal center of gravity beyond a front region of said shoes, and maintain said forward lean.

For More: Click there.

Chavez Attacks IP

According to this (link), Chavez is now attacking IP. His target seems to be the pharmaceutical industry. Since patents are key for promoting science and developping industry, this is sad news for Venezuela.
Venezuela is part of the WTO and the Paris Convention. However it is not a member of the PCT.
One of his quote: "That a laboratory does not allow us to make a medicine because they have the patent, no, no, no".
AIH AIH AIH!

More Software Patent Infos

More information (link) available about software patents, thanks (again) to the EPO! However, it is not very detailed. I guess the purpose is just to give a broad idea of the situation.

Follow Me On Twitter!

Microblogging is Cool.
Follow me on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/Alex_Abecassis
Join & Enjoy!

Regional or National Route? Don't Get Lost

No the debate is not over. It should be reopen. Seriously, fees and pendency have increased so much in Europe that the EPO route may not be the straightforward and good choice.
In Germany for instance it is possible to obtain a patent in a relatively short period of time and at relatively good budget via a national route. Of course many parameters have to be taken into consideration when selecting one of the two routes: number of countries (a large amount of countries in Europe will favor the EPO route), a number of claims in the application (EPO now punishes harshly applicants filing large amount of claim), existence of a national route (some European countries do not accept direct national filings), etc.
It might therefore be a good idea to get a good road map before making decisions!

Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions in Europe

Kudos again to the EPO for providing new e-learning modules on Computer-implemented inventions.
-Module 1 (link)
-Module 2 (link)

I hope that the other patent offices will soon follow the EPO and offer also pertinent materials like those.

Bilski Goes To Supreme Court

This is now official since a couple of days, the recent landmark case that has modified the test for the patentability of business methods will now go to Supreme Court. All IP practitioners are eager to see what will be the outcome since the consequences of the future decision are big. Some practitioners even call it the case of a lifetime!! The public and the industry are also looking forward to the future decision since there are a lot of controversies attached to business methods.
(link to the petition)