Friday fantasies

"Don't forget to check the IPKat's Forthcoming Events page: you never know what surprises lurk just around the corner ...

Now here's an interesting proposition.  PatentlyBIOTech, citing the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, states:

"-Many of the missing jobs – hundreds of thousands or possibly millions – are buried under the backlog of 1.2 million unprocessed patent applicatoins that have accumulated over the past 10 years at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
-A single U.S. patent can create three to ten jobs.
-Nothaft estimates more than 2 million new jobs are buried in the backlog
-”Innovation is our competitve advantage… It’s not manufacturing costs. It’s not labor costs. It’s innovation and our ability to protect those innovations and turn those innovations into products.”"

The IPKat agrees that the backlog of unprocessed patent applications results in the loss of jobs that might otherwise be created, but he's curious to know the methodological basis on which the three-to-ten job figure is based.  Merpel expects that most of those jobs which are created will go to patent examiners and attorneys, though there might be some new jobs in industry and commerce too.

Congratulations are due to the International Trademark Association on the hundredth birthday of the Trademark Reporter.  Says the IPKat, that's quite an achievement -- and let's hope that the next hundred years provides us with as much food for thought, and perhaps a few more jokes, than the century that has just elapsed.  Merpel adds, if you think 100 years is a long time, you should see how long it takes me to read it ...

Of all the cheek!  IPKat reader Mary-Ellen Field received the following epistle this week which made her chuckle.  The author, as the context indicates, had been a bit liberal in his use of a third party trade mark. The letter reads thus:

"Thank you for your email.

I am not a stealer. I am a keeper of the trademark. 

First of all, I think you need to change your mind that only you can have the right for the trademark all over the world. 

Alphabet is a heritage of mankind. And a trademark is just enumeration of the alphabets. 

Anyone can enumerate alphabets. So, the international rule for trademark is that the right can be owned by only the person who registers the trademark except some special cases. 

If I am a stealer, the police will arrest me. But, the real is opposite. The police will protect me.

Anyhow, I want to do business you. I want to buy your products. I will do my best to sell your products. And I believe that you will be satisfied with me as your distributer.

I look forward to your samples and Price List".

Survey 1. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is currently running a survey relating to the resolution of technology transaction disputes, which PatLit has urged its readers to complete.  You can read about it, and even respond to it, via PatLit here.


Survey 2. A UK reader's husband received a telephone call earlier this week from an organisation calling itself  TNS-BMRB (unsurprisingly, since that is its name).   She reports as follows:

"TNS BMRB was doing the government sponsored (10 Downing St) IPO survey on IP for small businesses (organised by Ian Hargreaves). They gave a contact name of Andrew Smith and number on 020 7034 2861. They then asked my husband two questions – how many people worked at his company, and whether he was aware of a design registration application on some date in 2009 (he thinks). They then said that was it! He phoned Andrew Smith who confirmed the survey as being genuine".

Has any other reader (or his or her spouse, partner or pet) been similarly troubled? And does anyone understand this curious mode of surveying IP awareness?

IP litigation in Turkey is fine, but
the pre-trial procedures can
be gruelling

Survey 3.  There's just one week to go before the close of the IPKat's favourite IP survey, the one which provides the raw data for the third Taylor Wessing Global Intellectual Property Index.  This is your chance to praise the places you think are best to litigate in, and to heap quantities of well-targeted opprobrium on those you don't.  The survey, which takes considerably less than 100 years to complete, can be accessed here.