navigating the patent maze

This blog has been going for nearly a year and a half.  When I started blogging the intent was for it to be syndicated to the front page of the website where I worked at the time.  Well, that didn’t happen.  I continued anyway hoping I’d reach similar users.  Also I was keeping it up to support some grant requests submitted with my economist colleagues.  Well, those didn’t happen either.  So a few days ago, I found myself wondering why I was spending the time blogging.  As I explained in the previous post, blogging takes a fair modicum of time and effort.  Time I should be spending in trying to promote my law services.  And my web site Cougar Patent Law is where my efforts are going to be from now on.  There is a News page there that will be similar to this blog, but not nearly as detailed and geared more for clients.  I hope you’ll visit it. 

I will leave all the posts here at this site for reference, but will not be adding to it in the foreseeable future.  Maybe things will change if I win a big lottery prize!

Cheers to all and thanks for visiting. 

Yesterday while browsing new IP-related blogs, I came across one from the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley.  Someone had written a posting about the Nap Hal patent being revoked, but had mostly just parroted the Greenpeace press release. 

Is this good journalism?  I couldn’t help myself and left a comment to the effect that the author ought to check the facts first before posting.  Unfortunately patent news, whether in blogs like the UC Berkeley one or in newspapers, is too often factually incorrect — e.g., headlines of ‘Microsoft patent overturned in reexamination’ when all that happened was a first rejection by the US Patent Office.  I suppose the lousy reporting is in part impetous for my own blog.  As other patent lawyer bloggers know posting takes a lot of effort and time; history needs to be researched, facts need to be verified, analysis needs to be carefully thought through.  Journalists have a code of ethics (I thought) — but probably there is no teeth to it.  I propose that all of us patent bloggers send comments to journalists who mis-report IP news so that accurate reporting becomes the norm. 

The infamous Nap Hal patent has been revoked.  Despite Greenpeace’s claim of victory (see their October 2004 press release), Greenpeace had very little, if anything, to do with the patent revocation.  In fact, Monsanto had sold their entire European wheat and barley business, including the rights to Nap Hal,  to the French seed company RAGT Genetique in May 2004.  Moreover, RAGT Genetique voluntarily withdrew the patent, citing commercial reasons, i.e., they weren’t going to make any money on the seed so why fight the patent. 

Read an excellent article about the Nap Hal patent and Greenpeace’s boasting de-bunked at reason online.  See also my earlier posts here and here.