Thursday, July 17, 2003

THIS IS THE THIRD YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BEST CASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN THE WORLD FOR PATENT AND TRADEMARK ATTORNEYS:  FOUNDATIONIP http://www.foundationip.com The creator of this product is Steve Lundberg.  The architect is Pradeep Sinha.  The foot soldiers who worked to get the thing off the ground are Tom Brennan, Shal Jain and me.  It has been a time of some drama and conflict. That is me losing the argument on where to put the assignment data. There has also been tension from time-to-time.    That could be Steve and Pradeep, or Tom and me, or Steve and Tom or Pradeep and me. There has been a lot of cogitating...                                                                   There have been a lot of sleepless nights...worrying about whether the concept would work, money, and how we would get everything done. We are now starting to dance, dance, dance    Happy Birthday, FoundationIP   8:52:53 PM    comment []

PINPOINT SUES AMAZON AND OTHERS FOR PATENT INFRINGEMENT: Pinpoint Inc., Fort Worth, Texas, in a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in Chicago, said Amazon allegedly violated several of its patents covering "personalization" technology, which can be used to recommend merchandise to shoppers. Amazon is one of many Web sites that suggests products to users based on their past purchases or those of other shoppers. The lawsuit also names as defendants Borders Group Inc., Toys "R" Us Inc., Target Corp. and other retailers for whom Amazon provides Web site services and technologies. 8:04:42 PM    comment []

PATENT FEES ARE GOING UP 15-25% HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE APPROVES 2004 USPTO FUNDING -- Yesterday the full House Appropriations Committee approved $1.24 billion in funding for the USPTO in 2004, the same amount approved by the Commerce, Justice, State subcommittee last week and $57 million more than in 2003. The amount that would be diverted to unrelated government programs, if any, depends on fee collections in 2004. Official estimates of fee collections are not yet available. A press announcement by the committee said the extra funding is being provided "to reduce the growing backlog in patent processing." FUNDING (CONT) -- Funding approved by the House committee yesterday does not assume enactment of the pending patent and trademark fee bill, H.R.1561, which would raise an additional $200 million in revenue. IPO strongly supports passage of H.R.1561 provided the USPTO receives the extra revenue. 7:43:49 PM    comment []

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San Francisco Becomes Fastest-Shrinking U.S. City Thu Jul 10, 5:00 PM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Andrea Orr SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - I left my forwarding address in San Francisco. AP Photo   The foggy city by the bay, which has lost jobs and income in the technology industry bust, saw the largest population decline of any major city in the United States last year, according to U.S. Census data. San Francisco's population declined by 1.5 percent or nearly 12,000 between July 2001 and July 2002, making it the biggest loser among 242 U.S. cities with more than 100,000 people, a report released on Thursday showed. San Francisco, with a population of about 776,000 in mid-2002, joins some other famously depressed U.S. cities, including Flint, Michigan, which ranked 240 on the list with a population decline of 1.4 percent or 1,687 people, and Gary, Indiana, which came in at 227, losing 0.8 percent of its population, or 793 people. San Francisco lost 11,929 residents over the same one-year period. But the exodus from the San Francisco Bay Area appears more pronounced considering all the other surrounding cities that also suffered big population declines. Second to last on the list was Sunnyvale, California, a Silicon Valley city about 50 miles south of San Francisco, and the home to number of high-tech companies and high-tech workers, who were hit hard by the dot-com bust. Sunnyvale's population declined by 1.4 percent, or 1,830 people, the report showed. DOT-COM ADIEU San Jose, California, also a key Silicon Valley city, ranked near the bottom of the list, at 220, as did Daly City, just outside of San Francisco, which ranked 236. San Jose lost 5,740 people or 0.6 percent of its people and Daly City 1,089 people or 1.1 percent. Hundreds of high-tech start-up companies based in northern California have closed their doors during the past three years, sending many people out of town in search of work. California's Employment Development Department said San Francisco had a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 6.6 percent in May, compared with a national rate of 6.1 percent. The jobless rate in Santa Clara County, encompassing Sunnyvale and much of Silicon Valley, was 8 percent. This recent exodus marks a stark reversal of trends seen in the late 1990s when engineers and recent college and business school graduates thronged to the Silicon Valley region seeking work at high-tech companies that offered generous compensation and stock option packages. Although San Francisco has not ranked among the fastest growing cities at any time in recent history, it did show healthy expansion throughout the 1990s, with its population growing 7.3 percent over the course of that decade, census data show. Most of the fastest growth in the United States meanwhile, is occurring in southern California and throughout the Southwest. The Census report ranked Gilbert, Arizona, with a 10.3 percent population increase last year alone, as the fastest growing city in the U.S. North Las Vegas, Nevada came in second with Rancho Cucamonga near Los Angeles; Henderson, Nevada; and Joliet, Illinois rounding out the top five. 3:25:40 AM    comment []