2.   China authorized 30 percent more patents in 2007 than in 2006 as part of a governmental “effort to liberalize its patent policy.”  So it’s getting easier to get a patent in China and harder to get one in the United States.  Makes you wonder where this train is headed.

3.   …and more international applications are being filed from Asia.  According to WIPO, the United States is first on the 2007 list of PCT-filing nations ranked by number of international applications filed.  Japan is still second and Germany is still third.  Notable moves on the list come from Asia:  Korea overtook France for the fifth spot, and China filed 38% more international applications than she did last year, displacing The Netherlands for seventh place.

2. Nipper takes me back to the good ‘ole days of blogging by hosting Blawg Review #146. Besides presenting a great issue, he gently reminded me that we’re quickly approaching the 100th issue since our attempt to rethink blawg review (which, um, was slightly less than well-received).

3. Bret Trout - the blogger behind BlawgIT - has a great summary of the brewing perfect storm that’s making life tough for patentees. The nutshell - it all started with overreaching patent trolls, and it’s not too late to prevent the greatest damage from being done:

“Contact your Senator. Tell them not to support the new Patent Reform legislation. Tell them you want them to support inventors, support growth, support jobs and support the United States remaining a world leader in innovation. Tell them in no uncertain terms. Tell them before it is too late.”

4. Patentably Defined has a wonderful summary of situations in which final rejection by the USPTO is improper. Michael Kondoudis is certainly living up to his site’s tagline - “A practical patent prosecution blog” - the post includes tips for pre-empting improper final rejections.

5. Bob Ambrogi points us to public.resource.org, which recently made 1.8M pages of caselaw freely available (free, and free of copyright restrictions). The treasure trove includes Supreme Court opinions and the F.2d and F.3d series.

Not only is there a licensing deficit, but the article notes that 2007 brought both an increase in license fees paid by Korean companies to foreign entities and a decrease paid by others to Korean compaines.

“The Koreans are demonstrating the truth of their central point – that the benefits of IP should not just be measured in purely national terms, but should also be seen in the global context.”

2. Just-n-Examiner notes an interesting disparity between hiring targets at the US Patent and Trademark Office and the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO). The difference is interesting indeed…but the comments on the post are even more so. Especially those from Canadian examiners discussing the mechanics of Canadian examination.

3. The PLI Patent Blog live blogged last week’s summary judgment hearing in the GSK/Tafas v. Dudas case, complete with audio reports from the courtroom.

4. The IP Kat explains the latest developments for software patents in the United Kingdom.

From a recent practice notice from the UK-IPO:

“the claim to the computer program must be drawn to reflect the features of the invention which would ensure the patentability of the method which the program is intended to carry out when it is run.”

From the IP Kat:

“This appears to settle for now the matter of computer program claims, which many will be relieved to see (although not, of course, those against software patents in general).

The IPKat sees no reason why he should not have the following claim allowed by a UK-IPO examiner (where claim 1 is an allowable method claim):

“A computer program comprising computer program code adapted, when said program is loaded onto a computer, to make the computer execute the procedure of claim 1″. “

5. Nipper noted some interesting consequences of the US Patent and Trademark Office’s recent addition of a CAPTCHA to the front door of the public PAIR system. Read the comments…turns out, many who can are electing to use private PAIR instead. An unintended consequence?

Senate Seeks Protection for Invalid Patents

Patent Mafia…US Congress?

2. USPTO - Soon-to-be a two billion dollar agency:

Proposed FY 2009 PTO Budget $2.075 Billion

3. See, I told you the patent system works - $20 Billion dollars worth of drugs reportedly go off-patent this year

4. An interesting note from an introspective inventor - My Dumb Software Patents

After eight years of pendancy for his recently-issued patent, Todd Vernon, CEO of Lijit Networks, makes some very interesting comments on the prosecution process and patents in general.

Money quotes:

“it is really all wasted time and effort, at least in a conceptual sense. There is no way for a software engineer or system architect to have any idea what exists out there to either copy or avoid (whatever the motivation).”

“But more importantly, I have absolutely no confidence that the patent I just received is really actually valid. You read a lot of debate out there about how many patents are overturned or invalidated in court during litigation. I really don’t know how many are invalidated, but I can say having seen the process pretty close that I have no doubt that most of the key patents out there around “computer screen sharing” (used heavily in web conferencing) contain a good deal of the same concepts and they all have been awarded over the last 20 years. They simply claim the same things. Or, at least they don’t meet the bar of being unique and unobvious.”

5. Research In Motion spends big bucks on patent reform lobbying

Several claims were published this week about RIM spending over $800k on lobbying efforts on the patent reform issue. Be careful….the disclosed amount also includes lobbying on “regulatory rules to make more digital wireless handsets accessible to consumers with hearing disabilities.”

Blackberry maker pings Hill on patents

RIM spends $890,000 last year to lobby for patent reforms