Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

If you’ll be at the BIO International Convention next week, let’s get together.  Send me a note via the Contact Us window in the lefthand column of this page, or leave a voicemail at 610-328-0580.

While at BIO, you should pick up the latest copy of Biotechnology Law Report—the journal I founded in 1982 with publisher Mary Ann Liebert.  We’re up to the third issue of volume 30 … still going strong.  Get it at Exhibit Booth 4213, in the Clinical Trials section of Hall C, where you’ll also see their flagship trade paper GEN, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News.  

My latest article in GEN urges Congress to fund a transformation of the information infrastructure for examining U.S. patent applications.  It follows up on an editorial I published in Biotechnology Law Report back in 2007, which happens to have been cited in the Wikipedia entry on latent semantic analysis.

Then be sure to flip over your June 2011 issue of BLR, because the back cover features a spectacular illustration that I commissioned from Philadelphia artist Tim Durning.  It depicts a dream where I am fancifully transported into a science fiction story written by Damon Knight in 1953 (coincidentally, the year Watson & Crick sussed out the DNA double helix).

 And while in Washington, stay tuned for the latest developments on patent law in Congress.  The U.S. House of Representatives is imminently expected to consider H.R. 1249, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act.  Many of us had high hopes that the Bill would end the practice of diverting fees collected from users of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to other governmental use, in accordance with the expectation of the patent community in 1999 when the U.S. PTO was declared a PBO.  As chair of the Legislative Committee of the Philadelphia Intellectual Property Law Association, I recently prepared for PIPLA’s Board of Governors a resolution they recently sent to Congress, urging full funding of the PTO.

World Technology Network

During the past year, Elman Technology Law, P.C. (“ETL”) sponsored two programs of the World Technology Network.  Earlier this month, we participated in a World Technology Summit, an annual event that I first attended in London in 2001 as a founding member of the WTN.  Each Summit is a two-day conference with a variety of presentations and active workshops, culminating in a gala World Technology Awards dinner honoring individuals and companies in various categories, including technology law.  At this year’s Summit, our firm sponsored a roundtable of Science Fiction authors, including my friend and mentor Paul Levinson.  Click here for more about this illuminating program on How Sci-Fi Legends Dream the Future for Us.

In June, we sponsored the WTN’s East Coast premier of a film by another dreamer of the future.  Ray Kurzweil invented, among other things, the omni-font scanner and text-to-speech readers.   Based on his 2005 book The Singularity is Near, Kurzweil has now produced a feature-length film of that title.  Before the film screening, he spoke of his calculations showing exponential growth of technologies, that lead him to expect a “singularity” within the next few decades.  At that point, the computational power of the world’s computers would exceed that of humanity’s collective brains, and biological evolution would be superseded by development of information technology.   Watch this space for information about a biographical film about Kurzweil entitled Transcendent Man, which we expect to see again this year.

 Go West Young Man

This summer, our colleague Scott Powell moved from New York City back to the Midwest, accompanying his wife Christy to Bloomington, Indiana, as she pursues a Ph.D. in Education.  Though Scott is now even farther away geographically, he retains his affiliation with our firm and is a productive member of the growing cadre of teleworkers.  Already a patent attorney and a member of the Bar in Pennsylvania, Scott has added the Indiana Bar to his credentials.  He continues to provide a high level of service for our clients for a variety of patent, trademark and Internet business law matters, working with us as closely as he did when he was here in Media, Pennsylvania.

 And … Returning to Kansas City

Last year at this time, we introduced Jerome Smith as our newest colleague at ETL.  Alas, next month Jerome will be leaving us to take on the in-house role of Senior Intellectual Property Counsel of Adknowledge, Inc., a long-time client of Jerome’s that became an ETL client upon Jerome’s arrival.  He’s moving to Kansas City, Missouri, from whence he had come to the Philadelphia area.  The good news is that our firm will continue to serve as outside IP counsel for Adknowledge, and will provide support for Jerome and the Adknowledge team of inventors and managers.  Though we will miss having Jerome in the office, we expect our connection with him to remain strong. 

Developments in IP Law

In October, M.P. Moon and I attended the Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. of the American Intellectual Property Law Association.  We took part in workshops on such matters as dispute resolution, the patenting of biotechnology in uncertain times, chemical patent practice, and copyright law.

Also in Washington that month, my wife Lois and I attended an American Bar Association luncheon sponsored by the Standing Committee on Law and National Security.  It featured a lecture on the subject of cyberterrorism by Richard Clarke, author of Cyber War.  Since then, in the wake of recent WikiLeaks disclosures, examples of cyber attacks have raised awareness of such threats.  Stay tuned for further developments on this front.

Join Us on Social Networks

I invite Facebook members to become fans of our Facebook Page by visiting it and clicking the Like button.  Twitter users can follow @TechLaw_Elman and @ElmanTechNews for my latest updates in each field.

Last year at this time I wrote of the passing of my mother.  This year, my family and I fulfilled my parents’ wishes to scatter their remains into the sea.  In October, we participated in a lovely ritual in San Pedro Bay, conducted on a boat of the Neptune Society. Lois and I got the chance to see my brother and sister, our nephews, who filled us in on doings with their babies and their careers in Silicon Valley, and to spend time with my daughter Floren, her husband Sodhi, and my 32-month-old grandson Elijah.

Once again …. a blessing:  May happiness health and prosperity be yours — next year and forever

-Gerry

Since 2001, Gerry Elman has been a founding member of the World Technology Network (the “WTN”). Annually since then, the WTN has produced a summit conference and awards gala, the World Technology Summit and Awards, at venues ranging from London, to San Francisco, to New York City.

This year’s World Technology Summit and Awards took place in New York City on November 30 and December 1 at the Time & Life Building at Rockefeller Center.

On December 1,  the roundtable on IMAGINED WORLDS / PLAUSIBLE FUTURES: How Sci-Fi Legends Dream for Us, featured

• Paul Levinson, Author; Former President of Science Fiction Writers of America; and Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University
• Stanley Schmidt, Author; Editor of Analog Science Fiction & Fact magazine
• David Hartwell, Three-time Winner of the Hugo Award; Administrator of the Philip K. Dick Award

It was moderated by Dr. Moira Gunn, Host of Tech Nation and BioTech Nation on National Public Radio’s 24-hour program stream.   [Click here to watch a short video clip from the event]   [Click here for a video on FORA.tv of the full roundtable, payment required]

Said Gerry Elman,

“I am delighted that WTN founder Jim Clark acted on my suggestion to include such a roundtable in this year’s Summit, and that Elman Technology Law has been afforded the opportunity to sponsor this event.  It is exciting to acknowledge that many of the technological advances we are living with were first envisioned by authors writing in the genre of science fiction.  By reading science fiction, we stretch our minds towards a vision of the future that we, as technologists, then help to engender.”

Indeed, at a previous World Technology Summit, science fiction legend Sir Arthur C. Clarke was interviewed via a satellite link from his home in Sri Lanka, fitting–in that he had first proposed satellite communications in 1945.

Gerry asserts that an unsung prophet of biotechnology is Damon Knight, who in 1953 wrote a story called Natural State in which rural agricultural biotechnologists (the “muckfeet”) are at war against city folk whose lives are based on electromechanical technology.   In the story, the muckfeet communicate via genetically engineered vines with a nervous system that provides telephony, and transport themselves via genetically engineered big birds.  They win the war with the urbanites by splicing genes into a microbe to get it to gobble up copper, thereby destroying the technological infrastructure by which the city people communicate.

Gerry notes that, at the same time that James Watson and Francis Crick were sussing out the double-helix structure of DNA, Damon Knight conceived for that story the concept of splicing genes to create a biological chimera.  Later, Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer were to develop a tool to realize that dream, the technique of recombinant DNA, that was patented due to the watchful eye of patent attorney Bertram Rowland (whose recent passing we sadly note), working with Niels Reimers of the Stanford University technology transfer office.  Gerry observes wryly that Damon Knight’s story was not among the “prior art” cited during the prosecution of the Cohen-Boyer patents.

Damon Knight went on to found an organization of authors then called Science Fiction Writers of America (“SWFA”) and now known as Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.  More recently, Roundtable panelist Paul Levinson served as president of SWFA.  Coincidentally many scenes of Levinson’s sci-fi novels are set in midtown Manhattan, close to the venue of the Summit conference.

Gerry observes that the war between biotechnologists and information technologists envisioned by Damon Knight in Natural State has an eerily familiar echo in the present debate over “patent reform.” Many major information technology companies have been lobbying Congress to defang U.S. patent law, while most biotechnology companies are striving to resist such a statutory change.  For further information on this, subscribe to Elman’s Patent Reform News by sending Gerry  an email addressed to info@elman.com, and visit the website of American Innovators for Patent Reform.

As to the vulnerability of our technological infrastructure highlighted by Knight’s story, Gerry urges us also to heed the cautionary message in Richard Clarke’s recent book Cyber War.

Workshop on May 26 to Explore the Intersection of Patent Policy and Competition Policy and its Implications for Promoting Innovation

WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced today that they will hold a joint public workshop on the intersection of patent policy and competition policy and its implications for promoting innovation. Assistant Attorney General for the department’s Antitrust Division Christine Varney, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David J. Kappos, and U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra will give opening remarks at the morning session of the workshop. FTC Commissioner Edith Ramirez will open the afternoon session.

The workshop will be held on May 26, 2010, at the USPTO’s campus at 600 Dulany Street, Madison Building Auditorium, Alexandria, Va. The general public and press are invited to attend and view the proceedings. Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

[GJE Note]: Since I served in the federal Antitrust Division for six years and am fervently committed to promoting innovation, I’m gonna accept this invitation to hightail it down to Alexandria for the “festivities.”

In recent years, federal agencies and the courts have recognized that patents and competition share the overall purpose of promoting innovation and enhancing consumer welfare. Timely, high-quality patents promote investment in innovation. The competitive drive of a dynamic marketplace fosters the introduction of new and improved products and processes. By contrast, delay, uncertainty, and poor patent quality can create barriers to innovation. Additionally, where standards for violating antitrust law are unclear, or where the threshold for antitrust violations is set too low or too high, innovation can be stifled. The workshop will address ways in which careful calibration and balancing of patent policy and competition policy can best promote incentives to innovate.

“Since innovation is the only sustainable source of America’s competitive advantage, the relationship between intellectual property, which captures the value of innovation, and competition policy, which maintains a dynamic marketplace for innovation, is of paramount importance,” noted Under Secretary of Commerce David Kappos. “This conference is designed to explore the relationship between competition policy and intellectual property policy and how it fosters innovation.”

“We will benefit from working together with our PTO and FTC colleagues to ensure that the United States is using patent and competition policy that maximizes the potential for innovation, which is the primary driving force of economic growth in the 21st century,” said Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz agreed. “The FTC appreciates this opportunity to work with the DOJ and the USPTO to explore a balance of patent and competition policy that most benefits consumers, by spurring more innovative products and lower prices.”

The first morning panel of experts will examine how challenges posed by the patent backlog affect the competitive strategies of patent applicants and innovators. The second morning panel will examine the impact of the Supreme Court’s 2006 opinion in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange L.L.C. on permanent injunctions for patent infringement in district courts and at the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC). The afternoon panel will evaluate the role of patents in connection with industry standards and the impact such standards have on competition. The workshop will conclude with reflections on the panel discussions by the chief economists of the department’s Antitrust Division, the FTC, and the USPTO.

The schedule for the workshop is as follows:

WELCOMING REMARKS

9:00 a.m.-9:30 a.m.

David Kappos, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Christine Varney, Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division, Department of Justice

Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Executive Office of the President

PANEL 1: The Patent Application Backlog: The Competitive Challenges for Innovators

9:30 a.m.-11:00 a.m.

Panelists

John F. Duffy, Oswald Symister Colclough Research Professor of Law,

The George Washington University Law School

Josh Makower, M.D., Founder & CEO, ExploraMed Development LLC

Michael Meurer, Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law

Richard T. Ogawa, Esq., Ogawa P.C.

Scott Stern, Joseph and Carole Levy Professor, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University and Visiting Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management

Break

11:00 a.m.-11:15 a.m.

PANEL 2: Permanent Injunctions in the District Courts and ITC: Effects on Competition and Innovation

11:15 a.m.-12:45 p.m.

Panelists

Bernard J. Cassidy, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Tessera Technologies Inc.

Colleen Chien, Assistant Professor of Law, Santa Clara Law

Alice A. Kipel, Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP

Christine McDaniel, Economic Adviser to Chairman Shara L. Aranoff,

U.S. International Trade Commission

William Barr, former General Counsel, Verizon Communications Inc.

Emily Ward, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, eBay Inc. (invited)

Lunch Break

12:45 a.m.-2:15 p.m.

Introductory Remarks

2:15 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

Edith Ramirez, Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission

PANEL 3: Standard Setting, Patent Rights, and Competition Policy

2:30 p.m.-4:00 p.m.

Panelists

Mark Chandler, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Cisco Systems Inc.

Patrick Gallagher, Director, National Institute of Standards & Technology,

Department of Commerce

Brian Kahin, Senior Fellow, Computer & Communications Industry Association

Anne Layne-Farrar, Director, LECG

Amy A. Marasco, General Manager, Standards Strategy, Microsoft Corp.

A. Douglas Melamed, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Intel Corp.

Break

4:00 p.m.-4:15 p.m.

Wrap-Up Discussion

4:15 p.m.-5:15 p.m.

Carl Shapiro, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Economic Analysis, Antitrust Division,

Department of Justice

Joseph Farrell, Director, Bureau of Economics, Federal Trade Commission

Stuart Graham, Chief Economist, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

A panel presentation on Enhance Your Business with Links and Friends: “Online Social Media and You” sponsored by the German-American Chamber of Commerce – Philadelphia will be at The Hub in the Cira Center across the street from the 30th Street Amtrak Station in Philadelphia.

Date: Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Time: 5:00 to 7:30 PM

Our Gerry Elman will join Kayte Connelly (President of Best Principled Solutions, LLC) and Kelly Phillips Erb (The Erb Law Firm P.C.) on a panel moderated by Vivian Isaak (Magnum Group, Inc.).

Some of the topics to be covered:

LinkedIn

• Keys to creating a business presence on LinkedIn
• How to craft an effective social network
• Why is LinkedIn working for others and what are they accomplishing?
• How do I create meaningful conversations online?
• How do I target key individuals without scaring them? Or worse, spamming?

Blogging

• Where content is king: making a blog that isn’t just blah.
• Paid platforms versus free: how much should it take to get started?
• Finding your target audience
• Making your pitch
• Building your readership
• Turning readers into clients

Twitter

• Tweets and Hoots – instant gratification from teensy messages
• Why Twitter works for business
• Promoting yourself in 140 characters or less
• The power of the “retweet” – spreading your message

And More

How about a Facebook Page for your business?  Your customers will soon become Fans.
Not only for news junkies: online networking via Wall Street Journal, New York Times & Huffington Post.
What’s next? Are Ning, Digg and Google Buzz for you?
Smartphones with GPS: Going local on the World Wide Web.