First Regional Patent Office to be Located in Detroit, Michigan.

We are pleased to report that Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and USPTO Director David Kappos have announced that the first Regional Patent Office would be located in Detroit, Michigan.  Being a local patent practitioner, i.e., a Michigan attorney with offices a short drive south of Detroit, near Toledo, Ohio, we could not be more pleased with this announcement!

As first reported today by Gene Quinn at the IPWatchdog website, who was on the conference call for the Regional Patent Office Announcement:

In a conference call this afternoon with reporters Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced that the first Regional Patent Office would be located in Detroit, Michigan and will open at some point during 2011, employing some 100 patent examiners with some additional support staff.  Locke explained that as a part of the nationwide workforce initiative of the Obama Administration high paying jobs would be coming to the USPTO Detroit Satellite Office.  Locke said that while 100 patent examiners is an appropriate level of staffing initially that number could expand over time if the Regional Patent Office model proves successful. Secretary Locke also explained that the Detroit Satellite Patent Office will be “the first of several Patent Offices we hope to establish around the country.” 

AT! had posted several weeks ago (here) that Regional Patent Offices were being seriously considered, and that Detroit was in the running for the first location.  A recent post at the Inventive Step blog had confirmed that the idea was likely to come to fruition.  We had also recognized the lobbying that had been done by a local intellectual property law association, the Toledo Intellectual Property Law Association (TIPLA), which had espoused regional Patent Offices as one of many proposed patent law reforms and sent many letters to government officials in this regard.

At the end of the day, this is an excellent opportunity for our region, and for other regions as they acquire their own Regional Patent Offices.  Congratulations to the Kappos administration and all persons at the local and government levels who worked hard to bring this concept to reality!  We at the Anticipate This!™ | Patent and Trademark Law Blog applaud your efforts and success!

JW Note:  We were officially supposed to be on a blog-cation for the holiday season here at AT!, but this story was just too good to pass up!  Hat tip to Gene Quinn at the IP Watchdog for breaking this story first!

They Invented What? (No. 191)

U.S. Pat. Appl. Pub. No. 2002/0128081: Santa’s reindeer food.

JW Note:  Wishing a Happy Holidays to all!  See you in 2011!

What is claimed is:

1. A kit for supplying reindeer food to Santa’s reindeer, comprising (a) an article, adapted to be filled with a supply of reindeer food; and (b) a hoofprint maker for making reindeer hoofprints on the ground to indicate the reindeer having eaten the reindeer food.

Newsweek Article – Famous Accidental Inventions.

There is an interesting photograph-based article on famous “accidental” discoveries and inventions at the Newsweek website, located here.  Per the article:

Some of the biggest game-changing inventions and discoveries of our time were not the product of calculated genius, but accidents that happened to work out. These lucky mishaps have given the world everything from the awesome Slinky toy to the lifesaving antibiotic penicillin. In many cases they’ve also reshaped major industries or created entirely new ones. NEWSWEEK takes a look at some of the most serendipitous breakthroughs in history and how they came about.

We recommend reading this article, if you have a few minutes to spare.  Are there any other “accidental'” inventions that are readership believes are worth mentioning?  Feel free to leave a comment if you can think of any!

They Invented What? (No. 190)

U.S. Pat. No. 7,735,491: Methods of treating respiratory disorders.

What is claimed is:

1. A method of treating a sleep disorder comprising: inserting at least a portion of a nasal respiratory device into a subject’s nasal cavity; and securing the nasal respiratory device in communication with the subject’s nasal cavity, wherein the nasal respiratory device comprises an airflow resistor that inhibits exhalation more than it inhibits inhalation and a holdfast and wherein the nasal respiratory device is secured using an adhesive.