Philip Brooks' Patent Infringement Updates

Justin Muchoney Gets Dream Job

Congratulations! 
Justin Muchoney
2008 Disney Parks Chief Magic Official

After months of grueling campaigning culminating in a two-day climax of in-Park competitions, Justin Muchoney claims the victory as the Disney Parks Chief Magic Official! Be sure to come back in May to find out the latest on Justin's CMO activities. Meanwhile you can still check out the videos of the CMO competitions at Walt Disney World© Resort.

Watch a replay of this morning's winner announcement live webcast.

Justin Muchoney Makes Final Three for Disney's Chief Magic Official Contest

As described in my March 4, 2008 post on Disney's Chief Magic Official contest in conjunction with CareerBuilder.com, a good friend, Justin Muchoney, made the final ten.  At 12:01 this morning Disney announced after close to 500,000 votes were cast, Justin made the final three!

Here is Justin's note of thanks and plea for one more round of voting commencing on April 14th:

Thank you SO much for all of the votes and support you have given me as a part of this CareerBuilder.com / Disney Dream Job C.M.O. contest. I really appreciate you waiting around so patiently (for the most part!) with me for the official announcement of the final three.

Without further ado, I am thrilled to be able to tell you that your tireless voting efforts have paid off!

I am one of the top 3 candidates!

There is absolutely NO question that I couldn’t have made it this far with out all of you – your enthusiasm, passionate support, and very active voting fingers!  So, given how much you have already done for me, I feel bad coming to you asking for more.  We have just a little work left before things are all said and done.

There will be one last round of frantic voting – only one week this time, though!  Monday, April 14th – Monday April 21st.   You can go to the main contest page to vote; starting on the 14th (my guess is it will start at the stroke of midnight eastern – for all you night owls out there!)

On April 22nd, at an in-park ceremony in the morning, the Grand Prize winner will be announced.  The winner will then take on the role of Chief Magic Official for the Disney Parks for a 12-month period! 

SO, what can you do to help?  Well, here are a couple of things:

1.      Please accept my sincerest thanks!  You have been such an amazing support structure for me and I am overjoyed to be able to share this experience with so many of you.  THANK YOU SO MUCH!

2.      SPREAD THE WORD!  Please forward this email to as many people as you feel you can.  Especially if you know there were folks who voted in the last round.  I really want to make sure that they get word of the results and that they know how much I appreciate everything!

3.     VOTE.  The site should still be http://www.dreamcmo.com/.  If there is a direct link to a voting page just for me, I’ll send it along.  Hopefully we can get enough people on board that the voting craze will once again sweep through our community, our friends, our churches and schools, and all of the people we have contacted throughout the country and world.  With only one week to vote – and two other VERY deserving and talented finalists – I’m sure we will need to maintain some pretty high levels of momentum!

Again, sincerely, thank you so much for everything.  The laughter, stories, questions, enthusiasm, interest, jokes, etc, etc, etc, have really made this an incredibly magical experience for me.  I’ll be working hard to prove that I’m worthy of your votes – you can be sure of that!

For now, thanks for indulging me in a very long-winded email.

Keep smiling, keep laughing, and keep dreaming!

  ~Justin

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Patent Bending

Bill Heinze of I/P Updates blog reported on August 14, 2006 about "[t]he Discovery Channel Canada's Patent Bending team ... scour[ing of] patents from the past 100 years 'to find the seemingly greatest, strangest or most fantastically odd ideas that never got off the page - then figure out why.'

"[E]ach episode identifies one idea and starts the process of bringing the invention to life. They build it, test it and they quickly figure out why it never worked." Episodes include:

1. “Bicycle Lawnmower;”
2. “Floating Tent;”
3. “12-Gauge Golf Club;”
4. "Helmet Bar;"
5. "Chute 'N Shoes;"
6. "Human Carwash;"
7. "Fishing Show;" and
8. "Motorized Picnic Table.

The show will air again, this time on the Science Channel, beginning on April 9, 2008.  Schedule and information on each of the 14 episodes is available here.  Thanks to my son for the heads up on this show.

e-IP, LLC (www.TechTransferOnline.com) Becomes The Place To Go For Intellectual Property(TM)

The following is excerpted from a March 20, 2008 e-IP, LLC press release at PR Newswire:

After only a few months of gathering intellectual property from universities, corporations, and other research institutions, TechTransferOnline has been entrusted with thousands of high quality Intellectual Property (IP) from some of the most prestigious research groups in the world, and is weeks away from launching the breakthrough proprietary portal to entities seeking IP.

"Universities' and national laboratories' technology transfer offices see this website as a means to get more leads more quickly for the licensing of their IP. Unlike other sites, this portal gathers IP from many different entities, allowing seekers of IP to enter their search criteria once, instead of having to visit many websites," says C.E.O. Christophe Sevrain.

Some of the site's features include:

    -- Proprietary automation software that uploads, and synchronizes hundreds or thousands of IP asset files onto the http:/// website with nothing for the IP holder to do,
    -- The ability to list non-published Intellectual Property online, with searchers required to agree to a strict online confidential agreement for these items,
    -- The logging of the identity of every party that has viewed the lister's postings, to get instant leads,
    -- A very low flexible fee structure that allows the lister to choose between paying when the IP is sold or licensed, or paying a flat subscription fee.

Read the full release here.

Disney's Chief Magic Official

To prove that making dreams come true is no longer reserved for fairy godmothers, CareerBuilder.com [on January 8, 2008] launched the search for the first-ever Disney Parks Chief Magic Official (CMO) who will spread magic during The Year of a Million Dreams.

"We're looking for that perfect someone to serve alongside our talented Cast of dream makers," said Craig Dezern, Vice President, Global Public Relations, Disney Parks. "The CMO will serve as an ambassador of dreams to help create the magic that only Disney can bring to its guests."

"Whatever you dreamed of being when you were growing up, chances are some of your plans hit a snag along the way," said Richard Castellini, a spokesperson for CareerBuilder.com. "In fact, in a recent survey of over 6,000 workers, only 15 percent said they were actually in their dream jobs. The Disney Parks CMO will have the unique opportunity to live out his or her dream and bring a little magic to the lives of others."

A good friend of mine, Justin Muchoney, who leads the music department at our church has managed to make the final 10 (out of 1,300 applicants) for a shot at Disney's Chief Magic Official position.  Justin almost got a job at Disney right after he graduated from Grove City College, but wound up at our church.  He has done an amazing job over the last five years or so building up a tremendous music program.  He needs lots of votes to make the final three that will compete at Disney in Orlando.

Take a look at his video and place a vote (or 100!) for Justin.  There is a lot of traffic on the site at times so you may have to try a couple of times, but it is worth it.

Thanks for taking the time to vote for Justin's dream and pass it along.

Top IP Law Issues for 2008

A press release issued today, February 11, 2008, at Marketwire by Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks states, in part:

Last year was probably the most momentous in intellectual property law in decades. Will 2008 be as dramatic?

An article in the February 8 issue of Mass High Tech by James J. Foster and Patrick R.H. Waller of the Boston IP law firm Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C., tells what to look for.

--  Patent reform legislation -- finally?

--  Rules or no rules?
   
--  Trademark rip-offs in Second Life.
   
--  KSR and Seagate decisions filter down. 
   
--  LG v Quanta.
   
--  Retrenchment on patents for business methods? 
   
--  Copycatting the Eastern District of Texas?
   
--  Egyptian Goddess augurs changes in design patents?

Read more on each of these topics here or see the full article here.

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GE Energy Patent Counsel Position Available

GE Energy (GEE) has an open position for an experienced Patent Counsel in Greenville, South Carolina reporting to the Wind Energy IP Counsel. The Patent Counsel will be responsible for working with technology teams and patent analysts to understand the wind turbine patent landscape and develop responsive invention disclosures (IDLs) and patent strategy to support exclusive products and license income; prepare and prosecute strategic patent applications, manage IDL/patent evaluation board process; manage counsel preparing and prosecuting patent applications; and provide patent clearance related counsel.

For more information, including how to submit your resume, go to http://www.gecareers.com/GECAREERS/jsp/index.jsp. And, until you find the announcement, please feel free to pass along a copy of your resume to william.heinze@ge.com.

Google's Secret Patent Portfolio Predicts gPhone

Thomas Claburn of InformationWeek wrote yesterday, September 19, 2007:

Google (GOOG) isn't merely targeting the mobile phone market with its rumored gPhone. It may be going after video games, TV, and mobile e-commerce too.

Such deftly hedged speculation comes from Evaluserve, a global consulting and research firm, based on what it believes to be concealed competitive intelligence about Google's patent portfolio, never mind that other Google watchers have sizing up Google based on non-obvious patents for years now.

In a new report obtained by InformationWeek, the firm claims that most of Google's patent portfolio may be missed by simply searching the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office's (USPTO) online database.

Seeking Web 2.0-related patents published during the period January 2001 to May 2007, Evaluserve says that it scoured the Delphion patent database for patents and patent applications filed at the USPTO, the European Patent Office (EPO), the Japanese Patent Office (JPO), and the World-wide Intellectual Property Office (WIPO).

Unsurprisingly, it found that Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Yahoo were the most active filers. Yet Google's patents turned out to be less evident through a USPTO search than the patents of its competitors.

"The search strategy given above concludes that only 13% of Google's total filings are at the USPTO, whereas 78% of its filings are PCT [Patent Cooperation Treaty] applications," the Evaluserve report says. "This result seems to stand out since more than 50% of the filings of Microsoft (MSFT), IBM (IBM) and Yahoo (YHOO) are also at the USPTO. However, a closer examination reveals that around 84% of the U.S. patent applications filed by Google in the Web 2.0 space did not have Google's name printed on the published patent application, since this information was not provided to the USPTO at the time of filing."

Read the full article here.