We enjoyed a delicious 2007 Pinot Noir from Joseph Carr Wines over the holiday. The beautifully simple instructions on the back label – share – have a Creative Commons feel to them, don’t you think?

We complied, sharing with friends. And after a couple few glasses, I found myself wishing for an easy way to make perfect copies of the creation. No luck.

The Patent and Trademark Office has two statutorily defined duties: To grant, issue, and register; and to disseminate information to the public. Confusion surrounding yesterday’s closing/non-closing of the Office shows, again, that PTO officials often forget about, and perhaps even ignore, the latter.

The Office of Personnel Management is reporting that all federal agencies in the Washington, D.C. area will be closed tomorrow, December 21. There is no reason to expect that this won’t apply to the Patent and Trademark Office.

Adjust your Christmas week work schedule accordingly.

The Patent and Trademark Office faced a cash crunch in fiscal year 2009. Fee collections were significantly lower than expected, and several drastic cost-cutting measures had to be implemented toward the end of the year. The annual report seems to suggest, though, that the Office left $118M on the table, presumably exposed to Congress for diversion.

The Federal Trade Commission sued Intel today, claiming that the company’s anti-competitive behavior over the last decade has harmed innovation and consumers. When compared to the company’s patent reform efforts, the lawsuit reveals an interesting dichotomy that leaves the company in a difficult position.

While practitioners struggle to stay current with constant changes in patent law, we have to acknowledge that the Office has an additional challenge in its efforts to do the same: volume.

David Kappos sees patent reform legislation as an absolute…at least as far as the application backlog goes.

Remember the USPTO proposal that would require patent practitioners to pay an annual fee to maintain their license? The Office officially abandoned the fee for 2009, leaving the future of the fee in limbo. A Federal Register Notice, published on Friday, makes a tangential mention of the fee….suggesting that it might be required in the near future.