Over the last several months, I’ve become a big fan of the Amazon Kindle. My wife bought me one for Christmas last year, and I’ve had trouble putting it down ever since. The device has quickly become my indispensable reading companion. Now, I’m using the device in several of my regular tasks for Promote the Progress…and will soon begin publishing Kindle-optimized versions of court opinions for your enjoyment.

You see, beyond being a wonderful platform for reading electronic books bought from the Amazon Kindle store, the device also allows you to read electronic documents that you convert to Kindle format. Once converted, you can load the documents onto your Kindle and take them with you, right alongside your book collection.

This feature clearly has tremendous potential for legal professionals who review lots of documents (and who among us doesn’t?). The device even has primitive annotation tools, which should raise the second eyebrow of every lawyer in the crowd.

For a wonderfully forward-looking account of using the Kindle in a law firm environment, read Denise Howell’s post, A fully Kindleized law firm.

Over the last month or so, I’ve been working the Kindle into my Promote the Progress workflows. I’m generating Kindle versions of patent-related opinions from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and am mostly happy with the output (will be working out a few formatting kinks going forward).

What’s in it for you, you ask? Simple – I’m making the Kindle versions of the opinions available for download, right alongside the .pdf files. Just go to the download page for an opinion of interest, and look for the Kindle box right below the .pdf box (see Vehicle IP v. General Motors, as an example).

We’re attacking coverage as follows:

1) all new opinions will have Kindle versions available as soon as we post the web and .pdf versions;

2) We will post Kindle versions of all opinions issued between January 1, 2009 and today within the next several weeks; and

3) We will begin working backward from December 31, 2008 with “special dispatch” and will post Kindle versions of these opinions as they become available.

4) We will promptly respond to any request to provide a Kindle version of an opinion that has not yet been processed. If there’s an older opinion you want Kindleized, just let us know and we’ll put it at the top of the list for processing.

I hope the Kindle users out there enjoy this new and exciting feature of Promote the Progress. I have a few ideas for additional Kindle-based features on the horizon, too, so keep watching!

Over the last several months, Twitter has become a vital component of the Promote the Progress site (follow me at @jmattbuchanan). I use the service to connect with PTP readers and others in the patent community by sharing quick thoughts, links, and other information that doesn’t necessarily warrant a full blog post or case review. In the few short months since I started to use Twitter seriously, I’ve met several interesting patent folks and have participated in numerous fascinating patent-related discussions.

The experience has taught me a lot about engaging a community and developing conversation. While the patent conversation on Twitter is growing (both in quantity and substance), it certainly could use a little help. To that end, I thought it would be great to recruit the Patent and Trademark Office into the mix. The Office is doing some wonderful things with technology and community involvement (the webcast of the recent roundtable discussion on deferred examination is a prime example), but has yet to undertake any social/new media efforts.

Twitter seems like a logical way for the Office to get started in this arena. At a minimum, the Office could use Twitter to post news items and links from its news page. This simple use of the system would provide another avenue to distribute critical information to Office stakeholders. There’s so much more that could be done, though. The Office could use the system to answer questions from the community, to provide live updates from important meetings (e.g., the roundtable, the Public Patent Advisory Committee), etc.

To start the process of recruiting the Office to Twitter, I’ve registered the @uspto account…and will gladly transfer it to someone from the Office that is responsible for IT and/or web technologies and that expresses a genuine interest in developing the account into a serious communications channel for the Office. I have started posting items to the account solely to attract relevant followers, but will only post official items made public by the Office in order to avoid any hesitation by the Office to “adopt” the account later.

When considering whether to use Twitter (either through this account or another), folks from the Office might be interested in reviewing this list of government agencies that are already on Twitter. The list includes NASA (@NASA_Ames_Web, @marsrover, @marsphoenix, and several others), FDA (@foodrecalls), and even President Obama (@BarackObama, although, sadly, he has not tweeted since the inauguration). The Social Media and Web 2.0 in Government collection of resources on webcontent.gov might also be helpful.

The patent community can help the recruiting effort by following @uspto on Twitter and sending a tweet that spreads the word!

I started the Promote the Progress site five years ago today with this innocuous post about, ironically enough, the EPO and its workload problems.

Perhaps paralleling the twists and turns taken by US patent law during this period, the site has seen tremendous change over the last five years – moving from a simple blog format to the emerging education portal you see today. The adventure will continue to unfold as I keep pursuing my passion – I love reading and learning about the latest developments in patent law, and sharing my thoughts with the community continues to prove rewarding.

Coincidentally, today also appears to be the first day of a new era at the Patent and Trademark Office – Director Jon Dudas has presumably resigned as of yesterday, the last day of the Bush Administration. Even though we continue to await President Obama’s appointment of a new PTO Director, today is officially the first day of “new” leadership at the Office.

Happy Anniversary to PTP!