Turkey Day Inventions

It is the day after Thanksgiving and I am taking a much needed break from all my various on-going projects. However, while assisting in the kitchen with a variety of Thanksgiving sous-chef duties, I couldn't help but remark at all the inventions that were making my life easier. I decided to think of some of the kitchen inventions that a Pilgrim would have traded a shipment of Belt-buckle hats for.



A hand cranked apple peeler, corer and slicer patented in 1893 (PN # 508,137) would have saved Pilgrims countless man-hours. Giving them more time during the day to pray, not dance, and contemplate their terrifying existence at the edge of the world.


The mixing stand. (PN #2,390,742) No stranger to the denizens of wedding registries the world over, the mixing stand would have saved "Goody" Housewife countless hours of effort and the associated repetitive strain injuries of mashing all manner of root, tuber and vegetable. First patented in 1939, the mixing stand was licensed to A.F. Dormeyer Mfg Co. under the trade-name "Mix-Rite". This "striking" stand-mixer would have freed up plenty of time for Pilgrims to contemplate the high-rate of infant mortality, "Consumption" and vitamin-deficiency related illness endemic to the populace.

The Mechanical Refrigerator (PN # 2,089,851). Also patented in the late 1930's, this invention described the use of fluid (namely Freon) expansion to provide the cooling mechanism to preserve foods. Something that would have aided the Pilgrims greatly. Nothing says pointless effort like spending 3 days to prepare a feast and having most of the left-overs spoil in half that time.




Antibiotics (numerous patents). While not necessarily Thanksgiving specific inventions, Pilgrims would have traded all the muskets and bibles they had for a few doses of modern-day broad spectrum anti-biotic. The accepted statistic is that there were 7 graves dug for every new house built in the early settlement period. Most of these were deaths do to disease and infant mortality, both of which modern medical science has made great strides in minimizing. That is what we should really be thankful for.

[G|A]

Google V. THE WORLD

Recently Google announced that its Scholar web-based search service would begin providing access to Federal and State legal opinions. Above the Law correctly notes that this could be the opening shot of a war that ends with the destruction of the Lex-West-Bloom legal search gatekeepers. While Google is a force to be reckoned with in everything from browsers, search engines (and patent search too), operating systems, phone services, e-mail, word processing and a ton of other things, I am not sure that Scholar will cause the total collapse of the big three.....today.

Using Scholar, I searched for Graham v. John Deere Co. to see what sort of results the service provided. Google gives you two options, to read the case (with highlighted keywords, that were part of your search) and to see how the case was cited. This second option is where Google has a bit more work to do. One of the essential features of the big 3 is the key cite, shepherdize, precedence identifies that let you know if you are barking up the wrong (and no longer good) legal tree. Scholar gives dozens of links and text snippets showing where the originating document was cited in subsequent documents, but does not comment on whether or not there was agreement, comment or dissent. Most importantly, it does not tell you if the case is good law.

Until Google gets the ability to show precedence and some legal analysis about the context of the case, I don't think any small law practitioners should be canceling their Lexis / West accounts anytime soon. However, this is Google, so assuming that they are not already working on a smooth integrated solution to this would be folly. Google database engineers are some of the best computer scientist that money can buy, and it would be prudent to bet that world of legal search is about to get a lot more competitive.

[GA]

New Feature

In the course of assisting a client with a trademark matter, I began thinking about all the decisions that eventually brought this client to my attention. While the hows and whys of the pertinent legal matter should always take precedence, I began to ask the client about their general impression of intellectual property law. More importantly, I began asking about what it meant to them before it became a focus of a dispute.

I think many practitioners fail to understand that the general public is largely aware of intellectual property concepts, but don't always know the best way to take advantage of the rights that our system provides. Much like in health care, IP practice focuses a lot of its time on preventable issues, that were never prevented.

I decided to get some data on what intellectual property producers think about IP, especially before it becomes something that is knocking on the front door of their livelihood. Issues like why producers opt for cheap invention services, why people fail to get federal copyrights or file for trademarks. My assumptions led me to believe, again like health care, that is was an issue of money. The capital outlay for preventative legal actions was seen as a waste of money, while remedial legal actions were undertaken as a option of last resort. In my interviews, I found this to be generally correct, however, there is a vista of thoughts, emotions and pre-conceptions that go into producer decisions.

In the coming weeks, there will be a new feature which will relate some of my interviews with designers, programmers, inventors and other producers of intellectual property. Hopefully to convey their impressions of our field and how those impressions influence their work, their decisions to hire attorneys, and their decisions to take action against other producers. Through these interviews, IP practitioners can learn as much about the people we seek to help as they learn about our field.

These posts will be labeled [Producer Profiles].

[GA]