Access Requirements for USPTO Alexandria, VA Campus

If you are planning on visiting the USPTO offices in VA, and you have a NY License (or one of the other 7 listed below), you are going to need to bring the alternative IDs listed here. 

As of April 21, the following states do not meet the REAL ID standards:

·         Alaska

·         American Samoa

·         Arizona

·         Kentucky

·         Louisiana

·         Maine

·         Massachusetts

·         Minnesota

·         Montana

·         New York

·         Oklahoma

·         Washington

Visitors to the USPTO with state issued identification from these states must present alternate forms of identification to facilitate access. Three of the states listed above offer an Enhanced Driver’s License that is identifiable by an American flag on the license; they are New York, Minnesota, and Washington. USPTO will accept the Enhanced Driver’s Licenses from those states.
DHS currently accepts other forms of Federal-issued identification in lieu of a state-issued driver’s license, such as a:

·         Passport

·         Passport card

·         DoD’s CAC

·         Federal agency HSPD-12 ID

·         Veterans ID

·         Military dependents ID

·         Trusted Traveler card – Global Entry, SENTRI, or NEXUS

·         Transportation Workers Identification Credential (TWIC)

For visitors using state-issued ID to access the USPTO, only driver’s licenses or identification cards from states that meet Federal standards will be honored. USPTO will continue to accept other forms of government-issued identification, including Federal employee badges, passports, military identification cards, or Enhanced Driver's Licenses as noted above.
If visitors do not have acceptable identity documents, the person to be visited at USPTO will need to provide an escort in order for the visitor to access the USPTO. The visitor must be escorted at all times while in USPTO secured areas.

For additional information about the REAL ID Act, please visit www.dhs.gov/secure-drivers-licenses.

The Case for a Financial Engineering Art Unit at The PTO

If you understand the formula to the left, then congratulations, you are probably a financial engineer.

Financial engineering is a multidisciplinary approach to finance that uses mathematical modeling, computer algorithms, and economic principals to develop various sophisticated financial instruments. The goal, as with every alchemist, it is generate something of immense value from something of very little value.

Where the end product of financial engineering intersects with IP law is the notion of the "business method patent".  Most of the concern regarding Non-Practicing entities (Patent Trolls), are focused squarely on the validity of patents relating to financial engineering implementations.

 The U.S. Supreme Court has recently granted Cert. in CLS Bank v. Alice Corporation. The internet is full of blogs explaining the merits of each parties' position, and i have nothing useful to add to that conversation.

What I do add is this: The general disposition of people opposed to business method patents is that the concepts are abstract, and do not do anything new with old concepts. Unfortunately, that opinion confuses the prohibition on non-patentable subject matter (Sec. 101) and novelty (Sec 102).

If the argument is that a financial engineering concept, like the 3rd party escrow arrangement in ALS, were abstract, then why are we arguing about it? Clearly someone implemented the idea, hence making it tangible. Once something can be made tangible, it is no longer abstract.  Really, most positions on business method patents collapse into a novelty argument.

The patent office was issuing loads of patents on financial concepts tied to various computer implementations. When these patents are challenged, the argument is always that the patentee is merely applying the concept with a computer. The parties could point to the prior art, but they usually find it lacking. Thus, they settle into a long patent-eligible subject matter argument instead of a novelty, obvious argument.

The result is that Congress, the President and various industry groups are attempting to change the law to suit the goal of eliminating harmful business method patents.

A better way to solve the problem is to move the issue back into the patent office. It is my theory that one of the reasons that business method patents get through the patent office is that most of the Examiners in the art unit have a computer science background and not a financial engineering background. If the PTO actively recruited a financial engineering unit, and stationed them in a Manhattan Satellite Office, they would have the synergy of a examiner corp that is familiar with high-end financial concepts, and a store of knowledge as to what constitutes prior art.

Why Manhattan? Proximity  to Wall Street; home to several leading financial engineering graduate programs. Supply of former and current financial industry employees who can transition into the examiner role.

Before we close off an entire field of patentable subject matter, we should at least try to diligently examine them.

Jordan Garner

[Scam Alert] UPTS.org

Unlike intros to songs featuring Jay-Z, this is not a "new watch" alert but a a [New Scam] alert. However, much like the rap impresario, I come to tell you tales of The Hustle.

Much in the same way that modern hip-hop reinterprets the classic Greek tragedy, IP scammers seek the remix of old strategies.
Before the Internet, IP scammers must have had it made.  All that was needed was an official looking document and an Eastern European P.O. Box. Presto, cash in bank.

Now, in order to have a credible shot at committing fraud, IP scammers have resulted to professional looking webpages, and even more official looking documents.

I find UPTS.org to be particularly innovative in this respect. They use a web URL that is surprisingly homologous to the USPTO. That off-set  P grabs you, roping in those who are vaguely aware of the existence of the USPTO, PCT and EPO. Add in the .Org and it all looks so plausibly above board.

However, the briefest reviews shows that once again, those eastern European O.P. boxes are behind the scenes. Looking to collect your checks (and god forbid,) your credit card number.

Safe to say that UPTS.org is a scam. Do not give them your money. Add them to the List.

IP-Data.biz
UPTS.org

Jordan Garner

Patents on Bitcoins

One of the questions that comes up often for IP attorneys is  "who owns Bitcoin'? 

In a sense, no one owns Bitcoin.  It is a distributed peer-to-peer unit of exchange. However this answer rarely satifies people who have come to you for your indepth legal opinion.

It should be noted that the concept of a network wide, anonymous, crypto-currency was only really implemented in 2009 by an individual known as Satoshi Nakamoto. Mr. Nakamoto (we have no way of knowing if that individual was/is a he/she/cybernetic construct from the future) published a paper describing the basic elements of the bitcoin system and released the software that underpins the peer-to-peer networking aspect. This software was released open source, without restriction. As such, no one legally has the right to prevent others from modifying or using the software for their own purposes. Thus while the Nakamoto Hivemind owns the software that bitcoin are mined with, it does not own the underlying conceptual framework.

There is some speculation that a Neil King, et al, listed inventors on US 2010-0042841 A1 (now abandoned for failure to respond to an office action) are the true inventors of bitcoins. Even if true, the patent office found several prior art references. Thus, the attempt to patent the concept appears to have been abandoned.  However, there is a thriving trade in bitcoin patent applications. People can, and do, attempt to file patent applications on the use of bitcoins for all manner of transaction. However, these patents do not reach back to the underlying concept of the Bitcoin and its use as a digital currency.

The actual software implementation of bitcoin generation is somewhat complex, but involves scanning for a value that when hashed twice with SHA-256, begins with a number of zero bits (you don't want me to explain this in more detail that that but ... a hash is an algorithm which takes a arbitrary amount of data and generates a fixed length of data. This is useful when attempting to use encode something for privacy. It is easy to hash something, and it is easy to verify that the data matches the hash, but hard to fake the data if you were up to no good. I am not a cryptanalysis guru and this was all distilled from 3 or 4 really good Wikipedia articles).

This is all a long winded way of saying that the process of generating bitcoins is technically complex and rests on the security and usibility of the SHA-256 Hash Function. However, in one of those ironic twists of fate that only happens in America, the NSA, bane of anonymous privacy advocates everywhere, actually owns the patent on the SHA-256 Hash function.

US Patent 6,829,355 to Lilly, and assigned to the NSA, covers the technical details employed in using the SHA-256 function to authenticate data (e.g. bitcoin transactions). All is not lost, the US has granted the world a royalty-free license to the patent.

However, the terms and conditions of this royalty agreement are murky. The royalty-free notice was filed in 2004. However, there is no easily available record of the exact terms of the grant of a royalty free (i.e. is it irrevocable?).

Thus, the long answer to the question of "who owns anonymous peer to peer government agnostic pro-privacy transaction crypto-currency" might, in fact, be the United States Government.  It is their world, we are just trading digital currency in it.

Jordan Garner
jgarner@leasonellis.com
(c)2013

IP-Data.biz [Scam Alert]

Just a quick note about IP scams. Recently, a client sent me a document which claimed to be from a patent database provider. They were offering to publish the client's PCT application in their publicly accessible database. All they wanted in return was 2600.00 USD.

IP-Data.biz and companies like them make money based on the lack of information surrounding patents, publications and international filings. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) already publishes the applications. It is part of the outrageous fee you paid them about 18 months prior.

Safe to say, the only international authority you should pay (assuming you have filed a PCT application and done so pro-se is the national receiving office of the PCT.  This will be a reputable organization, like the USPTO located in Washington or the EPO located in Brussels. It will not be a nondescript drop box in Bratislava. 

Hopefully, if on one falls for their scams, they will move on to other, less low hanging fruit.