When I traveled internationally for a wedding last year, we traveled through Switzerland and Germany, ending up in Greece for a wedding of one of my good friends.  To avoid high data rates for our smartphones we opted to try out Xcom Global’s Mifi.  At the time of rental we were shipped 3 MiFi’s, each set for a different country.  The devices worked fine wherever we traveled and they ended up costing less than the cost of 100MB plans for each of our two smartphones.  Now Xcom offers a universal MiFi that appears to work in multiple countries.  I haven’t tried it yet, but it sounds even more promising.

Why am I telling you this?  Although I don’t do this often, I’m entering a contest promotion – this one sponsored by Xcom Global.  I rarely comment publicly on products and services that I own and use on a daily basis (although I highly recommend Sonos for music and Kaleidescape for DVD and Blu Ray movie management), but I do feel comfortable recommending Xcom Global.  The promotion doesn’t require any of this writeup, but if I’m going to fulfill the contest condition by publishing their contest, I thought I would explain the product at least a little.

Send me a note if you want any further info on our experience with Xcom Global.  By the way, the bride and groom also rented a MiFi for Greece, and they had no problems with the service either.

Below is the obligatory Xcom Global language required for entry into the contest:

Where would you travel with $5,000?
Enter XCom Global’s End of Summer Giveaway!

http://www.xcomglobal.com

Rent and Avoid High Roaming Fees
in 175 countries for a Low Flat Rate

Lithosphere is not alone in talking about applying technology to improve legal processes.  From the blog below, there’s even a class at Georgetown Law School called “Technology, Innovation and Law Practice.”  The blog observes that:

The technology is available now to improve some of the functions that lawyers typically perform.

from 3 Geeks and a Law Blog: The Next Generation of Computers Practicing Law.  Niki Black of MyCase also explains that

I truly believe that over the next few years, lawyers who embrace and utilize technology effectively–in particular Internet-based and mobile tools–will undoubtedly have an edge over their less tech-savvy colleagues.

from MyCaseInc blog:  Can you automate the practice of law?

Our belief is that by replacing a typical patent lawyer function (manually organizing/analyzing patent claims and prior art in a folder structure) with new technology-based tools (database environment providing an edge over standard patent claim chart analysis), a lawyer can have a better grasp on the analysis.  A deeper understanding of the of the more subtle issues can then be achieved.

We focus on developing tools that enhance the understanding of the boundaries of patent protection.  The tools can be applied to infringement and invalidity analysis, but the underlying principles are the same – what is the proper scope of the claims.  If the claims are too broad based on the prior art, then a challenge can be made.  Does the claim scope really reach an accused product or service?  All of this is shaped by the prosecution history of the patent, prior art considered during prosecution, any stated reasons for allowance, and prior art not considered during prosecution.  This is a lot of information to track, process and understand.

Give us a call and see how we can help you in your practice.

This sums up why we formed Lithosphere in the first place – to build out PatDek:

There are tons of reasons to start a new business.

Want to know the best one?  Here it is:

“Because I want to be its first customer”

via Andy Swan • The best reason to start a business (or Prototype, Pivot, Platform).

Since 2002 we looked for a solution to better understand technology innovations to map them to patents.  We couldn’t find anything close to suit our needs.  We decided to “roll” our own solution to tackle these problems and became PatDek’s first users.  Now we’re sharing it with you.

Taking a break from the typical contentions-driven posts, it was refreshing to see that Twitter is taking a stand about how it intends to use its patent portfolio.  The press release provides:

The IPA is a new way to do patent assignment that keeps control in the hands of engineers and designers. It is a commitment from Twitter to our employees that patents can only be used for defensive purposes. We will not use the patents from employees’ inventions in offensive litigation without their permission. What’s more, this control flows with the patents, so if we sold them to others, they could only use them as the inventor intended.

Here is a pictorial of the process that describes how to understand the idea of “concepts” as they relate to patent claims and prior art.  The main idea, as shown in the graphic below, is that patent claims can be represented concepts.  We utilize this process because patent claims often use the same or similar words to cover a particular feature.

concepts in a patent claim

As above, the color-highlighting generally indicates features recited in the claim language.  The different colors represent different features recited in the claim.  The user determines how a claim can be divided into different concepts.  In the next graphic, we show a group of concepts.  Once concepts are identified for one claim, the same concepts can be used for other claims.

We recently completed an update to our list of local patent rules.  You can now find a list of each jurisdiction that provides patent local rules, a corresponding link to the patent rules or PDF, and excerpts of the specific rules concerning invalidity contentions and invalidity charts.

Take a look and let us know what you think.  We still need to add a couple of additional jurisdictions.