Category Archives: Main Page

Flirting with death

Posted on by

In director Sam Mendes (I recall him from college days)  ‘The Road to Perdition’ (on TV last night) Jude Law’s character says that seeing a dead body makes him feel more alive. Funny, ’cause when I saw a dead guy by the side of the road in deepest Brazil I saw the funny side of it, the guy looked cool in a purple shirt.

Why the flirting with death theme? There’s been bomb alerts in Tower Hill and at Hammersmith, at both ends of my daily commute this morning. Though there’s the other coincidence, the tragic stabbing murders in Hammersmith and Adam Reggis who’d just been to Newham Showcase. Though the Showcase site has its own sad death connection, as a maintenance guy at the Hollywood Bowl was crushed there recently. And I was nearly killed on my bike there, on blind-death corner. So take care, don’t flirt with death:-)

US Patent and Trademarks Office gets collaborative

Posted on by

Don’t ask, just join the dots together with the following facts. Wonder if it will influence ‘Transforming Government’ in the UK?:

1. Last August the US Patent and Trademarks Office removed Wikipedia (a collaborative product) from its list of acceptable resource sources, which didn’t help Amazon lawyers’ action to protect its 1-Click patent.

2. Now a collaborative pilot has been announced by — the US Patent and Trademarks Office:

“As part of the efforts of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (Office) to implement its Strategic Plan, the Office is pleased to announce a pilot to determine the extent to which the organized submission of documents together with comments by the public will provide useful prior art for examiners.

“Advances in Internet-based methods of collaboration have produced both technological and business models that have greatly increased productivity in the American economy.  Recently a group of academic and business professionals have proposed a collaborative, online process in which members of the public pool together their knowledge and locate potential prior art. 

“This pilot will test whether such collaboration can effectively locate prior art that might not otherwise be located by the Office during the typical examination process.”