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Welcome
to the April/May edition of the SLPG
Newsletter!
April
and May are a great time of year wherever in the
world you might find yourself. From April showers
to Poetry Month (all of April), the 99th
Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic (April
15), the US IRS Tax Filing Deadline (April 18),
and World Intellectual Property Day (April
26th), April really starts off the Spring
with a bang! May
has its own excitement lined up, from May flowers
to Mother's Day (May 8) and Memorial Day (May
30).
To
help you get in the mood for the season,
we wrote you a poem that we hope will serve
as your inventive and creative muse. Check
out our patent tidbits this month
for the invention that reportedly saved
the lives of the survivors of the Titanic and a
humorous (we think) invention that should
give expectant mothers a laugh. And while
you are laughing, check out our monthly
Ideaz™ cartoon for
a rare tax-season chuckle. Also, have
a look at our Staff News
section to learn about two of our attorneys, Eric
and Dan, and learn about an eco-friendly trend in
landscaping called Xeriscaping.
On a more serious note,
the US Congress is once again considering
widespread Patent Reform. Check out our
Intellectual Property
News for a brief summary of these changes
to see how it might affect your
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 Intellectual
Property News
Patent
Reform in 2011?
Every so often, the U.S. Congress
seriously discusses reforming the patent laws in
our country. Such discussions
are currently underway at Capitol Hill and the
Senate has already passed its own
bill. These changes are briefly
highlighted below.
Changing to a "First-to-File" system
would put our Patent Office in line with most of
the rest of the world by, basically, granting
patent rights in an invention only to the first
applicant to file an application.
This change would do away with our current
"First-to-Invent" law and could greatly enhance
the importance of filing for a patent application
early and maintaining the secrecy of your
invention.
Many of you may know that the current
provisional application process is relatively
informal. The Senate bill
includes stricter requirements that a provisional
application properly claim all
subject matter in order to obtain a filing
date.
Also, the bill includes a provision
that would allow assignees to apply for a patent
on their own behalf. This could
help diffuse some of the headache that many
businesses encounter when trying to track down
employees, past or present, to sign a patent
application.
Finally, the bill introduces a new
Micro-Patent entity. Currently,
the patent system only recognizes Small and Large
entities and charges larger fees to the
latter. To qualify for
Micro-Patent entity status, and have even lower
USPTO costs, an applicant must have filed less
than four applications, must not have an income of
greater than about $150,000, and (for companies)
have less than five employees.
This bill has not been passed by the
House or signed by the President, so the future of
these changes is, to say the least, uncertain.
However, we make it our job to stay on top of
changes in our area of law and wanted you to be
aware of these possible new developments.
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Staff
News
Meet
Eric
Eric
grew up in the Four Corners area of New Mexico
where he spent his free time playing sports.
After high school, he spent two years in Germany
on a church service mission and learned to speak
German. Following this service, he moved
back to New Mexico and earned a B.S. in Chemical
Engineering from the University of New Mexico
where he helped to charter a student German
Society. While at UNM, he participated in
chemical research centered on synthesizing and
characterizing metal oxides, magnetic
nanoparticles, and air sensitive materials.
Eric then moved his family to Concord, NH to
attend Franklin Pierce Law Center (now known as
the University of New Hampshire School of Law)
where he earned a law degree and an LLM in
Intellectual Property. While at Franklin
Pierce, he competed for two years in the
International Trademark
Association
(INTA) hosted Saul
Lefkowitz Moot Court Competition in trademark
law. Eric recently moved to Phoenix to start
his career in intellectual property with the
Stoneman Law Patent Group and is excited to hit
the ground running. He is a member of the
Arizona State Bar and a registered patent
attorney. Eric loves playing basketball and
downhill skiing; but his current favorite activity
is watching his three daughters dance in
ballet.
Meet
Dan
Dan
Christopherson grew up in Michigan and, like his
two brothers, went to Michigan State University.
There he received a degree in philosophy.
Dan then moved to Colorado where he attended the
University of Denver law school and developed a
keen interest in intellectual property law and
downhill skiing. After graduation in
2007, he and his girlfriend, now wife, moved to
Arizona where Dan gained law practice experience
doing, primarily, commercial litigation.
Dissatisfied with this career path, Dan took night
classes in the hard sciences and computer
engineering in order to become eligible for the
patent bar exam. After two years of work on
his part, and patience on his wife's part, Dan
took and passed the patent bar exam in April 2011
and should become a registered patent attorney
this month (May 2011).
Dan Gets a New Front
Yard
Many
of you may not be aware of a relatively new trend
in landscaping that is sweeping its way across the
Southwest called "Xeriscaping." Merriam-Wester's
online dictionary defines "Xeriscape" as, "A
landscaping method developed especially for arid
and semi-arid climates that utilizes
water-conserving techniques (such as the use of
drought-tolerant plants, mulch, and efficient
irrigation)." One of our intellectual
property attorneys, Dan Christopherson, working
alongside his fiancé, spent the last few weekends
tilling, scooping, de-stumping, and planting to
return his property to a more native Arizona
environment. He replaced his water-thirsty
bushes with a cactus and succulent garden and
planted a large ocotillo, a Palo Verde tree, and a
Chilean Mesquite tree alongside several hearty
varieties of sage plants and native bush
species. Once established, these plants
should not require any additional watering beyond
what nature provides. In between the bushes,
trees, and cacti, he tore out his grass lawn and
replaced it with crushed granite.
If
you want to find out more about plants native to
Arizona, check out a publication from the Arizona
Municipal Water Users Association at
http://amwua.org/plants_index.html.
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Patent
Tidbits
Great Patents in
History
1.
Apparatus Employed in Wireless
Telegraph
Inventor: GUGLIELMO MARCONI
Patent
number:
647,008
Filing
date: December 26,
1899
Issue
date: April 20,
1900 
Note:
This device is reportedly credited
with
saving the lives of the Titanic
Survivors!
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A
Thoughtful Poem
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us at:
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Diego, CA 92101
Tel: (888)
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Fax: (877)
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