I just came from a weekly speaker lunch held by the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. The speakers today were a couple of lawyers from Latham & Watkins, and their talk was about patent law and patent reform.
Both of the lawyers were involved in patent litigation (the defense of patents that a company holds - not to be confused with patent prosecution, which involves just applying for and acquiring patents). As they talked more about the field, the more interested I became in intellectual property law in general. Yeah, patent law probably sounds pretty boring, but I mean, c’mon! How cool would it be to defend a company’s patent on sippy-cups (something one of the lawyers was actually working on)?
Another thing I took away from the presentation was the view that the patent process needs to be reformed. With patent approval rates of 85-97%, it seems like you can patent almost anything. And people have tried. Did you know that somebody actually patented a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?
Lunch was tasty too. Lasagna, salad, and little mini-éclairs. Somehow, food always seems to taste better when it’s free.
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2 comments:
Especially when oblong cream puffs are involved. Mmmmm
Was the Lasagna, salad, and little mini-éclairs patented too? ;-)
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