Increased awareness and decreased portfolios of your average email recipient have sent Nigerian scammers in search of new victims. What they need is a bunch of internet luddites with deep pockets. Enter lawyers.

The Scam
One of the most recent scams targeting lawyers starts something like this:

Dear Counsel,

NO.6 CHAO WAI STREET
CHAOYANG DISTRICT,BEIJING,CHINA
PHONE:0086-10-86489415

Warning signs
While it is not always easy to spot a scammer, here are some warning signs:

1. Is the email addressed to you, or provided with a generic salutation? Even a scammer should have access to a mail merge program. If they did not even bother to use your actual name, you can feel pretty comfortable passing on the opportunity.
2. Is the request for assistance outside your area of expertise? I am a patent attorney. A request for collection services on a divorce proceeding should be a clear indicator that something is amiss.
3. Does the request lack specifics? “your jurisdiction”? Who says that? More than likely someone sending one email to multiple “jurisdications.”
4. Does the email use strange legal terminology” A Google search of “collaborative participation law agreement” returns “Attorney Email Scams” as the first hit.
5. Does the email use round number? While there are divorce proceedings which result in one spouse owing the other $900,000.00 exactly, round numbers are the stock and trade of internet scammers.
6. Does the email contain spelling and/or grammatical errors? Scammers are notoriously bad spellers. More than a couple errors should raise your suspicion.
7. Is the email coming from a foreign country? The United States is fairly aggressive when it comes to Internet wire fraud. Unless the sender has a confirmed U.S. address, you should proceed with utmost caution.
8. Is there some indication how the email sender found you? If you do not have a verified mutual acquaintance, the odds the sender is a scammer are dramatically increased.
9. Does the email detail a transaction where money is already owed and you are merely being asked to collect, receive or transfer it? This not only acts as an attractive lure, it is also critical to the operation of the scam.
10. Does the deal sound fishy? Take a step back. Is there anything about you or your practice that would make you uniquely suited to resolving the problem outlined in the email? If not, it is likely a scam.

The Classic Nigerian Scam
You are a savvy lawyer. You always ask for money up front. You always cover your back. So how are you going to get scammed? The classic Nigerian scam works by getting you to forward the scammer a small amount of money to pay taxes, bribes, etc. They then ask for a little more money for government fees etc. Since you already have some money sunk, you chase the old money with new money. The scam continues, requesting attorney fees, money for travel, larger bribes etc. until you finally give up. Individual victims have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars with this scam.

The New Lawyer Scam
Online scammers targeting attorneys focus on the typical attorney protocol. Since most attorneys require a retainer, the scammer agrees to send the attorney not only the required retainer, but a large, up-front payment for all the attorney’s services. The scam goes something like this. If you will assist in collecting a large sum of money owed to the scammer, you get to keep a ridiculously large share of the proceeds. The scammer will have all of the money sent to you, you take your cut and you cut the scammer a check for the remainder. How can you lose?

The Large Check
The catch is that the check you receive is fake. The problem is that it is real enough to get deposited in your account. While the funds have not cleared, your account may reflect the entire balance in your account. You cut the scammer a check and before the original check bounces, you find yourself out a fairly large sum of money.

The Aftermath
These scams are typically part of large, complex operations. Confirmed losses from the Nigerian scam are well over $1 billion. Much of this money comes from people embezzling from their companies. While the United States Secret Service is aware of the problem, is has been able to make very few arrests. People who have travelled to Nigeria to recoup their losses have been kidnapped and even killed.

The Weakest Link
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Check out any foreign request for legal assistance very thoroughly. Scammers are seeing a .1-.2% response rate to their email campaigns, by focusing on the weakest link in a large organization. Inform your entire staff about these scams. Simply detailing to your staff the potentially life-threatening devastation these scams can wreak, will significantly reduce the likelihood of you or your firm becoming a victim.

Brett Trout

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Behold the Mini-Feed
What is “Dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network”? What it is not is a general news feed. The patent is much narrower than that, covering what it describes as a “mini-feed.” A mini-feed is a user-defined set of news feed inputs filtered by the reader. I might create a mini-feed of my family. I can filter the feed by just those activities they undertake relating to an upcoming family reunion, and automatically filter the results chronologically. If my sister joined the Trout Family Reunion fan page, the mini-feed I created and follow would reflect that.

Word on the Street
Pundits are up in arms over this patent, saying it goes “against everything that the patent system is supposed to do,” calling it the most significant social web patent since the six degrees patent issued in 2001 and arguing it could lead to a royalty windfall from the likes of Google and Twitter. Things are not merely so dire. While those forecasts may indeed have merit, they do not comport with my read of the scope of Facebook’s new patent.

How Patents Work
A patent is a legal document defining an invention. The document allows the inventor to prevent others from making, using or selling the invention without a license. People often get confused because they see a word or a structure in a patent and think that gives the inventor the right to stop other people from using that one element or structure. The scope of what the inventor can and cannot use the patent to stop others from doing lies in the grouping or combination of elements found in the patent “claims.” If the patent says the invention has three wheels, but the claims require four wheels, the inventor cannot stop other people from making the three-wheeled version of the invention.

What the Facebook Patent Covers
Claim 1 of the Facebook patent reads:

A method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment, the method comprising: monitoring a plurality of activities in a social network environment; storing the plurality of activities in a database; generating a plurality of news items regarding one or more of the activities, wherein one or more of the news items is for presentation to one or more viewing users and relates to an activity that was performed by another user; attaching a link associated with at least one of the activities of another user to at least one of the plurality of news items where the link enables a viewing user to participate in the same activity as the another user; limiting access to the plurality of news items to a set of viewing users; and displaying a news feed comprising two or more of the plurality of news items to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewing users.

That means, to infringe Claim 1 of the Facebook patent, a competitor would have to be using a system incorporating ALL of the elements of Facebook’s claim 1. If the competitor eliminated even a single element (and its equivalent) of claim 1, a court would, or should, rule that the competitor is not infringing claim 1 of the patent. Claim 1 of the Facebook patent is admittedly complex, it involves a unique combination of elements, the exact meaning and scope of which a court will likely have to determine. In addition, there are other independent claims in Facebook’s patent a court will also likely have to interpret.

What the Patent Does Not Cover
So if no one knows for sure what Facebook’s new patent claims cover, what is a competitor to do? Well, in addition to explaining what the invention is, the new Facebook patent also admits what the new invention is not. As explained in the patent:

“Conventionally, a user of a networking website connects with other users by providing information about the user to a social network website for access by the other users. For example, a user may post contact information, background information, current job position, hobbies, and so forth. Other users may contact the user and/or review information about the user based on common interests or for any other reason.

There are existing mechanisms that allow a user to display information about other users. Some mechanisms may allow the user to select particular news items for immediate viewing. Typically, however, these news items are disparate and disorganized. In other words, the user must spend time researching a news topic by searching for, identifying, and reading individual news items that are not presented in a coherent, consolidated manner. Often, many of the news are not relevant to the user. Just as often, the user remains unaware of the existence of some news items that were not captured in the user’s research. What is needed is an automatically generated display that contains information relevant to a user about another user of a social network.”

So, from the patent itself, we know the new Facebook patent does not cover the following stand-alone items:

Social networks
News feeds
Posting contact information
Posting background information
Posting current job position
Posting hobbies
Grouping users by geographic location
Grouping users by job type
Posting automatic notifications of changes in others’ posted information
Receipt of passive alerts of the new postings of others.

Who is Infringing the Patent?
While Twitter’s basic system does not infringe Facebook’s new patent, many tangential things Twitter does, or may be planning on doing in the future, may indeed infringe the patent. Determination as to which of these things do or do not infringe the patent will likely involve millions of dollars of investigation, analysis, opinion, and possibly even litigation. For now however, your Twitter stream seems safe.

Brett Trout

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From Civil to Criminal
While a case of a school employee spying on children is not unheard of, this is the first case I have run across where the perpetrator did not apparently appreciate the wrongness of such spying. Most surreptitious spys of underage victims at least make an attempt to keep such activity hidden from the public. In its defense, the School District is now back-pedaling wildly, denying any wrongdoing and arguing that the school official was merely trying to be “supportive.” Detectives from Montgomery County, the Montgomery County district attorney and the FBI do not seem to be buying that story. All are now investigating the matter.

From Bad to Worse
In response to the uproar, the Lower Merion School District has stopped using the webcams to spy on students. Instead of apologizing and addressing the problem however, the School District maintains it has the right to access webcams on any of the 1,800 school-issued Macbook laptops at any time. If the FBI determines the School District violated federal wiretapping or unauthorized computer access statutes, school officials could find themselves in federal court, facing stiff criminal charges.

A Better Approach
Obviously the best approach is to educate the institution about the potential pitfalls of technology, prior to launching such a large initiative. Best practices should be researched and placed in the employee handbook before a problem arises. If any employees do not appreciate the problems associated with potentially capturing video of teenage girls changing or showering, it is best to immediately remove them from any contact with children until this issue is addressed. As with any technology, unforeseen security issues may still arise. If they do, contact a professional immediately to fix the problem. If the problem involves potential civil or criminal liability, contact legal counsel before you and your staff find yourselves penniless and/or being fitted for oversized orange jumpers.

Brett Trout

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Students Had Previously Voiced Concerns
According to a post on Gizmodo, it appears the school had been remotely spying on students for some time. When one student brought his concerns to the school’s IT department, the IT department allegedly explained to him that the iSight light remained on because the student logged out without shutting down an application using the iSight camera.

The Class Action Lawsuit
The seven count lawsuit reads like a primer on the law of electronic communications. Asserting interception of electronic communications, intellectual property theft, unauthorized access of stored communications, civil rights violations, wiretapping and invasion of privacy, the lawsuit presages an expensive and painful schooling of the Lower Marion School District over the next several years.

The Real Problem
The worst part is not that the school officials appear to have so shockingly violated the privacy of students and their families. The most horrifying part is that at least one school official apparently believed such a calculated and blatant violation of the Constitution was acceptable. Even your dumbest pedophilic voyeur understands that spying on kids inside their homes is wrong. To so fully fail to comprehend even one of the dozens of critical trust violations at issue here entails a special kind of stupid, not often found in the bipedal population.

The Solution
In my experience, teachers lag behind students in the proper use of technology. This is not entirely the teacher’s fault. Shrinking school budgets and lack of information technology training leave many teachers the victim of circumstance. While most teachers cannot change the quality of hardware or software at their disposal, teachers can certainly change the quality of their wetware.

Just Ask
There are hundreds of information technology professionals out there willing to offer teachers free information and instruction about new technology. If you are a teacher, ask your students if any of their parents teach people about the internet as part of their job. In my experience, those most knowledgeable about information technology are the most willing to donate their time to help others. Do not worry about appearing clueless when it comes to technology. The only thing to be ashamed about when it comes to information technology is not reaching out for help. Make some phone calls.

As the Lower Merion School District is painfully learning, an ounce of prevention is worth far more than a pound of cure.

Brett Trout

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Security Concerns
Industry insiders point to several potential security concerns with Google’s new wunderkind. One problem is that Google Buzz automatically sets you up with followers and people to follow. Is there anyone on your current contact list with whom you would prefer not to share your photos and the details of your daily life? Do you have anyone with whom you communicate via email, you would rather not share with the world? You see the problem.

Wait Until the Coast is Clear
While Google is working to patch these security issues, it may be best to hold off on Google Buzz until privacy advocates give the all clear. If you have already launched Google Buzz, turning it off can be tricky. The problem is that Google’s definition of “off” might be considerably different than yours.

Turning it Off Can Be Tricky
To really stop Google Buzz from making your information available, you need to do more than click the button at the bottom of the Google Buzz screen. If you already signed up, here are some step-by-step directions to make sure you have turned off Google Buzz completely.

Brett Trout

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By now, everyone is familiar with the Nigerian scam. You receive an e-mail for an offer you cannot refuse. The sender alleges he or she is trustee of a large sum of unclaimed money. If you will agree to take the money into the United States, you will receive half the money (typically millions) for your trouble. After sending $200 for paperwork, $500 for bribes, $2000 for customs and $10,000 for lawyers you get the impression things are not quite as they seem. With so many pigeons now wise to the “419 grift,” online scammers are constantly devising increasingly clever ways to part money from fools.

Online Dating

One of the hallmarks of a great scam is selecting a highly motivated victim. Online scammers use dating Web sites to target the lovelorn. Posting attractive pictures and telling sad stories of unforeseen financial difficulties, scammers bilk online daters out of money, gifts, credit card numbers and bank information. While from a distance these scams seem easy to spot, once the scammers masterfully weave an emotional connection, logical analysis flies out the window. Anytime you receive an online request for money, gifts or financial information, there is a high likelihood there is a scammer on the other end.

Employment Scam

Praying on the desperately unemployed, scammers post fake job opportunities, sometimes using the names of legitimate companies. The job opportunity is often a payroll clerk. The scam involves sending the victim a large check. The scammer requests the victim cash the check and send out smaller to checks to “employees” of the business. The scammers large check is fake, but the victims little checks are real. By the time the victim discovers the big check is fake, the “employees” have already disappeared with the victim’s money.

Professional Scams

Doctors and lawyers are increasingly the target of scammers. Posing as information technology professionals or potential clients, international criminals extract sensitive personal information, garner financial information and install viruses on the victims’ computers. The scams may be as simple as posing as someone in the victim’s IT department and calling the receptionist to confirm his or her password works with the “new” system, or as complex as creating a fake multinational organization, complete with a pricey Web site and myriad references. Be wary of “spear phishing” scams buried within unsolicited emails. Never open attachments in an email from someone you do not know. Even if you do know the sender, scammers often “spoof” the name of the sender.

Charity Scams

In the wake of any large disaster, scammers lie in wait for compassionate people willing to give. Criminals build elaborate Web sites emulating recognized charities. Through a barrage of spam emails, the scammers direct people to donate to the victims of the latest crisis. Beware of any unsolicited request for a charitable donation. When in doubt, donate to an established charity. You can even check the charity out online to determine what percentage of your donation actually gets to the people in need.

Social Media Scams

People trust social media. Your friends are much less likely to intentionally hurt you than people you do not know. Scammers know this, and have increasingly using social media as a platform for their latest scams. Scammers use social media to launch phishing scams and malware attacks. Social media users who fail to protect their accounts, may find their computer damaged and their personal information stolen.

Government Scams

Impersonating governmental agencies to obtain your financial information is a successful scam simply because it is so brazen. What kind of a criminal would impersonate the IRS, the FBI or Homeland Security? Receiving an e-mail from one of these organizations often leaves the victim more worried about what they might have done, than whether the email contains malicious software. If you suspect the e-mail is not legitimate, do not reply, do not click on any links and do not call any phone numbers in the e-mail or open any attachments. Contact the government agent directly to confirm that the email is legitimate.

Pop-up Advertisements

If you receive a pop-up advertisement for anti-virus software be wary. Such pop-up ads often appear to be scanning your hard drive in an attempt to get you to click on the ad. Clicking on the ad however, can install harmful software, extract sensitive information or send the scammer a log of your keystrokes, which includes all of your usernames and passwords. The FBI has reported over $150 million in losses attributable to this scam alone.

What to Do

If you suspect you have been scammed, or have received a solicitation you believe may be a scam, contact your information technology department immediately, providing all of the details you have. You may also file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center and the Bureau of Justice Assistance. Most importantly, be on the lookout for new scams. The most effective scam will always be the one that is new to you.

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Back in 1821, Thomas L. Jennings became the first African American to receive a patent. Since that time, black inventors have helped our country make great technological strides. Every year it becomes increasingly difficult to select only ten inventors from the thousands of choices. This year I focused on the practical as well as the profound. While some of the inventions may seem pedestrian by today’s standards, it is these great men and women who are responsible for so many of the things we take for granted. It is not until you actually stop to consider the scope of their inventiveness, that you comprehend the impact they have made on all of our lives

10. Lonnie G. Johnson – Super Soaker squirt gun
President of Johnson Research Development Co. and formerly with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, Lonnie Johnson is a nuclear engineer with over 100 patents to his name. This Tuskegee alumnus has generated over one hundred million dollars in sales with his world-renown invention, the SuperSoaker squirt gun. He is currently working on a solar energy cell which promises to cut solar energy costs in half.
Representative Patent: Pinch trigger pump water gun United States Letters Patent Number 5,074,437

9. Michael Jackson – Gravity defying shoes In 1993, singer and entertainer Michael Jackson received a patent on a novel shoe, The shoe includes a cut-out in the heel, which an entertainer slides on and off a nail head in the stage. The nail head grabs the heel and allows the entertainer to perform apparently gravity defying leans.
Representative Patent: Method and means for creating anti-gravity illusion United States Letters Patent Number 5,255,452

8. Thomas Mensah – Patriot missile guidance system Born in Ghana, Dr. Mensah is the Chairman of Supercond Technology Inc. of Norcross, Georgia. Holder of over a dozen United States and International patents, Dr. Mensah’s inventions span the fields of fiber optics to guided vehicle systems. His work with SMART weapons, like the Patriot missile, were critical to the success in the Gulf War.
Representative Patent: Guided Vehicle System United States Letters Patent Number 5,035,169

7. Lewis Latimer – Electric light filament Everyone knows Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, but few know that it took African American inventor Lewis Latimer to come up with the carbon filament that made it practical. Edison’s original draftsman, Latimer drafted the plans for Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone. Working many late nights with Bell, Latimer worked tirelessly to file a patent on Bell’s telephone mere hours before the filing of a similar patent by a rival inventor.
Representative Patent: Electric Lamp United States Letters Patent Number 247,097

6. Elijah McCoy – Automatic railcar lubrication Elijah McCoy patented dozens of ways to lubricate machinery. One advantage McCoy’s devices had over the competition, was that his inventions made it possible to lubricate machinery while it was running. This eliminated downtime maintenance and increased factory profits. One of his most famous inventions was an oil dripping cup. The oil dripping cup was so wildly successful that competitors worked diligently to copy it. Nothing however, worked as well as the original. That is why, even today, we ask for “The real McCoy.”
Representative Patent: Lubricator United States Letters Patent Number 472,066

5. Dr. Patricia Bath – Surgical cataract laser Born in Harlem, Dr. Bath has become an internationally acclaimed ophthalmologist and surgeon. Not content to rest on her laurels, Dr. Bath has dedicated her life to the treatment and prevention of blindness in African-Americans. A pioneer in laser cataract surgery, her laser-powered Laserphaco Probe allows physicians to vaporize sight stealing cataracts in minutes.
Representative Patent: Method of removing cataracts United States Letters Patent Number 6,083,192

4. James Edward Maceo West – Electret microphone While working at Bell Laboratories in 1964, James Edward West patented the electret microphone. His research led to the development of the foil-electret transducers used in 90% of today’s microphones. Today, Dr. West holds over 40 United States, and over 200 International, patents on microphones and microphone components. He is also a 1999 inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame,
Representative Patent: Electroacoustic transducer United States Letters Patent Number 3,118,022

3. Percy Julian – Cortisone synthesis Granted over 100 patents Percy Julian is best known for his innovative synthesis of cortisone from soy beans. His inventions significantly reduced the cost of manufacturing cortisone used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and inflammation. Julian is a 1990 inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Representative Patent: Preparation of cortisone United States Letters Patent Number 2,752,339

2. George Crum – Potato chips Part Native American and part African American, George Crum never received a patent. He is credited however, with inventing one of this country’s most ubiquitous snack foods, the potato chip. Known for his irascible nature, George Crum earned his living as a cook. One day, the story goes, a businessman entered Moon Lake Lodge, in Saratoga Springs, New York. Not happy with the thickness of the potato slices Crum was serving on that particular day, the businessman sent them back. While customers at the Moon Lake Lodge sometimes sent food back once, they rarely sent them back twice, especially if George Crum was working. Crum took it upon himself to make the meal so unpalatable, patrons would dare not try their luck a second time. In this particular case, Crum sliced the potatoes as thin as possible, fried them in oil until they were hard. Crum then doused the potatoes in enough salt to make them what he believed would be inedible. To his chagrin, the customer loved the new “potato crunches.” Crum began serving the snack at his own restaurant. Since Crum had no patent, Crum did not share in the profits from what others have turned into a multi-billion dollar industry.

1. George Washington Carver – New uses for peanuts
Best known as the inventor who could do anything with a peanut, George Washington Carver patented only a small handful of his hundreds of his novel products and methods for improving agriculture. Born a slave, Carver consistently shunned fortune. Interested only in the betterment of mankind, he took no money at all for the majority of his inventions. Granted a scholarship in Kansas, the college refused Carver withdrew his admission after discovering Carver was African American. Carver enrolled at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, before eventually landing at what is now Iowa State University the following year. Carver is a 1988 inductee into the Iowa Inventor’s Hall of Fame and a 1997 inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Representative Patent: Process for Producing Paints and Stains United States Letters Patent Number 1,632,365

The foregoing are but a tiny sampling of the great inventions African Americans have given our country. It does not take a patent lawyer to appreciate the incredible gifts these extraordinary inventors have bestowed upon us. If you know of any other great African American inventors, or you are one yourself, be sure to leave me a comment below. I would love to hear from you.

Brett Trout

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Smack Talk
According to The AMLaw Litigation Daily, over the past year the dispute grew nasty, with both sides taking the case to the press. Mosanto accused DuPont of unlawfully taking Monsanto’s technology and DuPont accused Monsanto of monopolizing the market and attempting to intimidate customers.

The Ruling
On January 15, 2010, St Louis Judge E. Richard Webber granted Monsanto partial summary judgment, ruling the licenses to Pioneer did not allow Pioneer to “stack” Optimum GAT on Monsanto’s Roundup Ready product. Not deterred, DuPont has vowed to vigorously pursue its antitrust, license and patent fraud claims still pending in the case.

Going Forward
As noted in the Des Moines Register, at least one analyst has argued the lawsuit heightened the perception that Pioneer has fallen behind Monsanto in the development of biotech traits for seeds. Notwithstanding, DuPont just entered into a deal with BASF to settle their lawsuits with one another and cross-license various patents covering herbicide-tolerant technology. On the Monsanto side, The Justice Department has formally requested information from Monsanto regarding anticompetitive practices in the herbicide-tolerant soybean seed market. The main patent covering the Roundup Ready technology is set to expire 2014. Monsanto has stated publicly it will not block competitors from bringing Roundup Ready generic equivalents to the market.

Brett Trout
HT ChrisBLaw

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Patents are documents that protect inventions. Good patents describe the invention in broad terms, making it more difficult to design around the patent or challenge a claim of infringement. Good patents are hard to draft. If they are drafted too broadly, broadly enough to cover something that has already been invented, the patent is invalid.

As you might imagine, patents are quite complex.

Patents are so complicated and technical that ordinary attorneys are not even allowed to draft them. Patents are drafted by patent attorneys, who receive special training, have undergraduate studies in a science and pass a special Bar exam to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Do I Need a Patent?

Well drafted patents grant you a broad monopoly in the marketplace. The downside is they can be expensive, averaging about $9,000 to $10,000 for a simple mechanical device and take a long time, three years or more, to obtain. The question as to whether you should pursue a patent is a business decision. From the patent attorney’s perspective, it is always a good idea to pursue a patent. From your perspective, you have you ask yourself some important questions: What kind of annualized profit can I expect with a patent? How many years, if ever, before the patent pays for itself? Are there non-infringing alternatives competing, or likely to compete, in the market-space? Will my product be obsolete before the patent issues? Will less expensive “trade secret” protection suffice?

The Patent Process.

The patent process involves meeting with a patent attorney to discuss costs and timelines. If you decide a patent is something you want to pursue, you may decide to do a patent search. You can conduct a cursory search at Google Patents. Your patent attorney is also available to perform a more comprehensive search. The next step is to draft the patent application. This is the most important part of the process. Here is where you determine the breadth of protection over your invention. It is at this point where a good patent attorney can make or break your patent. Once the application is drafted, your patent attorney files the application with the USPTO. After two years or so, the USPTO “examines” the application, comparing it against patents already in existence. Your patent attorney fights back and forth with the USPTO over the breadth of protection your application is allowed. If your patent attorney is persuasive enough, and your invention novel enough, the USPTO issues your application as a patent.

Finding the Right Patent Attorney.

You do not need the best attorney in the world. You need the best attorney for you. Finding the best attorney for you means looking at factors like cost, skill, experience and communication. As you might imagine, all patents are not created equally. Skilled patent attorneys with a lot of patents under their belts typically obtain better patents than more inexperienced patent attorneys. They also charge more. The best attorney for you however, is not necessarily the most expensive. Ask around. Search the internet for patent attorneys in your area. Go to the USPTO.gov Web site and see how many patents they have drafted. Go visit with the patent attorney. If you like the attorney, confirm that he or she will actually be the one drafting your patent and not passing it off to an inexperienced underling. Ask if the patent attorney has had experience defending patents in court. Success defending patents in court, often translates into drafting better patents. The most important thing is to feel comfortable working with your patent attorney. There are a lot of patent attorneys out there. Keep looking. Pick the one who tells you what you need to know, rather than what you want to hear. You will know it when you hear it.

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Timothy Johnson, author of GUST: The “Tale” Wind of Office Politics and Race Through the Forest, has just written a new book, SWAT – Seize the Accomplishment. SWAT uses a story/parable format to explain “systems” and how to leverage them in nearly any business. Systems include any discrete process, such as a meeting, which has inputs, transformations and outputs.

SWAT explains how to identify and foster constructive behaviors in these systems and eliminate destructive ones. As Johnson notes, “systems thinking can be applied in any profession and any setting.” Lawyers who take the time to examine and refine the systems in their law practice will reap the dividends for years to come.

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