Patently-O Housekeeping & TidBits

• E-mail Troubles: If you have experienced trouble accessing the site through links in your daily e-mail, you may want to try our new e-mail service through FeedBurner (the old server is FeedBlitz).  You can enroll through the following link: http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=775893.  The new service sends the entire posts so that you can save them without accessing the Patently-O website.
• Jobs Site: Ryan Swarts is now the listing manager of the Patently-O Patent Law Jobs site. Contact him at: jobs@patentlyo.com.
• Ocean Tomo Auction:  At the Ocean Tomo pre-auction conference, I’ll be speaking on the “three branches of patent reform” at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago.
• Michigan Law Review: Five Essays on Patent Reform:
• Eisenberg: The Supreme Court’s New Patent Law Experience [HTML] [PDF]
• Wegner: Making Sense of KSR (and the CAFC) [HTML] [PDF]
• Kunin: KSR’s Effect on Patent Law [HTML] [PDF]
• Armitage: Why is Congress Still Pushing Patent Reform? [HTML] [PDF]
• Duffy: Predicting Patent Reform [HTML] [PDF]

Comments

[Just an ordinary inventor(TM)]

I am trying not to COL -- I’m trying to take my mind off the escalating destruction of the American patent system. To see what’s happening is heartbreaking -- For self-employed inventors especially, it really really sucks.

Here is a “Briefing Tip” I’d like to pass along:
TIP: Some briefs, for example, briefs filed with the CAFC, are limited to a maximum number of pages. This tip may fit about one extra page of pleadings, for example -- TO MAKE 16 PAGES WORTH FIT INTO 15 PAGES -- and still meet the CAFC requirements. The requirement is 14 point type double spaced.

Word Perfect worked better in most regards for briefs than does MS Word today. But the world switched to MS I guess because of the success of MS Windows.

Word Perfect spaced lines of 28 point Times Roman 28 points apart.
MS Word spaces 28 point Times Roman 31.5 points apart, which wastes space.
But you can set MS Word to exactly 28 points and save space for a longer, hopefully more persuasive, argument.

Here’s how: Using MS Word to conform exactly to the double line spacing requirement for 14 pt type do this:

1) Hit Control “a” to highlight the whole job.

2) Right click with cursor on the highlighted text.

3) Left click “Paragraph”

4) Set “Line spacing” to “Exactly” and “At:” to “28 pt” (which is exactly double line space for 14 pt type).

5) Then Click OK (and hopefully you can fit 16 pages into 15 pages).

As Monk would say, You’ll thank me in the morning.

[Tom Kulaga]

I see that Patently-O is now double-spacing posts. I hope this is only temporary. For some reason, lawyers seem to like double spacing everything!

[Orin Kerr's lover]

As another tidbit - the Volokh Conspiracy has a guest blogger (Hannah Volokh) this week who is writing a series of posts on Congressional appointment power, which touches on and supports a case against USPTO deputy Margaret Peterlin's appointment.