Sorry for waiting so long to post, I have had many things to keep track of do in this new place, not the least of which my job!
The highlight of Wednesday was that we had an opportunity to look at a patent and see if we could apply the proper laws to the patent and go through an interview with an attorney. However the patent wasn't, but a made up one. It was a patent for mouse trap. Our lab of 16 split up into groups of 4, each assigned with a specific question, which corresponded to a certain law. Some there was sometime to read the patent, which includes the abstract, description, figures, and claims. So to start we read the whole thing and talked in our group of 4. Since we were all green, we had next to no clue what to do. Fortunately there were a few people who have law degrees or have IP experience. I was a little unsure how to apply the law to this case, but the more I communicated with people and read the patent and statutes, the more confident I became. Then some of our people went into a mock interview with an actual attorney who turned out to be a SPE at the USPTO. She thought we did better than the other groups she had done this for in the past. The goal of this exercise was to show us how little we really knew about patent examining, while actively participating while learning.
Thursday was a big day. Our group had to do a funny representation of our previous days experience. All of them were funny and creative. Some examples were Law & Order, The Dating Game, and a full length Beatles's song for patent examining. Most of the time was spent in a lecture room listening to people about overtime, benefits, and harassment with time sprinkled in for out trainers to talk to the lab sections. There was a small USPTO tour, but we did not get very far. However we did go to the Patent Museum. At one point during the day, I thought I lost my wallet with all of my cards and money. Luckily it just fell out of my pocket while I was sitting and nobody touched it. After work I went to Arlington, for my LSAT Prep Class. It was at the Holiday Inn near the Rosslyn Metro stop. There our class of 9 met our instructor Tony N who gave us a bio about himself and some info about the LSAT. Then we took an LSAT diagnostic to get a baseline of where people are at. It went until 10 PM. Then I did not get home until 11 PM and went straight to bed.
To start off Friday, we wrote down what the new examiner's goals were for the academy (the 4 month training period started this week). It immediately reminded of the one minute goal setting in Kenneth Blanchard's One Minute Manager. If you haven't read it, I recommend you do. It is an easy read and give you a technique to help entities be more productive, but I digress...Then there were some lectures going more in depth about the patent system especially the claims, which is possibly the most important part. Then there was a presentation about the different type of applications accepted at the patent office. These include utility, design, and plant applications. To end the week, we had a presentation about search tools available to us to examine patents and how they connected.
After work I went with Jon to pick up a gas grill for our place. It was really cheap because the person was moving to Idaho. After going to the grocery store and getting the grill home, we had a roommate bonding cook out. There was brats, cheeseburgers, chips, beer, beans, and sauerkraut.
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