Author: coutinho

By (author unknown), Groklaw NewsPicks – July 23, 2010 at 12:41AM

Wowza.

It’s been a while since we heard anything on the Mattel/MGA front. But the Ninth Circuit on Thursday handed down a stunning ruling, essentially reversing much of the December 2008 ruling that gave Mattel the rights to much of MGA’s Bratz products. Click here for the AP story; here for the Bloomberg story;
here for the opinion, written by Judge Alex Kozinski and joined by Judges Stephen Trott and Kim Wardlaw.

The ruling may force a retrial. – Ashby Jones, WSJ Law Blog

By (author unknown), Dispatch Latest Headlines – July 22, 2010 at 12:35PM

By Josh Weichhand, clusterflock – July 22, 2010 at 11:42AM

Bill Murray has given a rare interview with GQ’s Dan Fierman. The actor has developed a bit of notoriety for his slightly misanthropic attitudes towards his work and collaborators. As Fierman notes, “If you—movie director, journalist, dentist—want to speak to him, you don’t go through any gatekeeper. You leave a message on an 800 number. If Bill Murray wants to speak with you, he’ll call you back. If his three and a half decades in the public sphere have taught us anything about the 59-year-old actor, it’s that he simply does not give a good goddamn.”

This was my favorite moment in the exchange:

Last question. I have to know, because I love this story and want it to be true. There have been stories about you sneaking up behind people in New York City, covering their eyes with your hands, and saying: Guess who. And when they turn around, they see Bill Murray and hear the words “No one will ever believe you.”

[long pause] I know. I know, I know, I know. I’ve heard about that from a lot of people. A lot of people. I don’t know what to say. There’s probably a really appropriate thing to say. Something exactly and just perfectly right. [long beat, and then he breaks into a huge grin] But by God, it sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Just so crazy and unlikely and unusual?

By Adam Flaherty, MAKE – July 22, 2010 at 08:00AM

Have you ever been curious how a glow stick works or how they achieve all those wonderful colors? In this video from NurdRage you’ll learn what it takes to generate the chemical energy needed and how to harness it to create various colors in the spectrum. [via WonderHowTo]

Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » |

Read more articles in Chemistry |

Digg this!

By Michael Arrington, TechCrunch – July 21, 2010 at 03:13PM

It was just over a year ago that Adeo Ressi launched the Founder Institute, a very early stage startup incubator. Since then they’ve expanded the program well beyond Silicon Valley.

Affiliated programs are now available in 11 cities around the world – with Houston opening up now. The Houston semester will be run locally by the Managing Partners of Enterprise Builders. Applications for the Houston program are due by August 22.

Applicants are required to take an aptitude test that ranks them against other applicants. The test scores IQ, aptitude and personality. In Silicon Valley, 79 of 250 applicants were ultimately approved, and 41 companies were formed.

Ressi says the test is very good at predicting high quality entrepreneurs. 27% of accepted entrepreneurs perform worse than expected in class. 57% perform as predicted, and 16% perform better than predicted.

Want to see where you rank as an entrepreneur? For the first time the Founder Institute is offering the test to anyone that wants to take it, and they’ll tell you how you ranked against other applicants.

Take the test here – apply now and the test will be sent out on August 3. The application takes a couple of minutes, the test about 40 minutes. I’ll be taking it and will post my results as well.

Update from Robin Wauters: in the interest of full disclosure, I’m one of the mentors for Founder Institute’s Fall 2010 Brussels program.

By (author unknown), Groklaw NewsPicks – July 21, 2010 at 01:04PM

(In which Phil Summa uses one of his favorite movies to comment on §101 subject matter)

In attempting to develop a layman’s explanation of Bilski subject matter, it occurred to me that a mental process might be qualified as “something that Raymond Babbitt could do in his head.” I refer; of course, to the 1988 movie “Rain Man” in which Dustin Hoffman won an Academy Award playing Tom Cruise’s brilliant autistic older brother….

In one sense, § 112 obligates the inventor to make sure that the public can determine, “without undue experimentation,” whether or not the public’s activity infringes the inventor’s patent….

As the Rain Man analogy illustrates, even manipulating a physical object (a playing card, a computer, pencil and paper) doesn’t necessarily prove that a particular mental process has been carried out.

The § 112 quid pro quo should certainly apply to a Bilski-type inventor; i.e., if you want patent protection, please define the activities that objectively would infringe your patent. If I can infringe your patent merely by thinking about it, or if the objective steps I carry out could result from infringing or noningfringing activity, then the patent claim fails to provide enough information for me to know whether or not or which of my activities other than thinking would infringe the patent. On that basis, from a public policy standpoint, it would be unfair to the public to allow such a claim to be enforced. If the claim can’t be enforced, it shouldn’t issue in the first place.

– Summa Law

By (author unknown), Groklaw NewsPicks – July 21, 2010 at 12:59PM

Still, some folks do have interesting things to say about Bilski. Here are links to a few posts that I think offer A Twist on Bilski rather than Yet Another Rehash of Bilski.

– IP Lawyers: Enough about Bilski Already! – Instead, Start Spending Time on Things that Create Value for Your Clients
– Bilski, Babbitt and Baloney

– 3 x 3 Blind Bilski Justices
– A Mere Mortal’s Guide To Patents Post-Bilski (Or Why §101 Is A Red Herring) – All Things Pros

By (author unknown), Core77 – July 21, 2010 at 10:38AM

We’re digging Pilot’s fun bid to stay relevant in the computer era. As their products have increasingly become disconnected from correspondence, the writing instrument manufacturer gives you one last opportunity to use an actual physical pen for e-mail, if only once, and inject a bit of your personality into as many future e-mails as you like.

How it works: You download a template from Pilot Handwriting, fill in the appropriate letters, then scan it into your machine using your webcam. Their website then turns your chicken scratch into a cohesive, readable font that you can use to type missives in. Check it out:

(more…)

By (author unknown), Fisher College of Business – Headlines – June 02, 2010 at 09:00AM

Ohio State University is strengthening its efforts to realize the full potential of faculty research to improve lives and spur economic development through the creation of a comprehensive new commercialization center….

By Kat Hannaford, Gizmodo – August 16, 2010 at 04:53AM

At the same Star Wars Celebration V event in Florida where George Lucas announced the Blu-ray box-set arrival, he also showed off a missing scene from Return of the Jedi, which shows Luke making his lightsaber in a Tatooine cave. More »