jmatthew3

Totally agree.

It's a living.

Well I'm glad we all learned a lesson from Star Trek IV.

Alternatively, the cleaning staff will become very well paid. Unfortunately, something like this is very specific, so it is likely that, while the cleaning staff will get a bump in pay, any increases in cost will be offset by decreases elsewhere. Like to food staff. Or professors. Or to scholarships.

More like French BBS scene.

This career choice is not for everyone. It can be very stressful, but also very rewarding.

Although I do write software patents for some clients, my practice is more broad than that. I deal with patent, trademark, and copyright (intellectual property) issues, as well as contracts regarding software, books, art, and ip issues. I also handle litigation about all of those issues.

If two inventions are invented in isolation, then one is not derived from the other.

No. We are afraid that someone will read what we say and think that we represent them or are giving them legal advice. We have to be very careful about what we say we are doing and what we say we're not doing. If you go to your doctor and he says you need to have a mole removed, if you don't schedule an appointment to have the mole removed, it's your fault. With legal services, if I tell someone they need to file a patent or what not, if it's not really clear that I'm not doing it unless they engage me to, then they might have an argument that they thought I was taking that action.

So, on most legal blogs, you'll see something that says "I'm not the reader's lawyer."

If two people invented the same thing together (or, more commonly, one person invents feature A, and another invents feature B, where both feature A and feature B are part of one invention), then they are joint inventors (and without an assignment or an obligation to assign, they are both joint owners). On the other hand, if two people invent the same thing separately (e.g., similar research goals at two competing pharmaceutical companies), then the first to file gets the application.

It still must be an enabling disclosure, though. That is, it has to teach the public how to make and use the invention.

Whoever is an inventor and gets to the PTO first gets rewarded. The patent system is an exchange. Inventor teaches the public how to make and use his invention, and the government gives the inventor a limited right to exclude others from practicing the invention. The switch to "first to file" encourages early disclosure, rather than inventing something in secret and waiting to file, or waiting until the inventor's one year bar period was about to run, then filing. Under the new system, if it's valuable and likely that someone else is working on the same system, early filing will be encouraged.

Disclaimer: I am a former software engineer turned patent attorney. However, I am not your lawyer, nor am I the lawyer of anyone who reads this. (Sorry, I have to say that)

Anyway, another thing that many people miss on the "first to file" issue is that it's the first INVENTOR to file. So, employee can't leave company, steal the invention, then file if employee was not the inventor.

The law really is only changing in the situation where two people invent the same thing, independently of one another. Under the current law, if both inventors file, only one is entitled to the patent - the inventor who actually invented it first (perhaps determined in an interference proceeding in the patent office or perhaps in court). Each inventor would try to prove the date of invention through documentation (keep those lab notebooks - or that git repo, or the old svn or cvs repo backed up!). Whoever successfully proves an earlier date of invention wins.

Under the new law, it's just who filed first. If two people file for the same invention, there will be a "derivation" proceeding in the patent office to determine whether one of the inventors "derived" his/her invention from another (ie, is that person actually the inventor).

Disclaimer: I am a former software engineer, now a patent attorney. But, I am not your lawyer, nor am I the lawyer for anyone who reads this. (Sorry, I have to say that).

Anyway, the USPTO has had 50% lowered fees for "small entities" for some time now. The patent office will soon add a new "micro entity" classification (paying 75% of fees) that might help individuals without a lot of money. The total filing cost as a micro entity will be just over 300 bucks. That's pretty reasonable considering the work involved in examining a patent application.

This is a pretty cool idea, and something I would have considered trying to get my boss to pay for when I was a developer. I didn't see on your website - do you test on a wide variety of hardware platforms, or just iPhone 5 and iPad? Different versions of iOS?

Also, do you have any terms, in particular, regarding confidentiality?

Just to add - split testing your adsense can really be a big deal. For something this small, you probably don't need to split test the colors. But, the ad placement (and which ad units to use) can make a HUGE difference. I like to select a few different formats, make adsense "channels" and then weighted-randomly select one of my splits. In other words, keep testing, but display the combination of ad units that works the best, more often. Start off at even, then revisit things 6 months from now, tweak, revisit in another 6 months.

I run a similar site on a different niche, which I have monetized to good effect.

1) get a few links. google will likely send you more traffic if they see others linking to you.

2) ask people to link to you on the site.

3) add some social buttons ("share this on facebook" and "+1 this"). Also, try to get it on pinterest. You might create a "5 car tips" image that could get shared as an image on pinterest, generating traffic and likely getting some blog links.

4) split test your adsense. use all three units, plus link units. then split test which ads work better when placed where. Think long term. 10% better RPM will add up. You probably want to add a skyscraper.

5) add links to amazon (through their affiliate program) where useful. need a tool for that? buy one here. I like to link to searches for products, rather than actual products. That way, the user sees all the available products rather than just the one you selected, and if that particular product goes away (which it might, because in a niche, you are probably linking to products sold through amazon by others - and they can change often - or be out of stock).

6) add content occasionally. google likes "fresh" content. changing things around, adding new articles, etc. will help you over the long term.

7) tailor your html titles to describe the content, and don't have "how a car works" in every page. It makes sense, but you really want to tell google what's there, and adding the site-wide keywords might dilute the message.

totally agree. copyright ownership is often overlooked, yet is incredibly important. buying a copy does not mean you buy the underlying rights. moreover, even if you buy some type of implied rights, what rights exactly have you bought? presumably (but not necessarily), you can modify, compile, and publish. can you buy the source code, then turn around and put the source code in the same store for half price? what about confidentiality? can you give the code to your employee? to your third party independent contractor developer? can you give it to your friend? can you put the code on your website for all to see? it's not clear to me what rights the site is selling.

I use three20, but only to use TTStyledTextLabel - is there a better way (now) to put rich text in a cell?

Nathan, good eye. It seemed unlikely that such a new and niche app had taken the step of federal registration, much less done so long enough ago to be registered.