Two opposites

This is my third post in almost as many days...I seem to be full of ideas now that Christmas is here and more people keep coming downtown doing their crazy things...I hope you enjoy.

I took the bus a few times today, and I came to realize that like snowflakes, good or bad there is never the same ride twice. Some are soft and delicate, giving a beautiful glow to the day while others are harsh and cold, making you wish for warmer seasons.

Ride #1 - Ride to the University: This was, by far, the sweetest bus ride I have ever had. The bus was 5 minutes early to my stop for some reason, and arrived at my stop completely empty. Not a sole, except for the cheery driver, who must have just started his shift. Considering it was 10:30 in the afternoon, I though this odd but then realized I should enjoy this moment while it lasts. Like being the first one up Christmas morning to see Santa had come...I had my own bus and didn't have to share it with my big brother. I took a seat in the very back, legs stretched out and arms taking all the space in - as opposed to my usual search for a seat that wasn't near some young punk on a cell phone, aloof to the noise pollution they create whey gabbing incessiently about the party they were at last night. Hey buddy - if you were that cool you would't be on the bus...

For a brief moment in time I had my own two tonne limo...complete with 30 seats for my closest friends. The only drawback - no wetbar.

I, and I can say "I" because there was no "we" on this particular bus, managed to hit every single green light and made a total of ZERO stops. Nearing my destination I pressed the "next stop" button and my personal transportation machine slowed down, just for me. I thought to myself sometimes things just line up, and today is going to be that kind of day...

Boy, was I wrong...

Bus Ride #3 - Ride from Downtown back to University: This was, by far, the crappiest bus ride I have ever had. The bus was pretty full but I managed to scoop my own seat half way down. My seat was right before the bus rises up a 1/2 level, meaning I was sitting where the rows behind me were about 3 feet above me. I was just at the edge of downtown, heading back to the University when he boarded.

He was dressed in a grubby jacket, trailing a tattered, yellow duffel bag that looked so old it was almost back in style again. I normally don't pay attention to people on the bus, but this was different - as soon as he glanced at my K2 bike bag I was holding he made a beeline for the seat behind me, perching himself directly behind and above me and leering down at my bag. Now I typically ride wearing my ipod, as I find it blocks out the noise and seems to make my destination go faster. Not today....

"What was that about?" I started to wonder, but was stopped short in my thoughts because as he sat down behind me I was hit with an overpowering smell of bad weed and alcohol. It rapidly turned into one of those "need to breath through your mouth so you don't get sick from the smell" moments... shit. How the hell could he smell like that and still walk a straight line to the seat? Now that is an engineering drinking game I failed while in my undergrad, but I digress...

I turned my headphones up and was staring blankly ahead but it was no use . "Sir, sir"...he stammered, tugging on my jacket to get my attention "K2...K2....your bag is K2." Great, now I'm sitting in front of a drunk who likes my branding image.

"Yep, sure is". Oh man, this was going to be a loooong bus ride back today. Quick scope, no other seats to move to and people standing as well. I was boxed in.

"My name starts with K too. Get it? K too? K2" he slurred.

"Yep" was my slightly terse reply. Normally I'd be friendly if someone wants to talk but I usually draw the line when their body odor is reminiscent of the black plague. By now my eyes were starting to water, but he persisted again. "Sir, sir" he said with a sloppy grin, still tugging on my jacket. "K2...the numbers are K seven".

By this point I was breathing completely through my mouth, looking around for another spare seat. A quick scope of the bus location put me about 1/2 way to my destination, and it was raining. This was one of those times where the prospect of being sick on the bus was going to be played out if I didn't act.

*PING* The bus slowed down to pickup the next set of passengers and I saw my exit. My fight or flight response kicked into autopilot and I was GONNE, out the door and into the downpour. The bus pulled away and I breathed in the sweet, damp fresh air. It took an extra 30 minutes to walk back to my next appointment, but it was well worth it. I was free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, I was free at last.

Although my first ride of the day was the best I've ever had, have I mentioned I can't wait until I can drive again???

And next time I'll write about the drunk guy who passed out next to me in the Library at the computer terminal and the transvestite on the other side doing her makeup in the computer screen reflection...It was an eventful day.

Callipygian doesn't fit into gift certificate envelopes

"So I was talking to J earlier tonight and her husband is going to get a gift card for a clothing store for Christmas" my wife says to me. "I think she was hinting to me to talk to you to talk her husband into getting something from the store that she can actually wear."

Within 2 sentences I knew I was going to be pulled somewhere I shouldn't be....

I'm sitting there thinking just because I have time to kill this season, has that made me a personal shopper? "I'm supposed to get involved in this? I don't think I have time..." I cautiously respond, looking for some visual cues of where not to venture next. What I am really thinking of saying is "I have one appointment tomorrow - between getting downtown, wandering around and watching people be busy, visiting Starbucks, having my appointment, visiting another Starbucks, thinking of what to blog and window shopping at the local strip club, how can you possibly expect me to have time to get involved?". This was one of those 'keep your inside voice inside you' moments I opted to go with.

"You should take him shopping for her, you've got the time." In retrospect I realized keeping my inside voice inside was probably a good choice at this point.

"...And just for the record you wouldn't buy me a gift card for Christmas...would you?" she says as she looks over, the beginning of "the look" starting to form. I'm sensing a trap at this point. My woman spider sense is starting to tingle...not a good sign.

"I don't think..." I started to say before she cut me off: "Because if you did...I'd be pissed."

At this point I realize I am at rubicon of this conversation....

This has the potential to go one of two ways - either I'm going to say something that, no matter how logically right will be so horribly wrong, or it will be the complete opposite. It's like playing blackjack in Vegas and standing after 2 cards - either the dealer will bust and I win, or the odds say I will probably loose. You would think I should know better, but oblivious to the dismal odds I decide a little knowledge for my gender is a good thing for all of us and I'm going for it...: "Wait", I protested, "I never get you gift cards...and besides, just so I know why would you be pissed?"

"Because, I'd buy the same things I always buy me - and when you shop for me you get me different things....that I normally wouldn't buy."

"Like what? The low cut, cleavage enhancing one-size-too-small shirts that you always complain brings attention to you chest? Ed and I think they make you look trendy and hot - are you saying you don't like them?" At this point time seems to slow down and the room goes deathly silent. There is no "sorry, not the right answer but I love you anyhow" optional ending to this discussion, it's all or nothing baby. If this fails I hope the rest of the guys realize I'm taking one for the team, and I'll need an immediate MediVac out of a hot LZ.

She tilted her head and thought for a moment. "No comment" she responded, giving a wink and walking out of the room with a slightly saucy wiggle.

Dealer goes bust! I think I'm going shopping tomorrow...and not for a gift card.

Thanks for stopping by...

I noticed, after 3 short months of this blog, I have reached over 1000 hits. Considering I sent the link to only 9 people to start, I'm personally quite surprised. I haven't hit the blogging A list yet, and no book deal in the works but I'm sure I'm on my way somewhere in that general direction.

And how do I know those 9 people aren't just pinging like crazy? Well, when I mentioned to one the other day my hit count he said "who the heck is reading it? I've only looked once!".

Mental note: don't cater any posts to my brother-in-law to ensure readership. I'll let the both brother-in-laws fight out which one said it, assuming the one reads this post ;)

So, to the remaining 8 that read as well as new people that have joined on - thanks for taking the time to read and passing it on to others if you enjoy it! If nobody did read it I would still post, I just probably wouldn't spell check as much....

LP.

Corporate Christmas

* Maybe it's just my abundance of time to watch life move around me this year; * Maybe it's my altered perspective on life as a quasi-maturing parent of a 3 year old who has made the link between presents and Christmas time; * Maybe it's the fact that I've started to read No Logo and The Corporation;

... But doesn't Christmas seem very corporate this year ... ?

I was downtown today to pickup a few last Christmas presents and, even on a Monday afternoon, it was as busy as a typical Saturday is. In the mall people seem to be escaping from the cold, cheeks flushed from the winter wind yet their fingers warm from swiping debit cards and signing on the dotted line.

"Where's the travel books" blurted a short lady to the bookstore clerk, "...and I'm in a hurry" she hissed, her flushed red cheeks adding to the 'don't fuck with me' look to her face. I personally would have sent her to the New Age section to see if she could go find herself, but I suppose the clerk didn't have that luxury...

In the electronics store it wasn't much better "I need an Ipod shuffle - and make it quick!" an elderly man snapped at the young clerk. "And what's this extra warranty thing? Don't YOU warranty the products you sell?" I honestly thought he was going to have a coronary and was hoping to leave in case I had to perform mouth to mouth on him. "Why do I have to pay extra for that?", he seethed.

It went downhill once his card was denied after reaching his limit for the day. "I'm sorry sir," the clerk said, wincing as if to know what was coming next. "Christ almighty! What a crock! Run it again...no wait" he stammered, reaching for another card out of his wallet. He threw another one down and impatiently tapped his fingers "Try this one, and make it quick, I've got somewhere to be!". At least he remembered to say 'Christ' in the spirit of the season.

These individuals were pretty representative of what I saw today. The bustling masses, spending more in one day than an entire individual needs to live on in most other parts of the world. Giving for the sake of giving, or was it giving for the reciprocal sake of getting - I got the impression most people were succumbing to the corporate logos and marketing because it was that time of year. I hope nobody gets me anything this year if that's the attitude they have.

Does joining the masses make us all pawns to the corporations and lemmings in the marketing of life?

Or maybe I'm just realizing the world without my typical, neatly packaged-by-semester academic views for what it really is...

If that's the case: Shit. I think I want to go back to school...

Off the short bus, onto the long bus

I tell you the honest truth - if I didn't take the bus so much now a days then I would have any good stories to write about...

Like the group of mentally challenged adults that got on last week, obviously after just having visited the local Fire Station for an outing. They were stoked, and they made sure everyone knew about it. Imagine half a bus full of Down's syndrome and other associated mental health issues discussing the "neat-o" stuff they just got to see. I can still her the "whoo whoo's" when I close my eyes....

It was almost like I was watching American Pie... "and then...." "and then...." "and then...". Fortunatly there was no talk of band camp and a flute.

I'm not sure if I was afraid or not...but mental note: in the future, stay off the short bus if I can help it.

Sorry, didn't want to get Dooced

Sorry for the lack of posts in the past few days. I had 3 or 4 written out during my travels but haven't had time to get any typed in...the one I did spend awhile on I decided yesterday at the last minute not to post it. I have a few work related stories I was typing out for a combination of personal venting and blog readership entertainment value.

Translation: I work for a good company but it has the standard percentage of wankers, hard-asses and stupid people that shouldn't be working anywhere and still get paid for showing up and putting the rest of us through crap.

Hence a conundrum of the highest proportion:

:: Entertaining? Yes. Readers will flock from afar.
:: Will they be pissed if they find out - Probably.
:: Will I get fired? Not sure I want to find out yet.

Last week Clublife went off the air - Rob the Bouncer thought his anonymity was being cut short so his plan: "pull the blog down and deny, deny, deny..." But hey, with a book deal signed I'm not sure he should be worried about it. Of course there is the infamous Heather Armstrong of Dooce.com or Mark Jen, the short-lived Google employee.

However, in the spirit of getting fired for blogging I added The Phantom Professor to my bloglist. A few months ago her contract as an adjunct professor wasn't renewed where she taught when the school found out he was blogging about her students & fellow professors, even in anonymity. There is also a dental student at Marquette who was suspended for a year and made to repeat a year for blogging (even in anonymity) about fellow students in a not so nice way. I think referring to your classmates as "having the intellectual/maturity of a 3 year old" is a good example of his flowing prose that set him back $14,000 in tuition. That makes me wonder if he's worked out how much it cost him per comment??? Ohh, calling Sue the class ho was $840 a shot. I should have called her an expensive class ho while I was at it...

Suffice to say I will mostly steer clear of the work stuff that may cause issues (for now). While I don't exactly go out of my way to hide who the Logical Philosopher really is, I'm not announcing it either. Besides, a few well placed Google searches on my posts will do that anyhow. Regardless A few of the techno-geeks at my company would probably find me in some RSS aggregator or search and post it to the public bulletin board...Then I would have to explain to the Obsessive Compulsive guy why I wrote about his hand washing episodes, or to the VP of X why I wrote about his/her wet spot on the chair after the big Christmast party in 1998... That'd be a tough meeting, even at the best of times.

But then again, I may be apt to change my mind if coaxed enough...after all, it's only my career we're talking about. Of course that still leaves things open for some guest posting if you have anything...

Managing Intellectual Property & Business

I was asked to write a short summary of an article with some commentary, so I thought I would post it as well. I based the summary on an article entitled Intellectual Property - from Management to Litigation, as published in The Deal on April 25th, 2005. A PDF of the article can be found here on the Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione website.

Several months ago the Grokster case was argued in the US Supreme Court. This 2005 case was to our digital generation to what the Betamax case was to 1984. The Betamax case answered for the affirmative when looking at if Betamax could be used for substantial noninfringing uses and thus legal for Sony Corporation to sell. Now we have new digital music and video files capable of being transmitted over any remote digital network. This means the issue, albeit more technical, appears to have come up again but in reality the peer to peer based Grokster case needs to be viewed from a different perspective than Betamax was. The content owners, who claim their intellectual property is being given away for free with these file-sharing sites, realize they can't stop technology and thus are simply trying to limit their use.

Balance between intellectual property protection and innovation can best be viewed through a blending of economic, intellectual and legal issues.

First, one must consider the fundamental reason for intellectual property protection was created to ensure the protection for innovators - through legal avenues inventors are given economic incentive to continue to invent. But at what point does old protected innovation stifle new innovation? Open competition is also required to prevent unhealthy economic monopolies and stimulate more business. It is this perspective of "fair use" that most proponents of technology over intellectual property state their cases on. As the global economy is starting to shift to more of a knowledge base economy, the there is a need for proactively managing a company's intellectual property protection and exploitation, instead of reactively managing within the marketplace.

To add a third dimension of complexity to the issue of protection & innovation the growth and change of a company's structure in today's working global environment should be considered. This suggests for mergers and acquisitions the intellectual property (IP) of a company is becoming more important to consider. One reason is due to the increased knowledge economy of software and other intangible literature. The second is some firms that are up for acquisition may not realize the potential of their IP, instead being too focused on their tangible products and their markets. IP also extends beyond the traditional business merger and can be used for two competitors to create a larger user base and thus a potential standard to which they can both benefit instead of fighting for the existing customer base. A third is the realization that global business is a necessity to stay competitive. Global outsourcing mixed with differing intellectual property legal protection across country jurisdictions can create a complex environment to structure an acquisition. Having IP enforced or protected differently in multiple jurisdictions where certain portions of a company's operations reside may impact the way product or services can be handled.

But with the cost associated with acquiring IP, one must be willing to enforce it.

One obvious component in enforcement is litigation, which has showed no signs of weakness in the past few years. While new technology cases such as Grokster are expanding into unchartered legal territory, many of the recent cases have honed current law. Recent casts have been clarifying more mundane, but necessary, portions of IP law, such as claim construction and willful infringement.

The most recent willful infringement case, the Festo case, deals with the issue of treble damages when a corporation is held to have willfully infringed a patent. Historically part of a successful defence to treble damages was to produce a good faith non-infringement opinion of counsel. This caused an issue of adverse inference for defendants if they chose to not use counsel for an opinion, or reveal the opinion in court. This means the judge or jury could assume an opinunfavorablevourable and award treble damages. With Festo eliminating this adverse inference rule, companies have larger legal latitude in their handling of potentially infringing patents at the time an opinion is drafted.

The recent Phillips case relates to the issue of claim construction. Presently claim construction is taken as a matter of law and defined by the judge and dictated to the jury. But with this being a point of law it resulted in over 50% of the patent cases tried in district court being overturned by the court of appeals. With a $2 to $5 million cost to take a case through litigation, it posed huge financial uncertainties for parties of the court as it moved to appeals. After accepting amicus briefs the Federal Circuit panel issues it's en banc ruling giving a detailed recitation of claim construction principles, but it did not address the differences applied to the district courts over the federal courts. This infers the issue of large amount of reversals in the federal courts may still stand for the time being.

So where does this leave us?

There are two common ways to manage a firm's intellectual property - from the business perspective of products and markets, and from the focused legal perspective of asset protection.

Within both views the goal is to ensure any existing IP is being utilized to its full potential. In either case IP is a complex issue to deal with and should not be considered as an afterthought or add on to corporate growth and strategy. Strict interpretation and enforcement of IP law is becoming more fluid as technology continues to evolve and mature, leaving many IP issues such as open-source software and peer-to-peer programs unguided by the courts.

As the courts and legal field have typically move slower than the technology growth of our generation, I suggest it will provide an interesting wild west type free for all at least for the next few years of IP business.

I think I'm gonna get me one of them there patent six shooters when I get back to work.