Intellectual Property Books

I bought this looking for some insight into the increasingly popular privacy movement. I got what I was looking for, but it wasn't a GREAT book, just a good book.

Ever wonder why Monica Lewinski's private life could be held up to public scorn when she was never charged with a crime nor was even the target of a law suit? Ever wonder what has happened to the 4rth amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures? Are you baffled by the social straight jacket that "Sexual Harassment" law has imposed on both men and women in the work place? Then read Professor Rosen's book. Well researched, clearly written for the layman, in a little over 200 pages, Jeffrey Rosen explains how privacy rights have been eroded and why personal privacy is so critical for the functioning of a free society.

I bought this book expecting something more than opinion on database policy, and was never able to force myself to finish it. I found no evidence that the author has ever realized that coercive, devastating assaults on our privacy can be conducted by our neighbors, friends, and co-workers using radio technology and other covert surveillance devices.

Despite the over-riding fear of big brother--both government and corporate--the people who know us, even if we do not know them, constitute the greatest unrecognized threat to our privacy. They are the ones who can really "hit us where we live". Most serious crimes are committed by those closest to us.

Unfortunately, both public policy and privacy advocates seem to lack awareness of the destructiveness and availability of cheap electronic surveillance components, and the almost impossible task of escaping from this type of "unwanted gaze".

We need authors like Jeffrey Rosen to consider the impact of having their voices and images recorded and broadcast without our knowledge. They should then go shopping. Manuals, devices, and tips for the destruction of personal privacy are mass produced and widely available for ridiculously low fees. Manuals, devices, and policy to protect individuals against violations by other individuals are completely ineffectual. If a victim is not a public figure, authorities, including lawyers, will not even hear the complaints. There is currently no defense, private or governmental, against this particular brand of urban terrorism...

It's a given that government and major corporations will violate our privacy in the course of their everday endeavors. The average citizen will probably never be able to catch them, much less stop them, and will probably suffer little harm. The same is not true when your neighbor buys an illegal scanner and tapes your phone calls or hides a wireless camera in your bedroom and publishes it on the internet.

One important policy concern: Law enforcement, corporations, and government-in-general have a large stake in persuading the populace this technology is restricted to "authorized users" and that common access and abuse of electronic technology is still science fiction...If we keep believing this technology isn't being misused by our neighbors, we won't cry out for laws that make it more difficult for the powers that be to continue abusing their access to our lives.

Jeffrey Rosen, author of THE UNWANTED GAZE (2000), went to Harvard College, Oxford U. (Balliol College....the book jacket doesn't say if he were a Rhodes Scholar like President Clinton was, but probably he was), and finally (again like President Clinton), Yale Law School. Also, like Mr. Clinton, Mr. Rosen taught (still teaches) law school at Washington, D.C.'s excellent and underrated Geroge Washington University. Need we say more? If EVER an overachiever walked the face of the planet, Mr. Rosen certainly fits the that description. Beyond question, he is one smart dude!

His excellent book, THE UNWANTED GAZE (about privacy invasion by computers...and evil people invading YOUR PRIVACY using computers), is worth buying from Amazon.Com and reading again and again.

This is easier said than done. Simply possessing the book and finding a quiet place to read it doesn't deliver the information Rosen offers (worth having once gotten) easily. His book is about an immensely complicated subject, and even though Rosen is a genious (really!) law professor, etc., etc., tackling his book ain't easy.

The result is that, through no fault of his own (he's breaking very thick and important ice), his book is extremely difficult to read and digest.

Read it anyway.

You'll learn a lot about an important subject.

Here's what his book is about:

As thinking, writing, and gossip increasingly take place in cyberspace, the part of our life that can be monitored and searched has vastly expanded. E-Mail, for instance (the most used and most famous form of cyberspace use), even after it is deleted, becomes a PERMANENT record that can be resurrected by employers or prosecutors (district attorneys, cops, the FBI, the CIA....you know....those guys, and for the past 30 years, those girls) at ANY point in the future. Cyberspace doesn't give a damn about paper deterioration, etc. Cyberspace is a WHOLE NEW media ball game with brand new rules!

On the Internet, EVERY website we visit, every store we browse in, every magazine we skim...AND the AMOUNT OF TIME we skim it...create electronic FOOTPRINTS that can be traced back to us, revealing detailed patterns about our tastes, preferences, and intimate thoughts (example...I visit public libraries very often and use library computers and Internet services....cops checking up on me who trace writings like the one you are now reading...composed in a Maryland public library...and see a pattern of public library use).

The brilliant Mr. Rosen (a smart lawyer you ought to hire if you get in trouble) explores the legal, technological, and cultural changes that have undermined our ability to control how much personal information about ourselves is communicated to others. He proposes ways of reconstructing some of the zones of privacy that law and technology have been allowed to invade (computers, the Internet, etc. ALONE don't do evil things and victimize people without help....it takes bad guys and gals USING computers, the Internet, etc. to do us dirty and invade out privacy).

Poor gorgeous, big busted Monica Lewinsky, the Linda Lovelace of the Whitehouse, is the main example Mr. Rosen uses to illustrate his worthwhile point. If Mr. Rosen is a comic book example of an overachiever (see above stated educational credentials if you doubt he is an overachiever), Ms. Lewinsky is the comic book provider of oral sex to highly place politicians, certainly eclipsing Linda Lovelace and others you may have heard about. She got famous for this, and thus is easy to relate to.

For this reason, perhaps, Mr. Rosen, uses her. He does so brilliantly to show how legal types and nosy types got away with invading her privacy using computers and the Internet. Ms. Lewinsky was not regarded sympathetically by the media, and perhaps for this reason, the VIOLATION of HER RIGHTS to privacy was ignored as a journalistic topic. She was, in the male chauvinist mentality of the times, simply regarded as an appendage of the OTHER villain in the Clinton/Lewinsky story, Mr. Clinton, destined to become the most famous sex act President in U.S. history (it will be hard for future sex abuse Presidents to top his act).

Mr. Rosen plays the gentleman, and defends Ms. Lewinsky, especially her violated rights to privacy. These rights were invaded when her computer use (to buy books, to write her diary, to send E-Mail communications, etc.) was used AGAINST her (in order to make Mr. Clinton look bad) in flagrant VIOLATION of her rights to free speech and privacy.

Mr. Rosen makes the dubious legal analysis that women seeking redress from sexual harrassment abuses, such as those suffered by Paula Jones and Anita Hill, should trash sexual harrassment charges and instead charge invasion of privacy. This is one of the very few few weak parts of Rosen's book or thinking, but it is such spectacular balderdash that it is worth mentioning.

The author of THE UNWANTED GAZE (title taken from the "Encyclopedia Talmudit," not to be confused with the Talmud) discusses Kenneth Starr's tapes and DoubleClick's (DoubleClick is the world's largest Internet advertising company at present....buy its stock if you want to get rich quick) on-line profiles (they probably have mine gotten from Amazon.Com and also from HotMail, both of whom successfully solicited "profiles" ,i.e. autobiographies, from me).

This smart Yale lawyer prepared by Oxford and Harvard REALLY covers the waterfront.

The result is that readers like me get very scared of the Internet, and start returning to use of OTHER information sources nutty FBI loose cogs (like G. Gordon Liddy and J. Edgar Hoover) can't trace so easily. For instance, NOW, when I want to communicate with one of my celebrity friends, I use the public library's copy of WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA.....their PRINT copy, NOT their on-line copy. THAT WAY bad guys don't know who I'm sending nasty notes to, or nice notes, as the case may be.

Staying away from the Internet might be a healthy thing. Personally, I don't plan to, but you might consider the idea. You'll probably last longer than I will.

Let me get my two main criticisms of Rosen's book out of the way first: 1) I am not a legal scholar (or a lawyer), and found the book to be a little too technical, even somewhat tedious at times, although it is basically well written and even impassioned; and 2) I also thought the book focused somewhat obsessively on one particular privacy-related issue ("sexual harassment"), and specifically the argument that much of what we classify as sexual harassment would be better dealt with as "invasion of privacy." I felt like this could have been summarized in a few pages and not have taken up half the book!

Despite these criticisms, overall I found this book to be very interesting and helpful in focusing the mind on the important issue of privacy - its importance and its potential erosion (even destruction) in America today. As far back as medieval times, we learn from Rosen, authorities routinely ruled that potential injury to a neighbor's privacy meant that a window looking out onto a common courtyard "had to be removed even if the individuals whose privacy was violated failed to protest." Rosen also introduces us to the fascinating Talmudic concept of "Hezzek Re'iyyah" (the "injury caused by seeing"), which basically says that even a small invasion of privacy causes damage.

Rosen's discussion of privacy in cyberspace is very interesting and timely. Rosen points out how, every time you use the internet, you are leaving a trail (an "electronic footprint" of "cookies") which is recorded - whether by a private company or the government -- and which makes it possible for someone to (as Rosen puts it) "trace nearly everything we read, write, browse, and buy."

A big part of the problem facing privacy in America today, as Rosen points out, is that technology keeps racing ahead, allowing for greater and greater monitoring of our every move. Given this, Rosen frames the question as following: "will we be passive in the face of technological determinism" or not? Today it is possible for your employer to monitor literally every keystroke you hit on your computer keyboard, to read all your e-mails, to monitor your phone conversations, etc. Just thinking about this makes me somewhat tense, and, indeed, according to Rosen, studies show that workers who are being monitored electronically have "higher levels of depression, tension, and anxiety" than unmonitored employees. Interestingly, Rosen points out, the monitored employees also appear to be less productive than the unmonitored ones as well, so all this monitoring apparently doesn't even help - and may even hurt - the company's bottom line!

In sum, Rosen's book lays out the case that privacy - so important for the many reasons which Rosen explains -- is today under siege. Where are the "backstage" areas to let our hair down, remove our `masks" and be ourselves, Rosen asks? Are we all just characters on "The Truman Show" (or "Survivor" or "The Real World")? How can we optimally pursue, as Rosen puts it, "the capacity for creativity...the development of self and soul, understanding, friendship, and even love" in a world where we can never be sure of privacy? Where is there a place for human eccentricity, individuality, and ultimately, freedom, in a world where everyone is subject to constant surveillance (like Jeremy Bentham's "Panopticon")? And, Rosen asks, who would want to live in such a world? If you find any of this interesting, I recommend that you read "The Unwanted Gaze."

We needed this for our small buisness. We bought this for a reference book it is a good one...

Excellent follow-up to the previous Nolo editions. Layout of the book was not as graphically pleasing, but the information is straightforward and well presented.

I bought this book as a primer reference to patents. What I got was a dictionary of words. This book pretty much is a dictionary without a lot of explanations. Really basic terms also. A lot of basic paraphrasing instead of actual text from the 35 USC manual.

This book is an excellent first place to go for people wanting a foundational knowledge of Intellectual Property. In addition to the basics it provides surprisingly comprehensive overview of the three major areas of IP. Making this book an excellent one, and not just a very good one, it also discusses trade secrets. As with most books on Intellectual Property, there is little in the book about who owns patents, how one can transfer ownership to another party, or how one can inadvertantly lose ownership. Overall, though, an excellent book for its stated purpose.

This book is easy-to-use and highly detailed with an appealing, bulleted layout and many illustrations that helped to answer most of my basic questions about the four categories of intellectual property (copyright, patents, trademarks and trade secrets). I took a graduate-level library science course on the legal aspects of information and borrowed several books on IP from the library. This Nolo Press book was the one that I kept coming back to and wound up buying. I was glad I waited for the updated 7th edition, which now includes an index. The book is divided into completely logical sections on definitions, statutes, forms and an overview, all of which make this book a joy to read. The text is written in plain English and the entries are cross-referenced and other resources are given. This is a legal book written by lawyers, but the legalese is edited out and only very useful information remains. If you need one basic legal reference book on IP, this is the one you'll keep reaching for.

A true entrepreneur knows how to leverage other people's ideas and other people's money to create more wealth for everyone around them. Michael Lechter has outlined several ways to bring other people to the table to combine their investments with yours.

It's not the easiest read on the shelf. But, the content is great and the information is on the money.

If you really want to be a Real estate investor,then this is the book to purchase.The book is an investment in itself.

One of the concepts the Rich Dad series has taught me, and you see this throughout the free enterprise system, is that "he who creates the investment gets most of the gold".
Bill Gates. Warren Buffett. The real estate developer next door turning five acres into a small strip mall, or an apartment complex.

This book shows how it's done. From concept, to trademarking and patenting, to incorporating, to raising the funds, everything short of filing the IPO is included, albeit briefly. But that's OK, you'll need your own attorneys and professionals to customize these parts for your application, anyway. Just don't cut any corners.

Michael gives you examples throughout the book as to how the process should work... and a few examples of what happens when you cut corners. (it can get ugly at this level, gang!)

I am mainly interested in real estate investment, so this book did not have a whole lot for me. It would be really great if you are looking for capital to begin a business. I just wanted money to buy houses with!!

Michael Lechter's book "OPM" Other People's Money is one of the finest books written for creating financial leverage. The information teaches anyone how they can take an idea and truly turn it into a significant financial gain without risking their own capital.

You do not need money to become successful. You need a worthwhile idea and other people's money and or resources to bring that idea to fruition. Don't shelve your dreams due to lack of cash flow. One idea in this book provided me with over $30,000 in other people's resources and I did not give away equity to do so.

After you read this book then lack of cash flow is no longer a reason not to transform your ideas into reality. Apply the knowledge in this book and you have more than a short-lived chance of success. We have all heard the saying that knowledge is power. Once you have learned the information contained within this book you will have the power, you just have to apply it.

The material is straight forward. This is a must read for anyone that considers themselves a true entrepreneur. I learned more about cash flow and understanding how to attract other people's money and resources in this book than I did in six years of college.

If I had this information prior to starting my entrepreneurial life I am sure I would be 50 times wealthier today.

Thank you Michael, You Rock!

I found this to be a maddening book to read. The author is a lawyer, and this is apparent from the writing style. I don't know why law schools teach their students to write in such a meandering and confusing manner. However, lawyers should consider that the general population, even the educated portion is not trained (or really interested) in reading this peculiar writing style. Jessica Litman states that she thinks US copyright law has been gerrymandered to the point where it is virtually unintelligible, but then proceeds to do the same thing to her book.

However, if you can stay with this book (no easy chore mind you) you will be rewarded with some good information particularly on the history of copyright protection in the US. The most interesting was the blow by blow account of Napster vs. the music recording industry. There are not many books on this subject. I feel this was a complementary read to Digital Rights Management by Rosenblatt, Trippe and Mooney in that both books cover a similar subject, but did not overlap significantly. I recommend them both.

This is a good book if you want a detailed history of how copyright law evolved to accomodate digital technology and the Internet. That is the focus of Litman's work. Her writing is engaging and straightforward, and she has good reasons for being pessimistic and disappointed with the current Copyright Act.

Professor Litman tackles the dense and often counterintuitive basis of copyright law and delivers an easy to understand explanation of what copyright law is, what it attempts to accomplish, why it was deemed necessary, and how it came to be that copyright owners (e.g., the RIAA) are suing your teenage sons and daughters.

Criticisms of this book in previous reviews cite the fact that the book includes a number of journal articles cobbled together. That's fine with me - the quality of these articles are such that I don't mind the occasional restating of points made in a previous chapter - these are all issues that bear repeating! I understand that the prose is necessarily awkward at times - hey! this is copyright law, it's s'posed to be opaque!

The salient issues (for me) from this book are the following:

1. Copyright law is designed, developed and negotiated by those who have the biggest stake in making the most money.

2. The US Congress, our representative to insure that we, the public, are not shafted by unfair, restrictive copyright laws, have betrayed our trust. They are swayed by lobbyists, large campaign contributions, and rubber stamp whatever the copyright owners want. The consumer's voice (and to a great extent, the voice of emerging technologies as well!) is silent.

3. It's no longer about copying, it's about consuming.

4. The Internet (and the digital technology that accompanies it) provides copyright owners the ability to monitor, meter, enforce and control access. Fair use is (or will be) a thing of the past; "fair use" was grudgingly accepted by copyright owners mainly because preventing copying for "personal use" was deemed "unenforceable". No longer.

We as individual consumers must make our voices heard. Read this book - educate yourself.

I found this book to be an easy read over the weekend and very comprehensible, even to the layperson who does not have a legal background yet who might have interest.

The bottom line is that copyright law and the meshing of digitization is not black and white yet is gray and murky. Until case law and the creatives reach some kind of a negotiation or a consensus, it will continue to be murky.

And, in our society we may have to agree to disagree with certain elements.

One of the strongest points brought out in this book was that if people don't believe in the law, they will not uphold it and there is not a lot that the government can do. I'm certainly not condoning illegal behavior yet there is a strong point to be made.

Our law was supposed to be written as one that would flex with the times yet we've found that digitization challenges the perceptions behind the laws that were set early and into the mid 1900's.

In conclusion, there is no conclusion and the story is still being written yet this book provides an excellent historical context for why copyright is as sensitive and muddy as it is and provides a good look at the dichotomies between the copyright exclusive owners and users.

This book is essentially a primer on the mess we've gotten into with regards to copyrights and digital media. Litman explains both why the current copyright regime is an ill fit to the "Information Age" as well as how we got here.

Litman's explanation of how Congress has essentially abdicated its responsibilities by turning over the drafting of copyright law to the entrenched business interests is scary. But more frightening are the implications: When major chunks of our culture are locked behind individual use licenses, little room is left for innovation and creativity. The end result, I fear, will be a world where every last piece of information and our entertainment will be fed to us by Disney, Time Warner, and a few other mega-corporations. Not that I have anything against those firms, but a 35-page menu listing only variations of spaghetti is not my idea of fine dining.

Copyright used to be about a bargain - society gave limited rights to copyright owners to encourage creativity - in return society obtained building blocks for further creativity. But the model has changed - now the discussion (such as it is) is about the absolute property rights of the media company. (We don't even talk about "authors" anymore - who wrote "Finding Nemo" anyway?) The result is that the public's end of the bargain has been taken away - fair use is of little use anymore, and the first sale doctrine (which allows you to read, re-read, loan, sell, or destroy this book) has been emptied of any meaning with regards to digital media.

Litman does a great job in explaining how ugly the current copyright laws are, and she demonstrates clearly how the system threatens to stifle innovative new ways to communicate and entertain via the Internet. There is clearly room to build on her arguments to demonstrate that the current regime will likely stifle creativity in general. For more on that general theme, I recommend following up Litman's book with one or two by Lawrence Lessig.

All in all, this book is an easy-to-read but very illuminating starting point in understanding exactly how threatening, and intolerable, the copyright regime has begun. Read it, and weep.

I sigh when I see writing like this, writing that is so stylized and cryptic that few can understand it. I do understand why some theorists employ this style: trying to break free of certain political and historical conventions, they decide they had better break every convention in language while they are at it. Some of the reason for this book's difficulty is that its language is constantly (but silently) referring to other theorists' work (theorists who mostly write in this difficult style and who are read almost exclusively by academics). So the end result is less than satisfactory, unless you happen to be a poet of this particular school of poetry. Then, it's little more than an internal memorandum to those already in the choir.

On a more practical note, this book isn't about hackers as most people understand the term (and as most who might buy this think it means). Wark is using the term to describe a divers group of not-necessarily related revolutionaries who want to change the world for the better by safeguarding knowledge from privatization and undermining the efforts of those who want to own knowledge.

Reading this book is a difficult hack. To be honest, I often have no idea what he means even after reading a sentence several times, and looking every word up in the dictionary.

I've never been able to understand Karl Marx either, and the book has a lot of Marxist rhetoric.

The apologists for the vectoral interest want to limit the semantic productivity of the term "hacker" to a mere criminality, precisely because they fear its more abstract and multiple potential--its class potential.

Let me start of by saying up front that I am apparently a political opposite to the points of view raised in this book.. I really tried to read this with an open mind, but the writing is so dry and stilted that I simply couldn't get in to the philosophies being presented.. It felt like reading Decline and Fall.. Only without the love and craftsmanship.. At least when you finish reading Decline and Fall you feel a sense of accomplishment.. After reading A Hacker Manifesto I felt robbed of my time..

Mackenzie Wark's A Hacker Manifesto tries to present the hacker as the driving force, and real power of civilization.. He declares the hacker, whether he is a scientist, artist, or programmer, as the only true creator.. Everyone else is either a user or used.. With the hacker falling somewhere in the middle bridging the gap between classes..

The whole time I was reading this book I kept waiting for a revelation.. Something new.. But it just doesn't happen.. A Hacker Manifesto reads like Marxism 2.0.. It's the same old idea wrapped in modern trends and job classes.. It subtly paints the capitalist class as the oppressive users of the labor classes and portrays the hacker class as the salvation for everyone.. It's too black and white, too obvious, of a philosophy to be of any real use for anyone that has even a basic understanding of Marxism and Communism.. And the whole time I was reading it I got this subtle feeling that the author was really writing a "look at me, I'm smart" book.. I'm sure that others will disagree, but I just see nothing groundbreaking in this book.. If you want to good book on Communism, go to some original sources and read Trotsky or Lenin.. If nothing else they are a better read..

McKensie Wark calls the state "an envelope" whose primary function is to "police representations." I think this way of construing nations has a such a forceful brevity that it disallows simple rebuttal. An envelope loosely unifies, contains, closes, enfolds multiplicities into a unit, a projectile. And what does "policing representaitons" mean? Determing the extent to which an identity (political, social, religious, etc) can be commodified and incorporated into the state in order to perpetuate itself and yet give the specific identity the illusion of freedom and self-determination. This can be seen in the way cops determine routes and surrond the perimeter at protests (J20 for instance) and give us some limited form of freedom, 'allowing us free speech' while at the same time, if we concede to this limited freedom, we give up the possibility of confronting the form of freedom they allow, i.e., freedom surrounded by police with weapons telling you when you can move, and hence, we are neutralized without even knowing it. This is how incredibly dispossessed peoples can identify with the state, since the state gives them a possibility, a "dream" of a moment of limited freedom. The minute a real threat is formulated, ie, a threat to the economy or to the collective hallucination of the state itself, you better bet that you don't pass go or collect $200 but go straight to jail. This is why, perhaps, the state makes it incredibly clear that hackers are NOT political prisoners. Those
who hijack the information vectors that regulate finance, statistics, communicatiom, and images must be stopped before they can form a political class. They are criminals. copyright infringement, filesharing, (and soon, indymedia) are crimes, not acts of culture. Not until the state can find a way to represent those acts, commodify them, and sell them back to us for
a price will they be seen as cultural/political acts. That is already happening, I believe.

This book challenges our previously held critiques of the state, identity, production, and class in a synthetic crptomarxist style that is both difficult and attractive. It incorporates the rise of the information class into its analysis, as well as the relations between the overdeveloped and underdeveloped world.

My only critique is that it's radical potential was limited by its allegiance to a (form of) Marxist critique. I think that a conversation with anarchism and anarchist organizing could have produced/unified some different trajectories of thought about representation and the state.

Either way, its a great read. If the language and poetry turns you off, then just skip around until you find the parts you like. Its a playground of meaning.

Hear my interview with Mckensie here: http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2005/02/3719.php

Warks book is one of the most refreshing books I have read from this year. His argument about the change in capitalism and the role of intellectual "property" will become increasingly important. His use of Debord, Marx and Deleuze to deal with the rise of the vectorial class is great! Anyone interested in internet theory, postmodern theory or anarchist theory should really read this book.

DeMatteis and Gibbs have so greatly contributed to the world of Invention and Patenting in such a multitude of ways and continue to do so by sharing their research,experience,knowledge and expertise with their readers in the brilliantly written and much needed "Essentials". This book is worth its weight in gold to say the very least. "Essentials" is virtually bursting with valuable money saving tips. I believe DeMatteis and Gibbs deserve more than a pat on the back for all of the knowledge they have spent years gathering through their own research, hard work and personal expericences and laying all of it right out on the table for the benefit of their readers.I have the highest respect for DeMatteis and Gibbs for yet another contribution to all of us .....for our benefit...this book is very precise and clearly written and is full of information involving the future, and the future is now!!! I am sure that many will join me in saying Thank you Gentleman, for yet another contribution and for making our lives easier.....I am already looking forward to your next book as are many others here in Northern California...

Essentials of Patents is an insightful guide for business professionals who seek to have a better understanding of patents for strategic intelligence purposes. The book provides readers with the basics behind the nature of patents, the importance of patents when it comes to measuring corporate wealth, and a straightforward approach to establishing a Patent Quality Management (PQM) system.

The authors have broken down the content of the book into two distinct sections.

The first four chapters of the book are dedicated to the fundamentals of patents in the corporate world. Gibbs and DeMatteis discuss in detail the key aspects behind patent licensing, strategy, and tactics to make better business decisions.

The next six chapters focus on the management of patents within various departments in large companies. Readers are given examples of how patents can influence the way managers adjust their plans in marketing, engineering, manufacturing and operations. In addition, the authors share their views on how patents should be managed by finance, human resources and information technology departments.

The final two chapters discuss the role legal counsel and the CEO take on in a company that has a Patent Quality Management (PQM) system. After reading these chapters, readers will have a better idea of how critical the legal department and CEO are to managing existing and future patents.

Competitive intelligence practitioners who are not experts in the domain of patents, must read Essentials of Patents. When they are collecting information on patents, whether it is to track their competitors' new products or analyze the competitions' R&D abilities, they should keep book nearby.

As an IT professional, I have depended solely on Essentials of Patents to quickly become a valued member of my company's Patent Strategy team. Andy Gibb provides all of the angles and influencing factors for newcomers to this field. A must read for those traditionally considered outside of the circle of patent management - IT, HR, Manufacturing, etc.

The ESSENTIALS of PATENTS is the best book I have read on the subject. Andy and Bob have put together a book that really hits the right topics and in the right order to answer the many questions I had regarding writing patents and patent protection.

Essentials of Patents is destine to become the defacto handbook on the critical importance of understanding patents from a management side. I have over 15 years experience consulting and working with technology driven companies, everything from Fortune 500 companies down to secret two person labs, where I could have handed this book out and become an instant hero. Needless to say, I'm ordering a ton of copies as free reads for my valued and important customers.

This book is not just a book for inventors, attorneys, researchers or managers, but everyone and everybody within corporations where innovation is essential to their core competencies - in other words, any company that plans to be around tomorrow. This book should be required reading for any MBA curriculum, let alone engineering, marketing or human resource manager.

I have witnessed an amazing change the area of patents over the years. I started as an inventor in college at Tulane Engineering, licensed patents to large home health care companies, and created a company to help recognize inventors from a human resource side. What I see Gibbs and DeMatteis are doing here with "Essentials . . ." is dispelling the mystery and complete misunderstanding of this area with an easy to understand and very articulated, astoundingly insight. These guys anchor the essoterica of patents in real world solutions. They answer all the questions that I have been peppered with over the years. But they have gone beyond even those areas that should be familar with patents, and provide insight for all departments, in what my experience dictates as completely accurate. By having read this book, I learned as much about my own area of experience as I thought I had gained over the years. The introduction alone is as educational and significant to patents as differential equations are to linear systems.

This book is long over due, especially in light of the explosive significance of patents in being competitive in the global economy. As companies are striving to innovate, being the only sustainable source of above average returns in the new economy, this book should instill the knowledge to handle this critical area.

This will book will be a free gift to all my clients in the future.

It's an eye-opener in terms of showing extent and seriousness of counterfeiting problem. Also a fun read.

People may think it is cute and trendy to have a counterfeit handbag and may believe they are getting back at big pharmacy by buying their meds on-line. Sadly the damage done by counterfeit product traffic only hurts the consumer. Product counterfeiting is not just for luxury items anymore but can be found in just about every type and grade of consumer good from razor blades to shampoo to peanut butter to mayonnaise. This traffic is just about as far as we can get from "fair trade." Often made by slave labor in developing countries, the knockoff business blocks economic development and only benefits criminals. Phillips has done some great work by investigating "markets" where pirated software sits next to Soviet rocket launchers. This book covers so many topics and products, it is a must read for anyone interested in crime, globalization, international affairs, business, manufacturing, politics, health, safety, economics and poverty.

Counterfeiting is one of the fastest growing - and most profitable - industries in the world, and hold a market worth over, $500 billion dollars. KNOCKOFF exposes the truth behind the fakes and charts the ramifications of counterfeit manufacture and trafficking, probing an illegal global industry that is slowly undermining world economics. Interviews with victims, investigators and people who sell counterfeits counter the common notion that fakes are acceptable, reveals the organized crime behind many fakes, and makes for a recommended pick for any serious business library.

For anyone interested in unerstanding the underworld trade in counterfeit goods that plague society today this is a must read.

I bought this book as background reading for a client assignment, and was impressed with the author's balanced perspective about a subject that - as the recent debate over digital rights management illustrates - tends to create strong opinions.

For example, Phillips makes no bones about the fact that counterfeiting is theft and that it is anything but a victimless crime. At the same time, he notes that companies need to convince customers that their products (particularly music and films) have the value that the companies assign to them. He also observes that where there is a huge price difference between legitimate and bootleg product and little in the way of local support, convincing people to buy a genuine product will be tough.

Phillips also makes some interesting points about the links between counterfeiting and organized crime and terrorism, and the prevalence of fake pharmaceuticals and aircraft parts. He does this without being sensational, which is no small accomplishment when you consider that counterfeit parts have been found on Air Force One, and that in some African countries, 80 percent of the medicine is fake.

Readable, informative and highly recommended.

This little booklet provides the most basic information about patents. I bought it thinking that it would be a good thing to supply new employees at my company. Although I think it is OK in terms of content (nothing particularly bad), I am not sure that there is anything interesting enough here to get anyone to really read through it.
Most of this information can be found on-line and up to date from government websites. Although I have not checked, it would not surprise me to find this very information as it was created by the USPTO. Unless you are keen to have things in bound form, there really is no need to own this book.

This is quick 85-page overview of the patent process. It provides the key steps, requirements, and definitions in very plain terms (almost in the same style of language as the IRS's 1040EZ instructions). However, it steers clear from giving ADVICE. If you need advice, try Patent It Yourself, from Nolo Press.
Some of the information in this slim volume can be found at http://www.uspto.gov/. But this book brings it together in a very convenient and affordable package. It is worth the modest price!

This book offers a simple, straightforward interoduction to patent law. If you are starting from scratch, this is a good place to start. There isn't much "how to" in this book, so it's probably best for someone who plans to work with a patent lawyer or service.

An easy read.... this book gives a quick introduction to intellectual property rights and application procedures. Not nearly as helpful as some other, thicker, "How to" books.

This is not the first place to start if you're interested in the patent process. The law is dynamic and this book was out of date years ago. There are many other books out there that will outline the basics in a much more reliable way. Look for a book that will discuss World Trade Organization provisions and other international aspects of IP law - otherwise it's too limiting. Never choose to file for a patent application yourself. Use references to educate yourself on the process and then if you want to pursue this expensive process (which can become more expensive if you make an error) find a registered agent or attorney.

Spellbinding. I laughed. I wept. How could Xerox PARC miss a $500,000,000 patent opportunity in the graphical user interface? Easy, they didn't recognize that someone else might have a use for something they had no use for. Yes, I laughed and I cried.

I would like to put Rembrandts into the context in which it was created. Rembrandts was conceived and co-authored by my friend and business partner of the past 15 years, Kevin Rivette. We co-founded Aurigin Systems,Inc., formerly SmartPatents, Inc., in 1992 to make it easier for people working with patents to do their work. From this beginning Aurigin and, particularly, Rembrandts, have helped transform the way intellectual property(IP) is viewed in the business community. Historically, IP was viewed strictly as a legal right, but Rembrandts shows why, in a knowledge-based economy, IP rights are one of the most fundamental business assets, that often determines the success or failure of an enterprise. Understanding the fundamental importance of IP and why it needs to be strategically managed are the underpinnings of Rembrandts. Using the book as a guide post and Aurigin's innovation asset management solutions, allows companies to: 1) understand the IP rights they own; 2) visualize how those rights fit into the competitive landscape with others' IP; 3) help determine where to place their future R&D efforts; and 4)help decide how to strategically leverage their IP rights to help determine their new business directions, increase return on investment and, ultimately, increase shareholder value. The purpose of Rembrandts was not to set forth a cookbook of how to manage IP. Rather, the book was intended to help CEOs and other business, accounting and legal professionals understand the fundamental function and purpose of IP as a highly protectable and leverageable business asset in today's economy, whether in an old-economy or a new-economy company. I believe the book very successfully achieves that purpose in a highly engaging and easy-to-read style, with many real world examples and interviews.

Rembrandts will stand the test of time and, in hindsight, it will become a business school primer on the strategic business function of IP, as well as identifying IP as one of the critical elements in the shaping of the new global economy. I highly commend Rembrandts to any business executive, entrepreneur, accountant, economist, government official, lawyer, business consultant, business school professor or student of the business world trying to understand and operate in the new knowledge-based, global economy.

A patent gives its owner the right to prevent anyone else from using the invention that is protected by the patent. In a society where new technology plays an increasingly important role, the individual or corporation may find that owning a few patents, or better yet a large portfolio of patents, may be the key to success. This is independant of whether the patent holder practices the technology of the patent.

The authors discuss patents in the light of the e-commerce revolution. They suggest the use of patents in a strategic manner. They provide illustrations and examples of successful patent strategies. Although much of what they say may be known to those who are in the race to establish business method patent portfolios, even those who think that they know what patents are all about can learn something from this book.

This well written book will convince you that an IP strategy is important. If you have some "entry-level" understanding of the strategic concepts related to IP, this book will be of little help. The concepts presented are of interest but they are presented from a superficial perspective. For instance, the concept of IP map is interesting and is accessible from one of the author's consulting firm...

A fine book written by good story tellers. It described how patents can be used as an asset, or even as a kind of currency, an exchange token, but it lacks depth.

I am interested in Apple's failure to manage its IP. While Xerox was forced to license their photocopy technologies, Apple was doomed because they failed to license their Macintosh user interface to other developers. They have always been a hardware company. They sell underpowered and overpriced plastic cases with miserable circuits. They could have license the look-and-feel to all system builders, and let the Macintosh UI become a _de facto_ standard, but they haven't. While they were making easy money, Microsoft's Windows dominates the market, few people ever know how fun it could be to use a well-designed interface. Nobody follows Macintosh interface today.

And now they have to abandon their original look-and-feel to be more Windows-like (from OS 8). And finally they have to migrate to a mixture of Windows and NeXT when OS X finally ships in the future (hopefully). It is absolutely a bad move not to let others share your IP, but this book did not talk about it.

As IP becomes more valuable, many may improperly follow other people's advise to closely guard their IP. As suggested in this book, IP can worth a lot. A dead company can make huge profit from selling their patents. However, if badly managed, your IP can be your worst burden.

This book really worths the money. But if it's worthy of your time, that's up to you to judge.

There aren't many books out there for licensing art, or licensing, period. This is one of three books I use as a reference when negotiating licensing agreements for the artists I represent. It's very basic, yes, but helpful. I would like to see a follow up to this book for advanced licensors!

While this book was written in 1995, it still does a very good job of introducing the artist to the world of licensing, and is worth the purchase price. Pair it with Michael Woodward's book "Licensing Art 101", for a more complete picture of the industry.

This book has some very basic information about licensing, but it was difficult to understand and still didn't give much insight on the topic.

Despite a boom in licensing and totally new markets exploding for licensed artwork and design (especially with opportunities for American and European artists, designers and industrial designers now working directly with Chinese manufacturers), this old tome is unfortunately still one of the better books available for the creative/businessperson. This subject desperately needs revising and updating... hello? Caryn R. Leland? We need you!

Great introduction book for those wishing to enter the licensing market. very informative. Reviews and explains each paragraph and its significance in a Licensing Agreement.