Rethink(IP) : Welcome CotC---Who is Rethink(IP)?

Welcome CotC---Who is Rethink(IP)?

Posted by Stephen M. Nipper at June 5, 2006 06:00 AM

We’re hosting Carnival of the Capitalists (CotC) again (later today). This will be our second time doing so (the first time was back in September).

We’re also sporting a new design (later today we're told)…if you read via RSS you might want to check out our HTML…

Knowing that most CotC readers probably don’t regularly read law blogs…I thought I’d take the time to prepare a “Who is Rethink(IP)?” post…

We were three of the original patent attorney bloggers: Douglas Sorocco (PHOSITA Blog), J. Matthew Buchanan (Promote the Progress blog) and Stephen M. Nipper (The Invent Blog).

When we started Rethink(IP) the blog, we were three competitors blogging together about a topic all three of us were passionate about: farmshoring intellectual property services. Part of the “farmshoring” discussion is complaining about how other attorneys, usually large firm attorneys, (mis)treat their clients…which itself lead us to spend a considerable amount of time “rethinking” how intellectual property services should delivered to clients.

The fact that we were competitors blogging together intrigued Scobel/Israel enough to garner us a mention in Naked Conversations. However, the “competitors” angle soon took a hit when one of us (Matt) joined on of the other’s (Doug) law firm.

We frequently joke that we all have A.D.D., a condition that results in us frequently creating lots and lots of side projects, crazy ideas, and rabbit chasing. Some of our more interesting projects:

1. RSS Mojo – News and Notices: The Copyright Office for a while now has provided an RSS feed of their news. However, the Patent and Trademark Office didn’t have one. We decided that we’d set out to scrape the USPTO’s News and Notices page and craft a number of RSS feeds therefrom. We thought for sure that the USPTO would release their own RSS feed…it is coming up on a year later and it hasn’t happened yet.

2. RSS Mojo – Lawsuits: On behalf of our clients, we frequently compile and review listings of recently filed intellectual property lawsuits. It dawned on us…why not make this data more available to others. So, we created a weekly feed (RSS/email) of recently filed intellectual property (patent, copyright and trademark) lawsuits.

3. IP Memes newsletter. A free electronic newsletter put out every couple weeks by Technolawyer.com. The three of us author the newsletter.

4. Blawgr. With the help of lawyer blawgfather Kevin Heller we launched an online community for lawyers called Blawgr. It is currently offline for a major redesign and repurposing.

5. ShapeBlog. With Marty Schwimmer (Trademark Blog), Glenn Mitchell and John Welch (TTABlog)…a blog about the intersection of 3-D and the law. Fabrication, rapid prototyping, design…and the intellectual property issues they create.

6. Rethink(IP) Aloud podcast. We even podcast…

7. IP Funny (no, it is not a blog about urinary problems). Yep…we’re the anonymous bloggers (along with an anon fourth) behind the frequently neglected blog about intellectual property humor.

8. Esq Gear. Gear, gadgets, product reviews...for attorneys. Big news coming soon for this site...

9. …and a handful of projects we are not ready to mention just yet.

I’ve always loved Stephen @ Patent Barista’s quote about us: “These guys are like the Army. They do more before 9 a.m. than most people do all day.” If we only had more time...

Of course, it IS a blog. I probably should mention some of our more popular posts:

And that...in a nutshell...is Rethink(IP).

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