George Lucas to patent movies and music

Wall Street Journal, page R6, on 18th of June 2007 has an interview with George Lucas, the inventor of the "Star Wars" industrial complex (it is, isn't it?). Here some of his answers, with comments. Lucas: Painting, music, any kind of art form is essentially technological. The most important part is to be able to communicate emotions. That is the key to what we do.

Greg Aharonian would ask: who is more qualified to assess whether the arts are technological, comprising technical effects: a master artist like Lucas, on non-artistic, non-engineering judges and policies makers in the USPTO, UKPO, EPO, and courts? I think Lucas. Maybe some aspects are mostly "non-technological", whatever that means, but then - who cares - LUNDGREN!! Especially if one considers the growing avalanche of papers in science and engineering journals on the production of the arts. "Painting, music, any kind of art form is essentially technological." It is - Lucas is right. And technology is subject to the patent system.

Lucas: I liken digital technology to going from fresco to oil painting. If you are doing a fresco, you needed about at least two dozen people. It was done by candlelight, and it was very hard to do. The fact that they can make it consistent over a long time is a marvel. But if you use oil paints, you can go outside. You can see the light play on your subject, which completely revolutionized art [a technology revolution]. At the same time, if you don't like what you're doing, you can paint right over it and start over. You can't do that with frescoes.

With film, that's what happened. It used to be [with] film, you went out and shot it, whatever you got was what you got. Sometimes people would sit out there for days and days and days trying to get it right because they knew they only had one shot at it and they weren't gong to be able to come back.

With digital technology, we can go in and shoot it, the way would an oil painting. Then you can go back to your studio and touch it up. You can completely manipulate it. It's much more like a painting than it is like photography.

It's also more like a circuit diagram, a computer program, architectural design - you can completely manipulate it. And you can have libraries of stock components, which when functionally combined can be automatically optimized. Etc., etc., etc. - Lucas is talking about engineered production - technology, which everywhere else is protected with patents.

Q: "Jurassic Park" was shot entirely digitally? LUCAS: No, but the dinosaurs were digital. Compared to stop motion, which is what we did before, they [the digital versions] were so real looking that that was the breakthrough. A technological breakthrough. LUCAS: We could actually create real things digitally that would fool anybody. [Then] I said I want to shoot digitally. I can cut digitally. I can do the effects digitally. I want to work the whole way digitally.

That is, the whole way technologically. And new articles of manufacture are patentable.

Patenting Ergonomically

I have been thinking about remodeling for years. I have admired Brinks Hofer Gilson et al.'s classic American style, which predisposed me to stay and chat with their paralegals and have some of their own coffee brew of their own invention. Then, at a patent boutique, I saw a great Eurostyle interior. I loved it for being so light and functional, however, it made me daydream of Frankfurt and Shprockets.

Then I found at Spacify exactly what I have been looking for. The solution is OFFICE FURNITURE. Just the right look for a creative, personal, yet very professional environment, from boardroom to reception room, my own office, and our coffee lounge. I think this photo captures both decor and furniture style I am looking for:

File cabinets. How about peace of mind through departing from a conventional sheet metal file cabinets? This one is neutral, yet comforting for someone like me, an overachieving, scatterbrained procrastinator who gets gets easily annoyed by having to grab a plain squarish handle and slide a latch just to open a file cabinet. I look at this and imagine myself working at an ad firm, not a patent mill.

I think this chair is right for the reception area and our lounge as well.

Haven't we been talking about Buster Bob? They call it a Buster Bobo! What a coincidence! It goes well with the black espresso machine we ordered from Austria:

Our chief paralegal has been moonlighting as an interior decorator.

Hawaii claim

From a dependent claim in a software patent application that at first glance appears idiotic, but isn't. The application deals with methods for electronically transmitting files - U.S. Pat. App. 20070226345, "Automated document processing with third part input". Claim 7 reads: 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the terminal is located in Hawaii. Huh!? Who cares where a terminal is located in a distributed processing method and system? The PTO cares: [0005] For certain patent related filings, such as an RCE, the filing may be made later if faxed from a later time zone with a Certificate of Facsimile Transmission. So if you are in the continental U.S., and it is past midnight, just send your document to a lawyer's terminal in Hawaii, and have the lawyer fax it to the PTO from their time zone. Groovy! But not encompassing enough. Alaska is behind Pacific Coast Time as well, so the claim could have just as easily read "in Hawaii or Alaska". Anyway, one place where a really narrow claim make sense. Unfortunately, the claim is invalid based on prior art. Someone contributed this: John White of PLI always tells his prospective Patent Bar students that if everything else fails, you could open shop above the post office in Hawaii, and fax/mail responses, apps etc. for others to the USPTO! (I theard it in 2001). and If any one wants prior public use on the fax by third party from Hawaii, I did that in 1997 when my printer broke down and I was 15 minutes late to the Minneapolis airport 24 hour Post Office. Went back to the office, called Kinko's in Honolulu, faxed them the filing and paid them $100 to drive to airport and put it into Express Mail to get my date! :) The filewrapper (a public document) will contain all of the documentation for this anticipatory transaction - the first time a filewrapper itself qualifies as prior art.