yet another go

I think I am about to lose my Santa Monica College in a few months, so that's why I'm having another go at the patent bar exam.

By now, the Parmley online patent bar prep has improved a lot.

As an easy act of study, I'm putting its glossary into my own words onto Quizlet:  https://quizlet.com/_7rxgmk?x=1qqt&i=pj4g6

That's something I haven't tried before.

I'm using Google Tasks to keep track of my 6-month study plan.  That's also something that I haven't tried before. 

update:  the 6-month study plan is too concentrated for me.  I might have to extend this to the yearlong study plan.  But that will leave me underemployed for a half a year.  Might have to pick up an adjunct gig at Cerritos in the meantime, unless I can double my study stamina.

Might try again

It has been one and a half years since my last post about my 6 month study plan. Nothing has happened here.

I'm interested in trying again now, because I keep on coming back to this idea once in a while.  In a long while.

I recently applied for a part-time remote job on Craigslist, which involved patent research. I didn't get the job, but the interview process involved me researching a patent to identify potential expert witnesses for an IP litigation suit.

The patent was for a refrigerator with an integrated ice maker. The patent was dated something like 2006, so I was a little confused as to why this is a new idea. Upon more careful inspection however, sounds that that idea in this patent was novel because the ice maker was integrated into the refrigerator portion instead of into the freezer portion, which is the usual case.

All that reading helps me to learn how a refrigerator and freezer work. It's all really just a freezer. There is and automatically controlled door between the freezer and the refrigerator that allows cold air to come into the refrigerator. The store is called a damper. That's how the refrigerator gets cold. And that is why a refrigerator which is too cold starts freezing stuff on top shelf instead of on the bottom shelf. The mechanism that cools the air in the first place is the evaporator which works with the compressor of course, just like in an air condition system.

Anyways, since I kind of enjoyed learning those cool facts, I thought maybe I might enjoy the patent writing job after all. Someday. Only part-time.

Week 1 mind map link

https://www.mindomo.com/mindmap/patent-application-types-9ccb06fd07564d12a8beb6ddc634e9da

Writing a pro se patent is expensive because of the fees

A DIY patent writer inventor has to pay a lot of money to the USPTO in fees.  Every contact with the USPTO has a fee: a filing fee, an issue fee, patent maintenance fees (about every 4 years (year 3.5, year 7.5, and year 11.5), a petition fee, late fee.  The late fee is for lateness on the maintenance fee.  There's a 6-mo. grace period for each maintenance fee before the USPTO abandons your patent, but if you pay during Grace, you're paying a late fee too.  I wonder if each office action from the USPTO is accompanied by a fee for the inventor's response.

The pro se patent writer can get a 75% discount if she is a micro-entity.  Not sure on what the exact details of the micro entity are, but I think an individual inventor working from home would qualify.  It's to do with gross income.  Universities might also qualify for the 75% discount, but I am not sure of this.  Businesses and schools that don't qualify can still get a 50% discount if they have < 500 employees.

I don't like the idea of inventing something as a school employee because usually the school has you assign the invention to them.  Assignment means that all the rights are transferred, even the right to file the patent.

Power of Attorney

If I work for a university's tech transfer office, I presume that I will get power of attorney on pending patents that I am writing.  Wow that is cool.  The power of attorney is granted to individuals, not to institutions.

I wonder if they will just have me working on some small part of the patent, and the power of attorney would only go to the head of the office.  Yeah that would be less interesting.  

My patent bar study schedule compliance

Other online tools

Parmley uses concept maps in the videos.  I will try this too.  I have been exposed already, in my speed reading course, as a kid.  But these became very messy and hard to read.  Used a lot of paper.  I stopped using them for a long time as an adult.

Now there are online concept mapping tools, such as Mindomo and wisemapping.com  These are much prettier and more convenient than paper maps.  There is even a synchronized app for Mindomo.  The trouble I am having right now is that I am not interested in law, so I don't know what is important to write down in my concept map and what isn't.

I also need a progress tracker.  The 6-month study plan has six calendars to follow. I want to be able to mark the days on which I am compliant.  Where can I do that, online?  Oh I know.  That might be arranged by an embedded Google Doc right here.