Patent Baristas

FDA Sets New User Fee Rates

FDA published a Federal Register notice announcing the 2009 user fee rates under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA).  A similar notice  will also be issued with the FY 2009 user fee rates established under the Medical Device User Fee Amendments.  (via FDA Law Blog)

Homeland Security Can Take Anything Of Yours and Rifle Through It

According to the Washington Post, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can and will find it.  They will have permission to take your laptop (or just about anything else) to an off-site location indefinitely and they can share its contents with other agencies or private entities (or just about anyone else) for translation, decryption, or “other reasons.” (via Gizmodo)

Associates Say “No, Thanks” To Partnership

In an new midlevel associate survey, which polled 7,259 associate lawyers from 180 firms, more than 70 percent of respondents said they are on their firm’s partnership track.  The report shows that although most associates think they could make partner, they’re not sure they want to. Why not, you ask?

For one thing, they see some junior partners working even more ferocious hours than their own. “There have been times when I have been watching a movie late at night that I’ve gotten an e-mail from a partner,” says a Latham and Watkins third-year who, like the other respondents quoted here, spoke on a confidential basis. Adds a Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner midlevel: “When you see how many hours [junior partners] put in, you realize there really is no end to it.”

(via Law.com)

Government Probes NIH & Stanford

It looks like the Senate Finance Committee is continuing its investigation into research grants and conflicts of interest by the NIH and universities, whose academic researchers receive both NIH funding and have ties to drugmakers. Stanford University and its psychiatry department chair, Alan Schatzberg, came under special scrutiny as Schatzberg owns about $6 million in stock in Corcept Therapeutics while studying its drug mifepristone for treating psychotic depression. He is also a co-patent holder for the drug and he received an NIH grant to oversee the research. In response to the charges that Schatzberg failed to properly disclose this tangled web, Stanford issued a statement defending Schatzberg by saying, among other things, that all conflicts were properly disclosed.  But, then, doctors and researchers would never take kick-backs.  Right?   (via Pharmalot)

Update: Stanford suspends Schatzberg Grant

Apple Puts The Kibosh On Tethering Application For The iPhone

As much as I’d like to use my iPhone 3G for modem access/tethering, I can’t. Even though AT&T has data tethering options for its other smartphones, it doesn’t offer a similar feature with the iPhone. Why? Because Apple and AT&T hate their customers.  But who doesn’t?   Anyway, NullRiver, Inc. (apparently) slipped a data tethering application called NetShare into the iTunes App Store that would have allowed you to share your iPhone’s EDGE or 3G Internet connection with your computer.  The application was summarily removed from the App Store some time Thursday afternoon.  What other toys won’t we get?  (via ZDNet)

Update:  The NetShare App is back up on the iTunes App Store, only about 13 hours after it was yanked and replaced with a “Not available in the US Store” message.  What the?!

Update 2:  The NetShare App is removed from the iTunes App Store (again).

YGTBK.  Dont B2 Casual w/ BFF Clients.  TTFN.

Whether you are sending an email message from your Blackberry or desktop, don’t try to be too clever with business communications, especially with clients.  Why? According to the Legal Marketing Blog, it isn’t cute any more and it could send an undesirable message like “I’m too busy to be bothered with politeness” or “You aren’t important enough for real dialog.”  See related Marketing Pilgrim post “R U 2 Casual w Your Biz Talk?,” which refers to a Wall Street Journal post entitled “Thx for the IView! I Wud ♥ to Work 4 U!! ;).

Patent Office Tries To Raise New Generation of Applicants to Hate

Despite it’s 2+-year backlog of pending patent applications, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, along with the National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation and the Ad Council, are trying to encourage children to invent stuff. The public service ads tell kids, “Anything’s possible. Keep thinking,” and direct them to Invent Now, a social networking site sponsored by the same groups. Children can upload designs of their inventions, comment on other kids’ ideas and play games. The site even walks them through the steps needed to get a real patent. It’s like a mini-lesson in intellectual property law.  (via LA Times)