Dear Reader, Introduction The business of registering, holding and selling domain names has become an industry in itself, almost akin to real estate. In January 2005, when the tsunami tragedy shocked the world, a 20-year-old Canadian art student, Josh Kaplan, listed a domain, “tsunamirelief.com”, for sale on eBay.com for USD50,000. New York Post suggested Kaplan […]
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Checking Your Trademark Application Status
Most people wonder at what stage their trademark application has reached. It is normal to wonder. Recently, however, I have come across this particular page whereby users can check the latest Government Gazettes to see if their trademark application has already been approved. There are three ways for conducting a search. The first assumes that […]
The Better Mousetrap Fallacy
Katie Konrath, blogging at the Brazen Careerist, writes about the fallacies of imagining that if you manage to invent a better mousetrap, consumers will beat a pathway to your door. (Ref: The Brazen Careerist, 31st March 2009. It’s Not Enough To Build A Better Mousetrap) She quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words: “Build a better mousetrap […]
Peer Review of Patents
An interesting idea has taken place in the US. Imagine what would happen if your patents were examined by members of the patent community? Imagine what time would be saved in terms of search for prior art? That would indeed save the patent examiners a lot of time. In terms of return on investment, those […]
Maerogel: Malaysian Aerogel from Rice Husks
Today I came upon some literature that I had taken from an exhibition some time ago. Of interest was a product known as “Maerogel” produced by Prof. Dr. Halimaton Hamdan, of the Dept of Chemistry at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. She had patented a method of creating aerogel from rice husks at a fraction of the […]