Friday Shorts - Deferred Examination, Gregg Withdraws, NEW ITC Blog

Post Mortem at the PTO Deferred Examination Roundtable: Today, the PTO held their roundtable discussion on deferred examination. Tech companies voiced lukewarm support, manufacturers/biotech said "nice idea, but who needs it?", and the PTO claims they have “huge, huge challenges in examining the applications coming through the door” and that, other than deferred examination, no one has come up with any better ideas.

Intellectual Property Watch has the detailed rundown on today's meeting here.

- See comments from Patently-O here.

- Comments from the Patent Docs (link)

Gregg Withdraws As Commerce Pick: Senator Judd Gregg has now claimed that he "made a mistake" by throwing his hat into the ring for commerce secretary. He cited the stimulus package, direction of the census and an inability to be "100 percent with the team" as driving his decision to drop out a week after his selection. Gregg has become the second Commerce Department nominee in two months to withdraw from consideration. (Washington Post)

New ITC Blog: The law firm of Oblon, Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, has officially launched the ITC 337 Law Blog (www.itcblog.com), to "serve as a forum on matters involving intellectual property disputes before the International Trade Commission (ITC)." The blog is run by Barry Herman, Thomas Fisher, and Eric Schweibenz - Welcome!