[UFO Chicago] Patent reform & link from last meeting

[Brian Sobolak]

I forget where I came across this today, but I thought some of you might 
  appreciate this interview with a head honcho at the US PTO office. 
His take on the current patent situation is that it needs tweaked, not 
completely rethought.

Whether you agree with the patent system as is or not, the PTO is going 
to be hiring like mad to reduce the backlog of patents.  They are 
looking to hire 1,000 patent analysts a year for the next few years.  So 
there are going to be a lot of people looking at patents.

<http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=4562>

Also, here is the link to Tim O'Reilly's essay about Web 2.0 that we 
discussed at the last meeting.  This link is for the printable version 
so it has fewer ads and is actually readable.  This goes WAY beyond just 
calling websites with fancy Javascript "web 2.0" and talks about some of 
the trends we're seeing in software.

My standard:  when Peoplesoft and SAP deploy some of what he's talking 
about here, then I'll *know* it's a trend.  :^)

<http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6228>

brian