FYI


Dad

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	LawrenceLRTNMT@aol.com@ENRON [mailto:IMCEANOTES-LawrenceLRTNMT+40aol+2Ecom+40ENRON@ENRON.com] 
Sent:	Wednesday, June 27, 2001 6:40 AM
To:	Kaminski, Vince J
Subject:	Patent attorney

Vince: 
I wanted to get back to you with a reply to your question about my  
recommendation on a patent attorney.  I cannot give you a personal  
recommendation per se because, in the end, I opted not to hire an attorney to  
file my patent until I had decided whether I wanted to protect my work as a  
trade secret or as a patented commodity.  I ultimately struck a compromise  
position by filing my own "provisional patent application."  This establishes  
the date of my claim and gives me one year in which to finalize the patent?  
or not; it also provides patent pending protection from the date I filed it  
with the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office. 
In the process of investigating the options for safeguarding my intellectual  
property, however, I did talk to quite a number of patent attorneys.  Of  
these, I think that perhaps David Richie might be the most appropriate for  
your son's software idea.  He talked as though he had a particular specialty  
in software issues; he also struck me as competent and aggressive.  He  
practices in the Silicon Valley and can be reached at telephone number (408)  
282-1856. 
I suspect that he has already done so, but if not, your son might want to  
visit the internet site of the U. S. Patent Office.  Basic information and  
forms can be downloaded from there.  Two other, newer sites might also  
intrigue him-both deal with the protection, valuation and marketing of  
intellectual property, patents, etc.  They are:   
pl-x.com (The Patent and License Exchange, Inc.) 
yet2come.com 
Hope this is helpful. 
Regards, 
Larry Thorne