Starting on Boxing Day – when many of us will be relaxing at home, and recovering from Christmas festivities, one of our colleagues at Watermark Intellectual Asset Management, Ian Lindsay, will be amongst the crew of the yacht Kiss Goodbye to MS battling whatever nature decides to dish up this year in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.Ian is a regular crew member on the yacht here in Melbourne, which normally goes by the name Beyond Outrageous. However, for the Sydney-Hobart race it will be kitted out with sails bearing giant red lips in support of the Kiss Goodbye to MS campaign, which will run officially from May 2012. One of Ian’s fellow crew-members has MS (multiple sclerosis), and anyone who knows someone living with this disease – or is at least familiar with the work of Michael J Fox – will be aware of just how insidious it is.
Watermark is proud to be sponsoring Kiss Goodbye to MS in its efforts to raise money for MS research – and also, hopefully, to achieve success in the yacht race! IP Australia is also doing its bit, incorporating the efforts of Ian and the rest of the crew into its ‘IP on the High Seas’ feature.
You can sponsor Ian – who is already over half way to his target of raising A$5000.00 – through his fundraising page at EverydayHero.com.au. If you are a regular visitor to this blog, then you have, indirectly, already made a small contribution – we have donated 5 cents for each one of the 2327 ‘unique visitors’ that Google Analytics tells us have visited the site in the past month.
Many organisations are competing for your charity dollar at this time of year, all of them worthy and deserving causes. While some others may seem more specific to the time of year, the fact is that all charities work hard throughout the year, but rely on the extra generosity of spirit during the festive season for a large portion of their public financial support. Please consider helping Ian to reach his goal, and then track his progress via the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race web site.
That link for donations, again, is www.everydayhero.com.au/ian_lindsay.
And happy holidays to everyone! However you celebrate this time of year, please do so safely – we hope that you will continue to follow the blog in 2012.
Before You Go…
Thank you for reading this article to the end – I hope you enjoyed it, and found it useful. Almost every article I post here takes a few hours of my time to research and write, and I have never felt the need to ask for anything in return.
But now – for the first, and perhaps only, time – I am asking for a favour. If you are a patent attorney, examiner, or other professional who is experienced in reading and interpreting patent claims, I could really use your help with my PhD research. My project involves applying artificial intelligence to analyse patent claim scope systematically, with the goal of better understanding how different legal and regulatory choices influence the boundaries of patent protection. But I need data to train my models, and that is where you can potentially assist me. If every qualified person who reads this request could spare just a couple of hours over the next few weeks, I could gather all the data I need.
The task itself is straightforward and web-based – I am asking participants to compare pairs of patent claims and evaluate their relative scope, using an online application that I have designed and implemented over the past few months. No special knowledge is required beyond the ability to read and understand patent claims in technical fields with which you are familiar. You might even find it to be fun!
There is more information on the project website, at claimscopeproject.net. In particular, you can read:
- a detailed description of the study, its goals and benefits; and
- instructions for the use of the online claim comparison application.
Thank you for considering this request!
Mark Summerfield
1 comments:
It's been really great going through your blog post, very well informed and described. Great to read and know more about such kind of stuff.
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