Subject: minutes April 6, 2005
From: RLaRosa331@aol.com
Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2005 01:46:41 -0400 (EDT)


About 28 or 29 people were crammed into a small room and we survived. 
Most were LICN members and some were nonmembers working in intellectual 
property.

Telephone answering service volunteers:
April - Peter O'Neill
May - Larry Rachman
June - John Dunn
July - John Liguori
Our thanks to you guys and Peter Buitenkant and everybody else who keeps 
this going.

Jerry Brown reminded the volunteers to post contact information on our 
website.

Dave Rost, with help from other members, is working to get a credit card in 
the name of the organization to meet the billing requirements of the 
answering service chosen to replace our old system.

Jerry Brown had some suggestions of how to reduce the cost of supplying 
directories to prospective clients. We printed 3000 of the latest version 
and there are 800 still on hand. Jerry suggested print-on-demand, which is 
more expensive per copy than the bulk printing that we used, but the 
updating is continuous. There were many suggestions that repetitive 
advertising would be productive.

I just wish our advertising could be more inclusive. Oceanography, oceanic 
engineering, marine technology, alternative sources of energy, water supply, 
waste disposal and recycling are going to be increasingly important as the 
water keeps rising and resources get used up.

May meeting will feature Ed Dowdell speaking about Linnux self-boot CD-ROM 
and portable memory. Easy to carry anywhere.

Featured speaker at the April meeting was Gerald T. Bodner, Esq. on Intellec
ual Property. His handout on Intellectual Property included the following 
topics:
1. Patents and Trade Secrets
2. Copyrights
3. Trademarks
He had to purchase an overhead projector for the talk, and he made expert 
use of it. He put many viewgraphs on it with portions covered so that we 
would have to guess the hidden names. He played a recording of a song that 
was involved in an intellectual property dispute. An actual Cyclops rear 
window stoplight and its packaging were used as examples of patents, 
trademarks, and copyrights. Most lawyers downplay the value of a provisional 
patent application, but he stated that it is an excellent way for an 
inventor to check out the marketability of an invention before spending big 
bucks on a formal patent application. Several people had very specific 
questions related to their work, and they were answered. Very lively 
evening. Good lawyers have fast minds. Don't get on the wrong side, or 
you're toast. Just came across a Festo ad in the latest NASA Tech Briefs. 
The Festo case was the subject of his previous talk. Thank you, Gerald.

Did I forget something?
Richard LaRosa, Secretary.