According to The New York Times…

Leo Stoller, that is.  We posted about him in January 2007, here.  In a nutshell, Mr. Stoller has been repeatedly admonished – and sanctioned – by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for his behavior.

Well, it seems that, in some form, Mr. Stoller is back. 

Here’s one specimen he filed:

Here’s a second:

Is he kidding?

With regard to the basketball “specimen,” we located 49 occurrences of the same image (minus “STEALTH” and “NBA”) (using TinEye).  We’re not sure how long the results page will remain active, but you can check out the results here.  Fraud on the USPTO?  We think so.

Tonight CNBC will premiere its show Crime Inc.:  Counterfeit Goods tonight, July 14 at 9 PM.  From the CNBC web site:

Fake handbags, watches, shoes and perfumes. The business of Counterfeit Goods is the largest underground industry in the world. Hundreds of billions of dollars are generated while sapping the economy, putting lives in jeopardy, and funding organized crime in the process.
CNBC’s “Crime Inc.: Counterfeit Goods,” takes viewers on a rare look inside a global crime spree, where the goods are produced and confiscated in a world of high-risk and high-reward.
Host Carl Quintanilla takes you on raids with the LAPD anti-counterfeiting unit, inspections at ports, and back-room factories where counterfeits are produced. Meet a company whose whole brand was copied, and the story of a defense contractor who counterfeit defense parts that found their way into weapons depots in Iraq.
At around 7% of all global trade, Counterfeit Goods are a big business with low overhead. It makes too much money to go away any time soon.

You can also view a slideshow of the Top 10 seized goods.

For a discussion of trademark infringement in virtual realities (like Second Life), see here.

Judge Baer of the Southern District of New York has allowed Gucci to proceed with contributory infringement claims against credit card processing companies that processed purchases for web site selling counterfeit Gucci products.

Judge Baer concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support direct trademark infringement, but sufficient evidence to support contributory trademark infringement.  Specifically, the court noted that the middleman who set up the merchant account actually advertised on its website that it worked with “high risk merchants” including those who sold “replicas.”

We are unsure about the wisdom of this decision.  We anticipate an appeal.  Third party liability is a tricky beast since it essentially imposes liability for knowledge rather than conduct.

The FDA has approved a first-of-its-kind technology to counter a leading cause of blindness in older adults — macular degeneration.  The solution:  a tiny telescope implanted inside the eye.

The Implantable Miniature Telescope is intended to help at the end stages of incurable age-related macular degeneration, a slow, creeping loss of central vision that blocks reading, watching TV, eventually even recognizing faces.

The procedure is not without risk or serious complications.  However, the treatment looks promising for the right candidate.