Patents, trade secrets and confidentiality agreements are mere words on paper to the scientist, engineer or executive intent on deception and theft.

It was a busy year for IP in 2008 with a whole host of people saying and/or doing a lot of very interesting things. However, as far as the IAM blog is concerned a few individuals stood out from the crowd – not necessarily because we agreed with them or supported their actions, but because they had a real impact. So, in alphabetical order, here are the people concerned.

"History of the Internet" is an animated documentary explaining the inventions from time-sharing to filesharing, from Arpanet to Internet.

Misinformation abounds when it comes to patents. While facts about patents would fill volumes, here are few interesting facts about patents you can use to regale your geeky relatives over the holidays.

On January 12, 2008, Jon Dudas will complete four years as Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

"You’ve completely kicked butt in your career, from being the original Apple evangelist to becoming a successful author and founder of Truemors and Alltop…and about a zillion other things that folks can read about in your bio. Yet after all your success, you’re still innovating new projects and ideas. What motivates you to keep at it instead of kicking back on a nice tropical island somewhere?"

January 1 is Public Domain Day--the day when new works around the world come into the public domain. Some countries, the term of copyright is life of the author + seventy years, and in others it remains life of the author + fifty.

Chinese inventors who wish to apply patents for their innovations in foreign countries must first go through government scrutinies to find out if such innovations should be made national secrets, according to a draft amendment to the country's patent law.

When You Care Enough To Send The Very Best® …. you know what you send, a Hallmark® brand card. What if you want to send something a little different this holiday season or you just truly wish to share in the joy of all beliefs?

Ron Coleman, a trademark lawyer and self-styled IP maven, who blogs on trademark, copyright, new media and free speech, hosts this week's Blawg Review #191 celebrating the Festival of Lights.

Click on the link above to see this week's selection of top intellectual property news breaking in the blogosphere and on the internet.

Duncan Bucknell's "online" edition of the GWiR at the link above highlights Wall Street Journal reports Obama, Lessig and Google have shifted their positions on net neutrality; Google, Lessig slam WSJ report , among other stories of interest to the intellectual property community around the world.

Click on the link above to check out IP Think Tank’s weekly selection of top Pharma & Biotech intellectual property news breaking in the blogosphere and internet.

Patent attorneys are a diverse bunch so there’s no one definitive list for gift ideas. Some litigators are always on the go — going to court, depositions and other meetings. Others spend hours upon hours in their offices — generally, working at the computer. Thus, we tried to come up with a list that is versatile and meant only to stimulate some ideas and discussion -- including this last-minute stocking stuffer -- Securing Innovation suggests saving some money and going with Manolo knock-offs.

"That sentence is the entire text of Chapter 19 in Gordon MacKenzie's 1998 Orbiting the Giant Hairball, still the best book on what it takes to be creative in a big company -- or really -- in any company," says Bob Sutton.

Since May 2001, a secondary type of patent, known as an “innovation patent,” has been available under Australian patent law. This underutilised type of patent is extraordinarily useful in several circumstances discussed by Guest Baristas Bill Bennett on the Patent Baristas blog.

"On October 30, 2008, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its decision in In re Bilski, which dealt a serious blow to software patents and largely did away with business method patents altogether, although there is still some room to receive a patent if the business process employs the use of a new, nonobvious and tangible computer system, but the protection would have to focused on the tangible computer system that employs an overarching architecture and not the process," writes Gene Quinn in a cogent response to Groklaw commenters. Click on the link above to see his post on IP Watchdog.

Expectant father Corey Menscher wanted to “create a device that would give me a chance to be aware of our baby’s movements”. He created a waistband for his wife which sends a Tweet everytime the baby kicks, naming the project “Kickbee”.

Click on the link above to see this week's selection of top intellectual property news breaking in the blogosphere and on the internet.

Duncan Bucknell's "online" edition of the GWiR at the link above highlights news we covered here about Linux Defenders, among other stories of interest to the intellectual property community around the world.

Click on the link above to check out IP Think Tank’s weekly selection of top Pharma & Biotech intellectual property news breaking in the blogosphere and internet.

Defensive publications, endorsed by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for IP rights management, are records that provide descriptions and artwork of a product, device, or method so that it enters the public domain and becomes prior art. They allow inventors to claim their inventions and prevent others from making later claims against them, without requiring inventors to pay for patent applications. Linux Defenders, will contain a Defensive Publications component with Web-based forms and a "Wiki-style" contribution model. A completed defensive publication will be added to the IP.com database used by attorneys and the Patent and Trademark Office.

The Open Invention Network's new Linux Defenders program will provide funds to help developers pay to to upload patent documentation about their code. The Durham, N.C., intellectual property company said the new Linux Defenders Program will provide funds to help developers pay to to upload documentation about their code to sites like IP.com, a patent database. Keith Bergelt , CEO of OIN, called IP.com the main source of information for patent officials and others researching the viability of a proposed patent.

Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig: How law strangles creativity.

Guy Kawasaki may get more value out of Twitter than anyone else on the planet because he uses Twitter as a tool — specifically as a marketing tool — for his website Alltop, and his books, from The Art of the Start to Reality Check.