Heading into the long holiday weekend, here are several items that client responsibilities have prevented me from devoting full posts to:

• Next week, on December 28, new trademark rules go into effect that are intended to codify current PTO practice.  Click here for the excellent new Pittsburgh IP Law Blog’s take on the new rules.  Welcome to the world of regional IP blogs.  I look forward to reading your local IP analysis.
• If you are looking for some top notch CLE or just want a broader view of the Bilski argument, check out Doug Lichtman’s IP Colloquium where Lichtman and his UCLA students do a dramatic reading of the argument.  It is a great way to absorb the transcript and is an hour of free CLE.
• Congratulations to Mark Herrman of Jones Day and the Drug and Device Law Blog.  Herrman is leaving both the firm and the blog at the end of the month to take a senior litigation position with Aon.  Herrman will be greatly missed in the blogosphere.  Although I do not practice Herrman’s area of law, Drug and Device Law is a must read blog for me because of both Herrman and his blogging counterpart Jim Beck of Dechert, who is continuing to write the blog.