I started blogging here at TFOG on May 6. Today, the site passed the 3,000 mark for visits, and the 6,000 mark for page views, in SiteMeter. That’s about 55 visits a day (generating 110 page views a day), for the past 55 days.

Thank you for visiting the site. I hope you’re enjoying it. I am!

I’m also eager to hear your suggestions for how to improve TFOG, and topics you’d like to see discussed. For example, what survey question would you like to see in the upper left corner (in TFOG’s “Cast Your Vote …” feature)? What unsung corner of patent law should I explore? What sleeper case do you think is the next big thing?

Earlier today, I gave a talk to the Oregon Patent Law Association. I discussed the Supreme Court’s patent law decisions for the October 2005 Term, just concluded. The title of the talk was the same as the title of this post.

In what ways is the Supreme Court putting the law (back) in patent law, you ask? Well, it’s putting the law in “patent law” by shaping patent doctrine according to its generalist perspective. Thus, for example, in the eBay case, the Court opens its opinion by framing the injunction issue as a matter of making patent law more like the general federal law of permanent injunctions:

Ordinarily, a federal court considering whether to award permanent injunctive relief to a prevailing plaintiff applies the four-factor test historically employed by courts of equity. Petitioners eBay Inc. and Half.com, Inc., argue that this traditional test applies to disputes arising under the Patent Act. We agree and, accordingly, vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

Its putting the law back in patent law in the sense that the Supreme Court is continuing its more recent trend of deciding more patent law cases each Term. On this phenomenon, the indispensable reference is John F. Duffy, The Festo Decision and the Return of the Supreme Court to the Bar of Patents, 2002 Supreme Court Review 273.

If you’re interested, you can look at my PowerPoint slides for the talk.