USPTO schedules Saturday seminar
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will host a seminar tomorrow at the Detroit satellite office.
Representatives from the office and USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, Va., will conduct an all-day workshop for inventors and entrepreneurs.
The free event will provide information about various types of intellectual property protection, the patent process and patent searching.
To register, call 866.767.3848.
The office is located at 300 River Place South, Suite 2900.
Man pleads guilty in prison legal aid scam
YALE (AP) — Detroit’s U.S. attorney says a southeastern Michigan man has pleaded guilty to mail fraud, two years after being accused of stealing $2.6 million from thousands of prisoners and their family members nationwide.
The government says 57-year-old John Wilson of Yale faces up to 20 years in prison at his sentencing April 11. It says he also pleaded guilty to a tax crime and agreed to pay $2 million.
The Detroit News reports that U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade says Wilson preyed on prisoners and their families seeking legal assistance, talking their money and denying them justice.
She says Wilson’s three businesses sent direct mailings to inmates offering to provide legal and appellate court work.
Co-defendant Lari Zeka of Macomb County’s Macomb Township pleaded guilty in January and awaits sentencing.
Council passes landlord shaming bill
PITTSBURGH (AP) — The city council has passed a bill to shame problem landlords by putting signs in front of the 10 worst-maintained properties in the city — though the only councilman opposing the measure predicts it will backfire.
Councilman Ricky Burgess, who represents a predominantly black district, says neighbors of targeted buildings will be harmed because the signs will send the message, “Don’t come here. Don’t invest here.”
The bill, passed by a veto-proof 7-1 majority, empowers city building inspectors to identify the worst properties based on housing court convictions and citations. Those properties would then get a sign listing the owner’s name, address and phone so neighbors could complain directly to the landlords.
An amendment calls for the sign to be posted in front of the landlord’s home, instead, if they live in the city.
Man sentenced for machete attack
ROCKY MOUNT, Va. (AP) — A man who brought a machete into a traffic argument has been ordered to serve 12 months in a detention and diversion center.
James Lee Bond Jr., 47, of Hardy also was sentenced to slightly more than 11 years in suspended time. In addition, Bond will pay more than $3,350 in restitution to the man he cut.
Bond pleaded no contest to a charge of malicious wounding and other related offenses stemming from the driving dispute with two men in a shopping center.
Prosecutors reportedly have said that Bond grabbed a machete out of his pickup truck and cut the man who had put him in a headlock.
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