For Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of the Museum at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), black has never gone out of style, despite last season's love affair with all things bright and floral. For fall 2008, though, fashion is returning to its dark side, which makes perfect timing for the publication of Steele's new book, "Gothic: Dark Glamour" (Yale University Press, $45) and a corresponding FIT exhibition which opens the same day as the book comes out -- Sept. 5.

So, we asked Steele - what makes goth goth?

"Although mostly associated with rock musicians and teens wearing all black," says Steele, "goth is a recurring theme in contemporary fashion. But just because a dress is black doesn't mean it's goth. It's got to have an element of the magical, the mysterious, the dangerous about it."

According to Steele, Horace Walpole launched the idea of gothic with his 18th-century novel, "The Castle of Otranto." A scary tale set in a ruined, haunted castle, it was one of the first horror stories published in England. Even earlier, during the Roman Empire, the Romans called the invaders the Visigoths - or barbarians, the opposite of a civilized people.

Steele cites Alexander McQueen (his fashions are "dangerous, with a hint of the sinister" about them), Rick Owens ("a little decadent"), Comme des Garcons (" Rei Kawakubo pushes the envelope") and Yohji Yamamoto ("he said black is the color of nothingness") as designers who weave goth into their collections. This year Prada did a lot of black lace, which Steele says has a gothic vibe, while Nicolas Ghesquiere's collection for Balenciaga had a cyber-goth look.

You don't need to spend sky-high designer prices to try a little goth in your own wardrobe. "Black-red nail polish (1. Black Satin from Chanel, $20) is instantly gothifying," says Steele. Other ways to goth up your look are with motorcycle boots (2. Harley Davidson 'Typhoon' Motorcycle Boot, $103.99) or "vertiginous heels," a long skirt or dress, a leather jacket (3. Joie Women "Amita" Fitted Leather Hooded Jacket, Bloomingdale's, $594.00), a spider-webby sweater top and for makeup, pale skin and a vampirish lipstick (4. MAC, shade Underworld, $14). A lacy necklace (5. Beth Lauren Metal Leather Net Feather Necklace, Intermix, $215), and a skull or two couldn't hurt, either, as in a Winged Skull Burnout Tee (6. Kohls, $16.80).

The creation and creativeness enrich our life.

They are really unique.

In the real world, money governs everything.

Lawyers normally make a lot of money (comparing to inventors).

Smart/Innovative people have no reason to be an inventor, but a lawyer.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Some of the biggest players in the technology industry complain that the U.S. patent system is broken -- putting too many patents of dubious merit in the hands of people who can use them to drag companies and other inventors to court.

An experimental program aims to give the public, including inventors, more of a voice in the patent system.

And Blaise Mouttet, a small inventor in Alexandria, Virginia, thinks he knows why. The problem, he said, is that "there are too many lawyers and not enough inventors involved with the patent system."

So Mouttet is taking part in an experimental program launched in June 2007 with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and backed by the technology industry that is intended to give the public -- including inventors -- more of a voice in the system.

The concept behind the program, called Peer-to-Patent, is straightforward: Publish patent applications on the Web for all to see and let anyone with relevant expertise -- academics, colleagues, even potential rivals -- offer input to be passed along to the Patent Office.

By using the power of the Internet to tap the wisdom of the masses, Peer-to-Patent aims to dig up hard-to-find "prior art" -- evidence that an invention already exists or is obvious and therefore doesn't deserve a patent.

The goal is to locate prior art that Patent Office examiners might not find on their own -- and to produce better patents by reducing ones granted on applications that aren't novel. The hope is that this will drive innovation by improving the patent process and reducing the patent infringement lawsuits clogging the courts.

"The Patent and Trademark Office is the agency of citizen creativity, and it needs more and better information to do its job of awarding patents to those citizens who are truly the most creative," said New York Law School professor Beth Noveck, who came up with the idea for Peer-to-Patent while teaching a patent law class. "A patent is a pretty significant monopoly, so we want to make sure we are giving it to the right people."

Peer-to-Patent has attracted financial support from a cross-section of the technology sector and foundations and is in its second pilot year. In the first year, the voluntary program focused on software, computer and information security patents -- drawing applications from industry heavyweights such as International Business Machines Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Microsoft Corp., General Electric Co. and open source software pioneer Red Hat Inc., as well as small inventors like Mouttet.

Mouttet, a former Patent Office examiner and now a graduate student in electrical engineering, submitted an application on electronic uses of nanomaterials. Although the Patent Office has rejected his claim -- in part because of prior art unearthed through Peer-to-Patent -- he is appealing the decision and optimistic he will eventually get his patent. And he is confident it will be stronger for having gone through the process.

But it is the big technology companies that have the highest hopes for Peer-to-Patent since they are some of the most vocal critics of the existing system.

They warn that the Patent Office has been overwhelmed by a sharp increase in patent applications in recent years, particularly in computing. The agency has more than 5,800 examiners with specialized expertise in a range of areas, but they are sifting through a mountain of applications: 467,243 were submitted in fiscal 2007, up from 237,045 in fiscal 1997 and 137,173 in fiscal 1987.

As a result, said Dave Kappos, vice president of intellectual property law for IBM, it is taking big technology companies with huge patent portfolios longer and longer to get applications through the system. The Patent Office had a backlog of nearly 761,000 applications at the end of fiscal 2007, with applicants waiting an average of two years and eight months for a final decision.

That is tough for an industry built on rapid innovation, short product life cycles and technology that can become quickly outdated, Noveck said. Indeed, a key benefit of participating in the Peer-to-Patent program is the promise of an expedited review, with a preliminary Patent Office decision in as few as seven months.

Backlog is only part of the problem, however. Poor patent quality is just as big a concern.

There are plenty of examples of controversial patents in different industries, such as the one awarded to Amazon.com Inc. for its "1-click" online shopping feature or the one granted to J.M. Smucker Co. for a crustless peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.

But some of the most contentious patents have come out of the tech sector since software and other-cutting edge technologies are relatively new to the Patent Office and evolving quickly, explained Mark Webbink, director of New York Law School's Center for Patent Innovations, home to Peer-to-Patent, and former general counsel for Red Hat. That means that patent examiners don't have long-established databases of existing inventions to consult in reviewing these applications.

"With technology, the prior art often can't be found in existing patents or academic journal articles," Noveck said. "It could exist in a string of computer code posted online somewhere that isn't indexed."

The result of substandard patents, tech companies say, has been a sharp increase in costly infringement lawsuits that eat up valuable resources and threaten to keep innovative products off the market. According to James Bessen and Michael J. Meurer of Boston University School of Law, 2,830 patent lawsuits were filed in U.S. district courts in 2006, up from 1,840 in 1996 and 1,129 in 1986.

Technology companies are particularly vulnerable to infringement litigation since their products can contain hundreds if not thousands of linked patented components critical to their basic operation. In one closely watched case, a protracted legal battle nearly forced the shutdown of the popular BlackBerry wireless e-mail service.

The BlackBerry has in fact become a rallying cry for technology lobbyists pressing Congress to overhaul the patent system. Among other things, the industry wants to streamline the patent approval process and limit damages and injunctions awarded to patent holders who win infringement cases. But with those proposals stalled in the Senate, Peer-to-Patent offers another way to improve the system, said Curtis Rose, director of patents for Hewlett-Packard.

Not everyone is sold on the concept of Peer-to-Patent. Stephen Key, an inventor in California who has patented everything from toys to container labels, worries that the program requires applicants to put their ideas out there on the Web for anyone to see -- and potentially steal.

Boston University's Meurer also questions how effective Peer-to-Patent will be since he believes the real factor driving the increase in patent litigation is not a lack of prior art, but rather the vague, overly broad scope of too many patent claims today.

"Applicants come in and ask for the sun, moon and stars and they say: `Let the Patent Office tell me what is and isn't patentable,"' said John Doll, U.S. Commissioner for Patents. "It's a burden on the system."

Indeed, said Stanford Law School professor Mark Lemley, the challenge facing the Patent Office is to find a balance between awarding patents in order to encourage innovation without making it too easy to obtain a patent that can be used to abuse the system.

Noveck believes Peer-to-Patent will help strike that balance. The Patent Office reports that it has issued preliminary decisions on 40 of the 74 applications that have come through the program so far. Of those, six cited prior art submitted only through Peer-to-Patent, while another eight cited art found by both the examiner and peer reviewers.

The question now is whether the program can be scaled to review hundreds or even thousands of applications that extend far beyond the technology arena. So in its second year, Peer-to-Patent is being expanded to include claims covering electronic commerce and so-called "business methods," a controversial category of patents vital to the financial services sector.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., for one, is submitting a number of applications, including one for an equities trading platform used to raise capital without a public offering. John Squires, Goldman's chief intellectual property counsel, has high hopes for the program.

U.S. stocks plunged this morning as investors took stock of a weekend that saw the failure of one major Wall Street firm and the surprise take over of another, a shakeup whose repercussions were felt on markets throughout the world.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 320 points in early trading, a decline of about 2.8 percent, while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were hit by similar declines.

The sell off on Wall Street follows the weekend bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the takeover of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, and rising concern about the fate of AIG, a major insurer that was scrambling on Monday to raise fresh capital.

Global stocks also plunged on the news, and central bankers tried to calm the situation amid deepening uncertainty about the resilience of the global financial system and the strength of the world economy. In a sign of weakening demand, crude oil prices fell below $100 a barrel, to around $97, China's central bank announced it was cutting a key interest rate to uphold growth, and U.S. industrial production fell faster than expected in August.

Major European markets were all down by more than 4 percent at midday, with the Paris CAC 40 down 5.13 percent at one point. While major Asian exchanges were closed for a holiday, exchanges in India, Singapore, Taiwan and Australia fell anywhere from 2 percent to more than 5 percent.

Wall Street futures pointed to opening losses of about 360 points, or more than 3 percent.

In Europe and Asia, central bankers issued a barrage of similarly worded statements, saying that they stood ready to act to stabilize financial markets. According to Associated Press reports, both the Bank of England and the European Central Bank also pumped tens of billions of dollars into the monetary system. With credit tight and the implications of the Lehman bankruptcy uncertain, demand for cash among banks and financial institutions was running high.

"We have to be extraordinarily alert," ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said in Frankfurt, the Bloomberg news service reported. "It's an ongoing market correction," Trichet said, that will continue to experience "episodes of a high level of volatility."

The Swiss National Bank, AP reported, said it would provide cash to banks in "a generous and flexible manner."

The European Central Bank said it provided $42 billion to banks in short-term loans while the Bank of England injected about $7 billion.

The Reserve Bank of Australia moved to instill confidence in its markets by providing its banking system $2.1 billion in cash, an amount well above the estimated need. The central banks of Japan, Thailand and Sri Lanka also said they were closely monitoring the situation.

"They are showing they are willing to use every weapon at their disposal," said Henk Potts, an equity strategist at Barclays Wealth. He said that that there will be "increased pressure on the Bank of England to provide a boost to the economy and confidence by cutting interest rates" -- an analysis mirrored in the U.S. by predictions that the Federal Reserve may cut rates when it meets on Tuesday.

Potts said that the ripple effects of the Lehman bankruptcy and other events will be "an exacerbation of the credit crunch. One would expect banks to be even more risk adverse, making it harder and more expensive to borrow money. That will have negative implications for home owners, consumers, businesses, the whole economy."

Banking stocks took the hardest hit on the FTSE 100, with Barclays Plc, which withdrew from talks to buy Lehman Brothers yesterday, tumbled 19 percent.

Traders and analysts were debating today whether the failure of Lehman, the fourth largest U.S. investment bank, will mark the low point of the ongoing financial crisis. Lehman has weathered more than a century's worth of wars and financial shocks but sank under the weight of its investments in securities linked to U.S. home mortgages.

Potts said today's sell-off was "disappointing, but not disastrous . . . Ironically, it can be seen as a positive because authorities thought the financial system could cope with a demise as big as Lehman Brothers."

"The big question here is, have we seen all the bad news or are there other skeletons in the closet?" said Moh Siong Sim, an Asia regional economist with Citibank in Singapore. Sim said it seems clear "the market is still not convinced that the situation has stabilized."

South Korea's top financial regulator was convening an emergency meeting for tomorrow to continue monitoring the fallout.

Rhee Chang-yong, vice president of the Financial Services Commission, said that it appeared the direct impact of Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy on local firms in South Korea would be limited, but that there was worry about the broader impact on the financial system.

"There will be indirect impact from the Lehman debacle if its bankruptcy filing shakes the global financial markets," Rhee said, according to the Yonhap News Agency.

Asian reaction was tempered by the fact that the largest stock markets in the region --Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and China -- were closed Monday for the mid-Autumn holiday.

Cha reported from Shanghai. Staff writer Karla Adam contributed to this report from London.