Challenges To Enforceable Patents
There hasn’t been a reform to United States patent law as considerable as the American Invests Act (AIA) since 1952. One of the AIA’s most noteworthy components is the recent Inter Parte Review (IPR) procedure. The IPR procedure allows any enforceable patent to be challenged. Even more surprising is that patents issued before the implementation of the AIA can be challenged as well. On September 16, 2012, the brand new IPR procedure will replace the Inter Partes Reexamination procedure that’s currently in play. Similar to the Inter Partes Reexamination procedure, IPR will allow people to challenge a patent’s validity without...
Dangers of Innovative Trade Secrets & Design Concepts – Protection by Patent Attorney Howard M. Cohn
Are you protecting the innovative secrets that set you apart from the competition?
Ideas, industry trade secrets, and innovative design concepts are some of the most important factors that determine the future earnings of a company. They certainly are the elements that set a company apart from their competition. So it should come as a huge surprise that a recent survey found that two out of every three executives felt that they were failing to recognize or protect the soft assets of company ideas, secrets, intellectual property, and design concepts. Why are so many companies failing to protect themselves and solidify their...COPYRIGHTS AND SOCIAL MEDIA
An important fact to know is that if you post photographs or articles that you find on the internet on your website, Facebook or Linked-in page, you are violating copyright laws. To begin, let’s understand that a copyright is an original work of authorship that’s fixed in any tangible medium. So if someone takes a photograph or writes an article, it is automatically copyrighted, even if it has not been registered with the copyright office. If in fact the copyrighted material has been registered within two months of its publication or before you use it, the owner of the copyright is entitled...
Changes to Implement Micro Entity Status for Paying Patents
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), part of the United States Commerce Department, has published a Federal Register titled Changes to Implement Micro Entity Status for Paying Patent Fees. The goal of this register is to put into effect the micro entity provision that’s part of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA). According to the AIA, an applicant who’s considered a micro entity can qualify to pay patent fees that have been reduced by up to 75%. This discount applies to the patent fees for filing, searching, examining, issuing, appealing and maintaing a patent. The reduced fee makes...
Software and Intellectual Property
Despite the protestations of some, software is patentable in in the United States. There are some jurisdictions that do not allow for the patenting of software or computer implemented processes, but the law in the United States allows for software to be patented. Given the software patents are my business, one of the questions I typically receive from an inventor is: What software can be patented? How does one know that what they have is something that can be protected? The short answer is this: In my experience those who come to me before they start coding always have something that...
Trademark Litigation
Trademark protection and litigation is put in place in order to ensure that consumers don’t confuse the sources of their purchased goods. Trademarks are typically registered with a trademark office, which protects them under the law. In some cases, even unregistered trademarks are protected. Trademark infringement occurs when someone uses a trademark or a similar trademark without being given the rights to the trademark by the owner.
Requirements to Win a Trademark Case
The plaintiff must prove that they own the trademark and that the trademark is protected under the law. The plaintiff must prove that the defendant is utilizing the trademark in...Enforcing Your Trademark Rights
Prevent trademark infringement of your business name or product name. As the owner of a trademark, when you can stop others from using your trademark, or a confusingly similar one, depends on such factors as: Whether the trademark is being used on competing goods or services (goods or services compete if the sale of one is likely to affect the sale of the other) Whether consumers would likely be confused by the dual use of the trademark, and Whether the trademark is being used in the same part of the country or is being used on related goods (goods that will...
Attorney Tips to Get an International PCT Patent Application to Increase the Value of Your Invention
If you´ve got a great invention, the last thing you want is for someone to patent it first! Inventing and innovation is the first step to cornering the market in a given industry. The first person to patent an idea or invention wins. Every inventor is probably aware of the infamous patent war between Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Grey. Both men had an invention for transmitting speech: Bell beat Grey to the patent punch and as a result, the world knows just one telephone inventor. Today we live in a global market. Inventors have worldwide competition in the race to come...
