29Apr
Master Social Media: 3 Key Strategies for IP Lawyers
Establishing Yourself on Social Media
There is a place for lawyers and intellectual property experts on social media, which is why establishing a presence is so important. Not only establishing a presence, but establishing yourself as a helpful expert, or someone who keeps on top of things, can be invaluable. So, how do you go about turning yourself into a social media maven?Follow the Right People
After following friends, family and those you are interested in, start following people within your industry. This should be the process whether you are on Twitter, Facebook, Google + or any of your other preferred social...
26Apr
General Copyright: Top 3 Things You Should Know
General Copyright
The copyright process is one that sometimes confuses people, for all that it’s so simple. This is partly due to it being confused with other things, such as the patent process. It’s also due to simple misunderstandings of what can be copyrighted, and how. This overview gives a little bit of general information, though of course it cannot cover the topic in detail.Copyrighting Your Work
You write a blog post, a book, a musical piece—can you copyright them? Well, according to the law, they are copyrighted the moment you write them down. You can append the copyright symbol...
23Apr
First To File
The First Thing to Realize About First to File
It’s complicated. That’s not surprising as few laws are as simple as, perhaps, the writers intended them to be, and this is a good example of that truism. Still, in general, as of Mar 16, 2013, the United States changed from a “first to invent” country to a “first to file” country, and inventors seeking patents should know what that means. The problem is, the law is not well defined, nor has the United States Patent and Trade Office really caught up with the law itself. There are, warn patent attorneys and experts,...
20Apr
Trade Secrets
A Little About Trade Secrets
Trade secret laws affect almost every business that deals in innovation and creation. A trade secret, generally, is information related to your business or product that is basically confidential and not generally known. This can be something related to how you do business, if it's unique, new products and other matters where you have a reasonable expectation of confidentiality. This doesn't always work, plus there is the matter of trade secret protection being lost as soon as the secret becomes known. This factor sometimes has businesses wondering which is the best protection for their product or secret?...
15Apr
Navigating Software Patents: Key Steps to Protect Your Innovation
Can You Software Patents?
In the United States, at least, yes, you can. A few measures have to be met in order for the software to be qualified for patenting, but the protection under law is there. This brief overview is unlikely to cover much of what you will need to know, but it will give you a general idea. From here, it's a matter of doing more research or contacting someone with professional experience in this area to guide you through it. Your first step, of course, is to conduct a patent search to see if someone else got to your...
12Apr
Patent Search
An Inventor's First Task - A Patent Search
A professional patent search can be a little expensive, so many inventors opt to do their own. There are a few problems with this approach, however, which searchers should be aware of. The first of which being--even if your patent search brings up no similar or related patents, it doesn't mean they are not there. Additionally, if you conduct a search and find that there are other patents out there similar to yours, it doesn't mean that you should just give up right there. There may be ways you can modify your patent to...
09Apr
Inventor Help
When Should You Seek Patent Assistance for Your Invention?
Inventors are used to going it alone. It's not unusual to spend hours going over problems, studying issues and using trial and error to create something new. But when it comes to protecting your creation, it's a good idea to know just how far going it alone can take you--and when you should seek help.From the Beginning
In actuality, though it's entirely possible to create draft patent applications on your own, it often makes better sense to involve an expert from the beginning. One reason being, if you are going to continue in...
28Jan
PATENT SEARCHING
If you have an invention and are visiting this site, I assume that have already done a search on the internet and in your local stores to see if your idea is already around. Most likely, you’ve found similar products but none that are quite the same as yours. Many people that call me are in this exact situation. They often say, I had a great idea before but I didn’t do anything and now I’ve found it being sold all around. This time I want to protect my idea but I don’t know what to do next. After determining that your invention...
