As an individual or small business inventor, do you feel really, really small? The good news: after March 16, 2013 you may qualify as a ‘micro entity’ and be entitled to patent fee discounts from the PTO of 75% off large entity rates. The bad news: large and small entity rates are going up at […]
There have been a spate of reporting about the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) recent decisions about the use of social media by employees. You may think that an employer should have absolute control over its employees’ right to talk about the employer or its customers on the Internet, but that is not the case. […]
If you use or develop online software or smartphone “apps” then you need to know about CalOPPA. No, that’s not some form of steam-driven musical device from an old-time carousel. It’s the California Online Privacy Protection Act, and it has very real consequences for any company that does business online. This month, the State of California […]
In late November, David Pogue of the New York Times wrote about a hoaxer who plastered Facebook sites with an unsolicited message that stated: In response to the new Facebook guidelines, I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, crafts, professional photos and videos, etc. (as […]
Consider this scenario: you have gone to all the time and expense to obtain a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. You have launched your product and your sales are good. Now a pirate is copying your product and stealing your sales. Are you entitled to a court order stopping infringement of your […]
If you want to protect a product by patent in Europe today, you generally will file an application in the European Patent Office (“EPO”). When your application is (eventually) reviewed and approved by the EPO, you then must register the approved application with each individual European country in which you desire a patent and must […]
The estate of William Faulkner is furious. In the past month it has filed two copyright infringement lawsuits, one against Sony Picture Classics and another against Northrop Grumman Corporation and the Washington Post Company. In the Sony case, the Faulkner Estate claims that Sony infringed Faulkner’s copyright in the famous phrase from Requiem for a […]
Dear Doc: I heard that some insanity has recently infected the Republican Study Committee, when it published a memo with the exciting title of “Three Myths About Copyright Law and Where To Start To Fix It”. What gives? Signed, M. Mouse Dear M: A young staffer at the RSC, Derek Khanna, wrote about our broken […]
David J. Kappos has announced that he will depart as the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office at the end of January. His replacement has not been announced. Kappos has led the PTO since 2009 and filled a leadership vacuum at the PTO dating from the last few years of the last administration. […]
We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. Remember that on or after March 17, 2013, you MUST protect your invention before offering the invention for sale or using the invention in public. Otherwise, you lose your U.S. patent rights instantly and forever. This is a major change in the law and requires an entirely […]
