Consider this: You’re a domestic pig, a Sus domesticus. You’ve spent your entire life in a spotless pen, cared for by nice people in white coats. They feed you, they clean your pen. It’s not a bad life. Sure, you’d be better off rooting around in the mud, but the pen is all you’ve ever known. […]
The U.S. Supreme Court has played hob with the U.S. patent system, ruling that many wonderful, new, non-obvious, useful inventions cannot be protected by patent. A few brave legislators* are proposing a bi-partisan fix for what the Supreme Court has broken. The Background The right to a patent is set out in Art. 1, section […]
Cast your mind back to your earliest memory. Mine is of little green bottles of Coca-Cola on the back seat of our Plymouth, out of gas, somewhere in southern Indiana. Now think about your grandfather’s earliest memory. I’m not sure what my grandfather’s first memory was, but Grover Cleveland was President and the Wright brothers […]
Your team created a new invention, say, for a vending machine that dispenses bullets.* The patent law requires that the name of each “inventor” be listed in the patent application and the inventors’ names are included on the issued patent. Being an inventor on a patent can be a huge feather in the cap of an employee. […]
The past few years have witnessed astonishing growth in commercial interest in the use of psychedelics for treatment of a variety of unmet medical needs, particularly mental health disorders. With that growth has come an increase in patent filings as companies seek to protect their investments. IP protection for psychedelics and psychedelic-related compounds shares many […]
In last month’s newsletter, we wrote about a proposal by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to transfer marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III. Under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), Schedule I substances are considered to have no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Possession and sale of cannabis is […]
Did You Feel It? The Earth Just Shifted Under Every Designer and Design Patent Owner. In March and April, we reminded you that there are two types of patents – utility and design. Utility patents address how the better mousetrap catches mice. Design patents address the ornamental appearance of the mousetrap. Our topic this month is again design patents. […]
Last month, we discussed issues in obtaining a design patent. This month, we look at issues in enforcing the design patent. Remember that utility patents and design patents are separate and distinct and protect different things. A design patent addresses the appearance of something; for example, the appearance of a mousetrap that looks like a piece […]
Designers Take Note – Designs can be too ‘Obvious’ for a Design Patent There are two types of patents* – utility patents and design patents. Utility patents address what something is and how it works. Design patents address how something looks. An example of a utility patent is a patent for a better mousetrap with a […]
A ‘design patent’ is a monopoly granted by the government to make, use and sell a product having a particular appearance. Design patents protect how a product looks, not what it does. A person who copies a product protected by a patent, including a product protected by a design patent, will be ordered to stop […]
