Patent

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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 […]

TM is for trademarks

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 […]

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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.  […]

Courtroom

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 […]

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Your company is threatened with a lawsuit for patent infringement.  You are confident that your product does not infringe.  Should you fight or should you surrender? These are very real questions that businesses face every day.  According to a 2009 survey by the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the average cost for infringement litigation through […]

Designs for patents

Dear Doc: I have heard that there is something called “trade dress” that can be legally protected, and that it’s different from trade mark and also from design patent and copyright?  What gives? Signed, Sam Sung Dear Sam: Trade dress is pretty broadly defined as the visual impression created by the sum of all elements […]

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Do you want to find out whether your better mousetrap is patentable?  For inventors and patent attorneys, Google Patent Search is a cheap (as in free) and easy way to perform a light-weight screening search.  Since 2006, Google Patent Search has allowed use of familiar word searching skills to search a database of U.S. patents […]